She wiggled her feet, which were feeling better, then swung her legs around to the floor without fully taking into account the awkwardness and level of effort it took to stand up at this point in her pregnancy. It was embarrassing, really. At work and in public, she took care to sit on chairs that were higher so as never to get stuck. She had expected herself to be one of those pregnancy women who trained for marathons, not the type to get stuck on her sofa like a pill bug. Still, one of the many benefits of living alone was that, in her apartment, she didn’t have to give much thought to it. If she ended up rolling around a bit to make it to standing, no one was here to judge. But the effort of getting up from a sofa that sunk as low and comfortably as hers was decidedly ungraceful. And now that she had begun, it was too late to do anything but forge ahead.
Her face flushed as she rocked forward and leaned heavily on the arm of the couch to get up, but before she made it any farther, Alessandro was on his feet, next to her, helping her up with a gentleness that sent a strange tightness through her chest. A part of her wanted to simply give in to him. She was tired of being strong, tired of putting on a smile and telling everyone that she was fine. She wanted this baby badly, but she hadn’t expected pregnancy to be quite this tough. Now, she was close to Alessandro, close enough that she couldn’t ignore how much she had missed the scent of him. Or the way her breath caught in her throat when his hand came to her cheek. She turned, and his eyes were hooded with unmistakable desire.
“Please do consider all the advantages of my offer,” he said, and his husky voice sent a shiver of need through her.
Ann-Sophie drew in an unsteady breath and forced herself to look away from his deep brown eyes. “I’m going to make supper.”
He let her go, but instead of taking this as a dismissal, Alessandro followed her through the hallway. Her body felt so alive right now. Alessandro’s sudden appearance and promise to whisk her away into a life of luxury was a rush of relief and hope that made her feel vulnerable. After the way he’d left her so abruptly, he was the last person she wanted to see her this way.
She turned into her kitchen, with the table in the breakfast nook on one side and the little balcony that looked out onto the courtyard of her building. She headed for the refrigerator.
“Are you hungry?” she asked. “I haven’t been home in a week, so I don’t have much to choose from. I was thinking broccoli soup and sandwiches.”
“You should be eating—”
Ann-Sophie braced herself for oncoming pearls of wisdom on pregnant women—from the man who was likely the least knowledgeable on this topic in the continent. But he stopped, mid-sentence, and she felt a shift in tension in the room. She turned and found Alessandro looking at the built-in shelves next to the table. Actually,glaringwas a more accurate description, and she immediately saw what had caught his eye. Her blood-pressure monitor, lying on top of the sheet she used to record the results.
Ann-Sophie crossed the room to snatch the paper away before he could get a closer look at it.
“Is there a problem with your blood pressure?” His tone was even, but she could hear a hint of warning in it.
“Right now?” She tilted her head, as if she had to consider his question. “Yes, in fact. The direction of this conversation is likely shooting up my blood pressure. Thank you for your concern.”
She wasn’t sure what she expected his response to be. Perhaps an argument or maybe blame, much the way she blamed herself. But he said nothing. He simply stared at her, looking genuinely stunned. Finally, he gestured to the table. “Sit down. I will make supper. Please.”
The wordpleaserippled through her with a rush of relief in its wake. She tried to muster up a little bit of frustration that he was taking over, but she was tired. The early meeting, the apparently less-than-subtle wander to Alessandro’s offices in Milan, the flight, Dr. Azzizi’s news and the thought of early maternity leave—it was all just…a lot. She closed her eyes, trying to gather her feelings. Even if she had no interest in marrying a man who had so easily ditched her before, he could make her supper. Especially since the other methods of relaxation he could provide were not a good idea.
So she settled at the table as he watched her, arms crossed, his expression inscrutable. “What are you hungry for?”
She chose to ignore the sexual undertones her exhausted mind was gravitating toward and focused on his actual question. She was always hungry these days, a fickle kind of hunger that demanded everything from bacon-flavored chocolate, to pickles, to wasabi peas. And cinnamon rolls, of course. None of those things could be classified as supper.
“It doesn’t matter. Whatever you can make from the ingredients in my bare cupboards,” she said.
Alessandro waved off her comment and pulled out his phone, and his side of the conversation suggested the person on the other end of the line was waiting for him nearby. He ordered a list of ingredients that made her mouth water, and she felt more of the tension of the day fall away. It was just a meal, she reminded herself. She hadn’t agreed to anything. Definitely not marriage, a demand she still hadn’t completely processed.
Why on earth was he interested in getting married? The last thing she wanted to hear about was some antiquated notion of bloodlines. There had been something almost raw in his voice that suggested his real reasons lay closer to the heart. If this man had a heart. After his cold dismissal of her in Nice, she wasn’t so sure.
He ended the call and then turned to her. “While we wait, is there anything else you need to tell me? Twins, perhaps?”
“There is only one baby,” she said, “though at this point I look like I’m carrying at least two.”
“What is the gender?”
“I’m not going to find out,” she said, hoping that he could hear that this was not negotiable.
“We will do a paternity test, of course,” he continued in a tone that implied that she should be taking notes or doing something to make sure she carried out his wishes to his liking.
“Will we?” She raised her eyebrows. “No one is backing you into this situation. You can walk away at any point.”
He opened his mouth as if to reply, then closed it. Frowned.
Ann-Sophie sighed. “There are no other candidates, Alessandro.”
“And I should take you at your word?” He gestured to her belly. “You kept this from me for seven months.”
She closed her eyes and sighed. “I’m sorry you found out this way. I was going to tell you before the baby came, but I couldn’t figure out how.”
He raised his eyebrows doubtfully.
