Chapter Three
Allegra
present day
“Shit. Shit. Shit.” One look at my phone, which was going off like crazy, and I knew I didn’t have time to go back home and use this. . . this thing I’d just bought.
Ugh, this thing! It was vile. It was poisonous. It held my future in its hands. Okay, so dramatics aside, it was a pregnancy test. But it might as well have been a great white circling me in the ocean because I wasn’t taking my eyes off the thing.
I tossed the bag in the car along with my purse and slammed the door shut. All the while I couldn’t seem to start the car. My eyes were fixated on the bag. I told you I wasn’t taking my eyes off it.
I couldn’t stand referring to it as a pregnancy test, so for now, it was just it.
It did not belong in my car.
No, it belonged in some other woman’s car.
I shouldn’t have needed it .
And yet, I knew I did.
I was late.
And not just for brunch at my oldest sister Maria’s house. The plan was to have brunch with my sisters, and I was definitely going to be late for that. But I was also late—late. As in, I’d skipped my period.
Don’t even go there, I already knew.
My heart was going to beat out of my chest. I just knew it.
I parted my lips and exhaled slowly, trying to calm my nerves.
This was bad.
But maybe it wouldn’t be. Maybe, just maybe, it’d be fine. Women were late all the time and that didn’t necessarily mean they were pregnant. It wasn’t like boom ! Late period = pregnant = lifelong commitment.
I’d been under a lot of stress lately—work-related, of course. See, I worked at Bellissima —my family’s world-renowned fashion magazine—under my father, Angelo Morelli, and with my sisters, Maria and Perla. My other sister, Bianca, had also worked there but was now living out her dream of designing wedding dresses. The publication had been born from my late mother Regina Morelli’s beautiful mind, and she’d been the editor-in-chief until her last dying breath a little over a year ago. She and my dad had made it what it was today—influential.
I was the social media manager and social event coordinator. Currently, I was in the very early stages of planning a big Bellissima event (an anniversary party for the magazine). So there was a chance that was all this was, right? Stress from planning an event that would make a splash. Bellissima didn’t put together an event that didn’t make a splash. Yep, I was chalking this up to stress. Totally plausible.
Right?
Right!
Unless it wasn’t. I could very well be pregnant.
And then it’d all be Brady’s fault. Naturally.
Brady and his gorgeous, rock-hard body. Why did I have to find a male roommate again? Oh, right, because I was an idiot. I mean, I’d always liked to believe I was moderately intelligent, but clearly, I wasn’t. Who in their right mind thought they could live under the same roof as someone that good-looking? Forget heat in the winter, guys, he was scorching hot, so all you needed to do was sit next to him.
Anyway, the point here. . . I was blaming the man. It was so much easier that way.
Finally blinking, I shook my head, trying to clear the negative thoughts.
Nope, it didn’t work. I looked out the corner of my eye at the bag and could’ve sworn it was staring at me. It probably got its shits and giggles out of this. Silly Allegra Morelli thought she could have sex—that should have been illegal, it was that good—and get away scot-free. Ha!
“Positive thoughts, girl,” I reminded myself. If I put positive thoughts out into the universe, then that would be what I’d get back.
I inched my finger closer to the ignition button on my car and used every bit of strength I had in me to press it.
What was I going to do? I wasn’t cut out to be a mom. Okay, that was total bull because I’d be a great mom! But to be a parent with Brady? That I wasn’t so sure about. All the signs were there that we’d never be a good match. How could we co-parent a child?
I remembered the deep breathing techniques that I swore by and inhaled and exhaled a few times. Then my phone went off again, and all that was for nothing.
My sisters—again.
“I’ll just pee on the damn stick at Maria’s,” I decided, announcing to no one but myself in the car.
I backed out of the spot and started the drive to my sister’s house.
Where I’d pee on the stick.
Where the results would come back, and I’d be surrounded by my three amazing, supportive sisters.
Who I couldn’t breathe a word to about any of this.
I mean, they didn’t know about my one-night stand with Brady.
They didn’t know that I could be pregnant.
And even if I wasn’t pregnant, I didn’t think I was ready for them to learn about my close call.
Not yet.
No, I needed time.
So I’d pee on the stick and shut my mouth. I’d eat brunch and go back to my apartment—that I shared with him . The sperm shooting master. Suddenly, I had this vision that Brady was a basketball player, and instead of shooting the ball, he excelled at shooting his little swimmers.
It was almost comical. Brady was definitely not a basketball player. Just a sex god.
