Page 39 of Ruthless Claim

The restaurant is quiet when I arrive at the corner table I reserved.

I order a coffee and I sit with my bag in my lap.

Touching my scarf to make sure it’s in the right spot, I take a deep breath.

Emma won’t notice.

She’s way too pregnant and tired and I’m going to ask her about the nursery the moment she sits down and she won’t notice a thing.

I am a Santoro.

I am composed.

I am going to get through this brunch without Emma knowing what happened.

I see her come in.

Unlike other women I know, pregnancy agrees with Emma.

She’s in a pale blue dress that hits just below the knee, her dark auburn hair half held back in a clip.

Those striking green eyes—they are genuinely her most extraordinary feature, dark-lashed and vivid in a way that photographs can’t quite capture—are scanning the room.

The moment she finds me her face breaks into a warm, open smile that makes my brother completely useless around her.

She makes—waddles—her way over and lowers herself into the chair across from me with a small exhale.

She tucks her bag under the table and picks up her menu. “Sorry I’m a bit late. I couldn’t find my shoes and by the time I found a pair, I realized they didn’t fit and⁠—”

She looks up at me and her eyebrows furrow, her words trailing off.

“Hi,” I say brightly, smiling at her. “How are you? How’s the baby? How was your week? I’ve been reading about⁠—”

Emma clearly isn’t listening to any of this.

She’s looking at me curiously, those green eyes narrowed.

A bead of sweat slides down my back as her head tilts a fraction to the right the way it does when she’s working something out.

“Valentina,” she says slowly

“—third trimester insomnia and I found this article about,” I continue on.

“Valentina.”

“Emma, what can I get you? They have the eggs benedict you liked last time, and I think they have a⁠—”

“Why are you wearing a scarf?” she interrupts. “It’s sixty-two degrees.”

“It’s a style choice,” I tell her earnestly. “I’ve been exploring accessories. It’s very French.”

Emma looks at the scarf.

Then she looks at my face.

Then she looks at the scarf again, specifically at one point near the top of it, and her eyes go wide.

Then she starts laughing.