But this was so not the time for those thoughts.
New idea! “I am not pregnant. I am not pregnant. I am not pregnant,” I chanted.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, and I was sitting in the bathroom, waiting for the last fifteen seconds. Then I’d know. I’d have my answer.
So excuse me, but I kind of didn’t care that I was late and missing part of brunch. I had to hightail it straight to Maria’s bathroom and force out a pee. I just had to.
Thankfully, the bottle of water I had this morning was ready to be expelled.
So now I sat on the top of the toilet seat, waiting, watching the time creep by. It was like a ticking time bomb.
Ten.
I was not pregnant.
Nine.
I was not pregnant.
Eight.
I was not pregnant.
Seven.
I was going to kill Brady.
Six.
How could this happen?
Five.
He wore a frigging condom.
Four.
It’s okay. It’s okay. Because I was not pregnant.
Three.
I was not pregnant.
Two.
Not pregnant.
One.
Ohmigod, what if I was?
I stood up and didn’t want to touch it for fear I’d do something to alter the results, so I wrapped my hands behind my back as I bent down to get a good look at it on the countertop.
Vision blurring, I blinked rapidly. It was the nerves. I was getting all worked up for nothing. Remember, I was not pregnant.
Waiting for my vision to clear, I took a deep breath and looked heavenward. “Mom,” I said, praying she was watching over me and that she could hear me, “please let it be that I’m not pregnant.”
I looked down, the chant still on repeat in my head— I’m not pregnant. I’m not pregnant. I’m not pregnant.
I was pregnant.
Great, so my chant was all for nothing.
There it was as clear as day.
How could it be?
I studied it again.
Yep, I was definitely pregnant.
Fumbling, I reached for the box and pulled out the instructions. Pee on stick, wait, and the results—two options.
I grabbed the stick, wielding it in my hand like it was a sword, and I was a knight. I opened my eyes wide and compared the results to the paper.
Still pregnant.
I groaned. “Thanks for nothing, Mom.” I took the box and shoved it into the wastebasket. Right on top of it went the stick. The gloating, giving-nothing-but-bad-news stick.
I washed my hands and opened the door to find my sisters in the kitchen, sitting around Maria’s island, talking, laughing, eating brunch.
I looked around at each one of them in turn. Perla, the youngest of us all, entered into a marriage of convenience with her now-real husband, Frankie Agro, and she wasn’t pregnant. Bianca, the second youngest, was dating Knox Rhodes, and they were well on their way to a proposal, I was sure of it, but she wasn’t pregnant. And then there was Maria. She had her five-year-old daughter—our Peanut—Isabella. She also had Dom, but let’s be honest, I really didn’t know what else to say there, so. . . bottom line. . . Maria also wasn’t pregnant. And when she had been, the circumstances had been very different.
So that just left me. I cursed myself for having gone to that pub and giving into my attraction to Brady. He should’ve denied me. He should’ve demanded I left his office at once. Then again, he’d wanted to be inside me just as badly as I’d wanted him there. I’d seen how badly he’d wanted it.
Game face on, I found a seat and took a bagel. I opened the chive onion cream cheese and scooped a large helping into my dish, hoping the savory food would bring me all the comfort I needed.
“You okay?” Maria asked, reading me like a book.
“Great, thanks. So what’d I miss?” I asked and let my sisters bring me up to speed.
* * *
Brunch was almost over, so I could go home where I’d have to analyze my thoughts.
And I was almost to the door.
But then Perla came flying out of Maria’s bathroom, her auburn hair swinging behind her, my pregnancy test in hand.
It was like the damn stick was still mocking me. You thought you could throw me in the trash, and that’d be it. No way. Stupid pregnancy test.
“Eeee!” Perla screamed. She rushed over to Maria who was still cleaning up from brunch at her insistence she do it herself. Maria hated taking help from others, it was one of her fatal flaws. In this case, I wasn’t arguing, though, because I wanted to get out of here as fast as possible.
Maria turned to her and furrowed her brows. “What?” she asked.
Perla was still going on, jumping and shouting like only the baby sister would—always excited. “Maria, you’re pregnant! I cannot believe you didn’t tell us you’re pregnant!”
Maria. She thinks Maria’s pregnant. My entire body went stiff, and I feared my feet might have actually been glued to the ground. I was completely frozen.
I should say something. I went to open my mouth, but nothing. Not even a croak. It was like I was rendered speechless.
All right, let’s try that again. I opened my mouth, but clamped it shut when the kitchen door opened and in walked Dom.
Then Bianca came in from the other room. I honestly feared what she’d say when she heard. But it was Dom’s reaction that had my stomach clenching. “You’re pregnant?” he asked Maria, his expression melancholy, his eyes on Perla’s hand and the aforementioned stick.
Perla snickered, looking downright giddy about the whole prospect. Easy for her, she isn’t the one who’s pregnant. “Is that why there were no drinks today?” she asked, her eyes still aglow.
“Is it Pedro’s?” Dom demanded, referring to Maria’s latest beau, owner of Pedro’s Pizzeria, and Dad’s biggest nightmare second to Knox—well, not anymore, because now he actually accepted (read: tolerated) Knox, but that was a whole other story.
Tossing the last of the trash in the garbage, Maria finally wiped her hands together and looked up. She eyed each of us sisters—Bianca, Perla, and then me. I swallowed hard, wondering if she knew since I’d been the most recent guest in her bathroom.
Now’s the time, mouth, do your thing and speak. Saying anything, anything at all right about now would have been good. But I still couldn’t. My lips were glued shut and all I could do was take everything in.
The word “pregnant” kept spinning through my head. It was being used far too many times already for my liking.
Maria shook her head as if trying to make sense of everything. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m not pregnant.” Then she looked at Dom who took the stick from Perla’s hand.
“Are you sure?” he asked, sounding only slightly less upset.
Narrowing her gaze, Maria stared at him. “Dom Deluca, did you just ask me that? I’m not pregnant, all right? What is it with you?”
Dom looked down at the stick again in his hand. The way he looked at it, you’d think it was a snake about to bite him. “I think it says you are.”
“It’s not mine.”
“Then whose is it?” Perla asked.
“Better question, why are you rummaging through my garbage?” Maria asked Perla, then plucked the stick from Dom’s hand before tossing it back in the can.
All right, too many hands on the thing I peed on.
“And what are you doing here?” she asked Dom next.
Dom stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I’m here to fix the side window. You said it was sticking.”
“I don’t understand,” Perla remarked, looking around the room.
I watched Bianca closely, wondering what she was thinking because she hadn’t said a single word—definitely not like her. It was as if Perla noticed it, too, and her silence gave Perla enough of a reason to ask, “Is it yours, Bibi?”
Biting her bottom lip, Bianca’s eyes grew wide and it looked like she nearly choked on her saliva. “That’s not mine. No, no, no. It’s far too soon for Knox and I to be having a baby.” As if needing to drive the point home, she assured us, “I’m not having a baby. Knox and I are very careful. Maybe it’s Allie’s.”
Damn it. So close. But, of course, they’d turn to me. I was the only one left. Not that it should’ve made sense to them. I was single. Hell, it barely made sense to me. I’d had sex one time in like eight months and got pregnant. It was ridiculous. Ludicrous, really, if you asked me. Close your legs, that should’ve been my new motto. Too bad I lived with a man who made me want to open them wide whenever he was around. You know, just so he knew he was invited. Geez, just listen to me, I should’ve just rolled out a welcome mat, or better yet, a neon flashing sign that read, I’m ready if you are .
Four sets of eyes were on me. Staring at me. Watching. Waiting. Maria nodded her head ever so slightly, but enough that I caught it. So she knew. It figured she would have guessed correctly.
“Allie?” Perla finally asked, walking over to where I stood.
I had two options—turn and run out the front door or face the music. I went with the latter. “Fine!” I said, throwing my hands up in the air. “It’s mine. I’m pregnant—apparently,” I said, swallowing hard around the word. That was going to take a while to get used to saying aloud.
Wrapping me in a hug, Perla cried, “Allegra,” using my full name for the first time in forever. Supposedly, the situation warranted it.
Bianca and Maria didn’t move an inch. They also didn’t say anything.
Neither did Dom, for that matter.
“Tell us how this happened,” Perla insisted as she finally backed up, but stayed by my side. “It’s so exciting!”
Is it? I sighed and dropped my purse on Maria’s couch. It seemed I wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. “Well, I suppose it happened because I had sex.”
“Smartass,” Bianca said and rolled her eyes.
Maria picked up Perla’s line of questioning and asked, “Whose is it?”
That was definitely a softball question. “Brady’s,” I answered without even a moment’s hesitation.
“Brady’s?” Bianca echoed, her voice hitting a new octave.
Perla took my hands in hers, holding them. “Does he know?”
Yeah, girl, I called him after I took the test, and he was so ecstatic he proposed on the spot. We’re getting married next month. I’m thinking of hiring a wedding planner. “No.” I shook my head. All the while my mind started to spin all over again as the corners of Bianca’s mouth turned up in her signature I-knew-it expression.
And then, there it was, right from Bianca’s mouth—“I knew it! Knox and I knew it.” Told you. “You two are so hot for each other. When you got in the car and came to Minnesota with us, we knew it.”
Ah, the impromptu road trip I’d taken (read: crashed) with Bianca and Knox, just to get away from Brady and his raw sexual magnetism. Too bad it hadn’t worked. When we’d returned home, nothing had changed. So I’d gone to his pub one night, and well, you knew the rest.
Before I could address Bianca’s statement or answer any more questions, Dom cleared his throat. “Well, I should be going.”
Same, Dom.
“Maria, I’ll come back for the window.”
“And?” Maria asked, a hand on her hip, her eyes narrowing at Dom as though waiting for something.
“Congrats, Allie,” he said and waved at me. “Really exciting. Don’t worry, either. I won’t say anything to Brady.”
I nodded. Okay, so remember how I’d chosen option number two—to face the music—well, let’s just say this: Worst. Mistake. Of. My. Life.
Correction: second worst mistake of my life.
“And?” Maria questioned again, her expression more serious.
Dom swallowed. “Sorry.”
“Mmhmm,” she acknowledged as he slipped out the way he came in.
And I knew the real interrogation was about to begin, but I needed a break. I couldn’t take any more questions. I was still processing myself. I took a deep fortifying breath and looked at my sisters. “I know you all have questions, but I need a little time. So can we do this later, please?”
They all stared back at me, each having a look that took on a mix of sad and confused, like they didn’t get it. Which made sense. Because they didn’t. No one could. So yeah, they were sad and confused, but you know what, so was I. And I needed to put myself first for a minute.
“Please?” I pleaded when no one answered, hoping they’d give me this one.
One by one they nodded, and I ended up back at option one—turning and running out of Maria’s house.
* * *
“Dom! Dom!” I called. “Wait up!”
He had his window down, so I knew he heard me as he was about to back out of the driveway.
He smiled and angled his head. “What’s up?”
“Can I get in?” I asked. I’d thought I wanted to be alone, but it turned out I didn’t. I just didn’t want to be in Maria’s house any longer, answering a million and one questions.
He unlocked the doors and reached across the seat to push the door open for me. “Of course.”
I slid in without a word and sat back, my head coming to rest on the black leather seat with red piping. He didn’t make a move, though, didn’t dare shift the car into reverse. Just sat there with me, the car in park, waiting. Until finally, I asked, “Where were you going?”
He shrugged. “Nowhere in particular. Where do you need me to go?”
That wasn’t exactly helpful, but it also didn’t matter. I had no destination in mind myself. I just needed to get away. “Okay, let’s go nowhere. Let’s just get out of here.” I clicked my buckle into place and put my purse on the floor.
He slipped his aviators on and smiled as he started the car. “You got it.”
It was amazing to me how Dom always understood. He always knew just the right things to say and do. It must’ve been all the years he’d spent around my family. “I always wanted a big brother like you,” I confessed.
He smiled. “Not all family is blood, Allie,” he reminded me and brought his finger to hover over the button for the radio. “Music?”
I shook my head. “No, thanks. Windows down, though?” I inquired, and he opened my window and the back two windows without question. I needed the noise. The sounds of the spinning tires, the wind, anything I could fixate on that would distract me, that would cloud my thoughts. I put my hair up in a ponytail and rested my head back again, closing my eyes as he maneuvered around the community roads.
Dom drove in relative silence for a while, at some point getting on the Long Island Expressway without me having to ask. We still had no destination in mind, not as far as I knew, but it was exactly what I needed—a long, straight run.
The drive was doing me good. As good as it could anyway.
Not far from Queens where the highway would end, and we’d have to exit and decide what we were doing, I finally looked at him. “I don’t know what to do.” It had been all I could think about and I still had no answers. All I knew was that I was definitely in shock.
Me, pregnant. With a baby. It was hard to imagine.
Dom’s gaze never left the road, but he closed the back windows and answered me in a loud voice, saying, “I think you know what to do. You need to see a doctor and get confirmation. Those tests are not always accurate.”
“So you’re saying you think there’s a chance I might not be pregnant?” I all but shouted, grabbing hold of that tiny sliver of hope with everything I had in me. But, at the same time, a part of my heart broke at the prospect. What was wrong with me?
He laughed. “I’m saying that you need to be sure. You also need to talk to Brady. Should we turn around, or do you want to stay in the city?” he asked, pointing to the exit.
“Ugh,” I groaned. “Let’s turn around.” I ran a hand through my hair and looked out the window, as though I’d find my answers out there. Was I really pregnant? What would Brady think? How would he take the news? What would this mean for us? For me?
I closed my window because the noise was now giving me a headache. Dom followed suit and turned the air conditioning on. Meanwhile, I was busy chewing on the inside of my cheek until I couldn’t hold back the tears any longer.
“Hey,” Dom tried to console me. I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to face him completely. He brought his hand back to the wheel as he exited to only turn around and get back on the expressway to take us home. “It’s going to be okay.”
I frantically wiped my cheeks, though it was no use because my eyes were like a leaky faucet, and the tears wouldn’t stop coming. I looked up and blinked rapidly, sucking in the rest of them. It was no use crying. “You’re right. Whatever is, is, and technically, I brought this on myself, right? Silly me thought having a one-night stand with Brady would be a good idea.”
“Good idea?”
I sighed. “Yeah, to cure me of my ridiculous attraction to the man.” It didn’t cure me, by the way. If anything, it made it worse because I unwrapped the present and knew what was inside but could never play with it again. Talk about a tease.
“The fact that you’re roommates probably doesn’t help things.”
“Exactly! And now what am I supposed to do? Do I say Brady, funny story, I’m pregnant and the baby is yours. Only it’s not funny, and I’m hyperventilating just thinking about it ?”
“Maybe not those exact words.”
“Oooh, I have an idea! I read somewhere once that a woman left the pregnancy test in the man’s jacket pocket with a note saying he would be a dad. That could work, right? That way I don’t actually have to say anything. We can bypass the whole awkward our-one-night-stand-made-a-baby-and-now-we’re-bound-for-life talk.”
“Probably best if you don’t do that,” Dom said, laughing, the deep sound reverberating in the car. “Just tell him. It’s not going to be as bad as you think. I don’t know Brady all that well, but he doesn’t seem like a bad guy. He seems like he’d want to do the right thing by you and this baby. If you’re pregnant.”
I turned to him fully, pulling the seat belt away from my neck as I did. “You know, I like the way you think, Dom. If I’m pregnant, there’s no telling that we’ll be stuck together.” A smile formed on my lips the more I thought about it. Who was to say that Brady was going to stick around? A lot of men didn’t, right? “There’s a chance he won’t want to be a father.”
“Not exactly what I was saying.”
“No, no, it’s good. I don’t think Brady’s my soulmate.” I shook my head. “I can feel he’s not my soulmate.” I always figured if I met my soulmate, I’d just know, and I didn’t have that feeling with Brady. I mean, he was hot, don’t get me wrong, but a guy like him didn’t end up with a girl like me. I knew he’d never met anyone like me. I was too different for someone like him. Sure, he’d slept with me, but that was not the same thing as settling down with me, having a child, and building a life with me. “It’s okay. If I’m pregnant, I might just be a single mom. That’s cool, right? Better than being with someone I’m not meant to be with.”
Translation: better than being with someone who’s only going to break my heart. How was I so sure of that? It’d happened before. I wasn’t like other women, and sure, I was like a shiny new toy at first. But, after a while, men grew tired of me and how different I was. I couldn’t change who I was. Scratch that. I wouldn’t change who I was. And, bottom line, in the long run, men didn’t like that. They’d dropped me quicker than a hot potato. That was how I could be so sure we weren’t meant to be, weren’t soulmates.
I supposed I’d come to terms with the reality that I could never make a man like Brady happy. Not forever, anyway.
“Didn’t you two sleep together?” Dom asked.
What did that matter? Since when was it a requirement to be soulmates with the person you had sex with? If that were the case, half of the population would be in a dry spell because, hello, soulmates weren’t hidden at the bottom of cereal boxes. He turned to look at me for a split second, and I gave him a so-what expression. “Sex doesn’t mean he’s my destiny. If anyone were to understand that, I’d think it’d be you.”
He cocked a brow. “Just give him a chance, that’s all I’m saying. Have your facts, talk to the guy, and go from there. Baby steps.”
Baby steps? I groaned. Dom had to say the B-word. “Dom,” I warned.
He chuckled. “Sorry, small steps.”
Better. I nodded and looked out the window again. “Can you take me back to my apartment? I’ll get my car from Maria’s another time.”