Chapter Twelve #2
Stella took her time. She waited until the trembling subsided and that dreadful light-headed feeling too. The nausea was familiar because she’d had a touch of morning sickness now and then but the faintness was new.
A bitter laugh escaped as she viewed her hollow-eyed reflection in the mirror. She looked as if a strong breeze might knock her off her feet. It wasn’t the image she wanted to project.
But she’d been here long enough. She refused to hide. She didn’t have anything to feel guilty about.
Even so, it took all her resolve to stand tall and meet Gio’s eyes when she stepped into the hall. Once she might have been taken in by his look of concern. Now she didn’t trust herself to believe what she thought she saw.
‘Come, I’ll help you to your room. The doctor’s on her way.’
‘I don’t need a doctor.’
His mouth set in an implacable line. ‘You looked like you were going to faint and I heard you retching.’
Stella folded her arms. ‘Being accused of dishonesty and corporate sabotage doesn’t agree with me.’
Swiftly she turned away then halted as the room whirled around her.
‘Don’t be obstinate.’ His voice came from just behind her, his breath feathering her neck. ‘Think of the baby. Isn’t that more important than arguing with me?’
She blinked, the backs of her eyes hot and her throat constricting.
He was right. She couldn’t bear it if anything happened to her precious child. Even knowing its father was all she despised, she loved it with her whole heart.
She heaved a shuddering breath and finally nodded. ‘Okay. I’ll see the doctor. Alone.’
To Gio’s credit he didn’t argue. Even when she refused to let him carry her upstairs—she didn’t think she could stomach his touch—he acquiesced.
But it might have been easier to let him carry her.
At least it would have been over quickly.
For it was a slow process, climbing the stairs.
Her legs felt weak and it didn’t help that he hovered at her side, his arm around her, not touching but so close she felt his warmth and the inevitable spark of awareness.
By the time they reached her room she felt done in, stress catching up with her. She didn’t even bother protesting when he accompanied her across the room, pouring a glass of water from the carafe on the bedside table.
‘You can go now.’
She thought he’d object. Instead, he said, ‘Call if you need anything.’
Absurdly, as Stella watched him go, she had the crazy desire to call him back. She resisted it and closed her eyes. She needed to recruit her strength.
‘Morning sickness, exacerbated by lack of sleep and stress.’
The doctor’s piercing look as she pronounced her verdict was vivid in Gio’s mind even now, well after her departure. Her disapproval had been obvious in her clipped tone. She’d made it clear she was sharing that information only because her patient permitted it.
It was a reminder that Stella was her own woman and that without a paternity test he had no legal rights over their child.
Damn it, it wasn’t about legal rights. Not yet. For now he just wanted to know Stella and their child were safe.
Their child.
He finished another lap and grabbed the end of the pool, heart hammering. Not from exertion, despite his attempt to work off his emotions in the pool. His heart was racing at the knowledge he’d been right. Stella was pregnant, with his child.
He scrubbed his hand over his wet face. He’d been sure before but the doctor’s confirmation of morning sickness had made it real.
All being well, he was going to be a father.
He’d have a family.
Jumbled feelings sideswiped him. For years he’d prided himself on managing his feelings, keeping them restrained. He couldn’t any more. Hadn’t been able to from the moment he learned Stella planned to marry another man.
Now her pregnancy turned his world on its head.
Gio had avoided the idea of creating a family, unwilling to become hostage again to the marrow-deep pain of loss.
But now it wasn’t a matter of choice. The decision was made for him.
The news opened the rusty gates of the past he tried not to revisit, taking him to a long-lost childhood.
His sister’s teasing and her smiles as she played with her little brother. His mother’s hugs, her lullabies and the taste of her cooking. Nothing in the world tasted as good as that. And his father, not the dour, haunted man he’d become, but a vital and happy man, always with time to play.
That was what Gio wanted for his child. A warm, safe world full of love and unshadowed by grief and distress.
But could he, who’d turned his back utterly on emotional connections, provide that? Did he even want to try?
Yet if he didn’t, another man would take his place with Stella and his child.
Gio’s palm slapped wet tiles. The idea was untenable.
Were his early childhood memories enough to show him how to be the father he wanted to be? Or did he share his father’s fatal weakness? The inability to pick himself up when the world fell apart? A selfish obsession with his own loss?
After the disaster that killed half his family, his father had ignored Gio, giving himself over to unending bereavement. His world had shrunk to grief and the need to avenge his wife and dead child, as if his living son didn’t matter.
Gio hadn’t been enough for him.
What if Gio carried that same flaw? Would it be better for his child if he wasn’t in its life? Everything told him Stella would be a tigress when it came to protecting her baby. She wouldn’t need him.
But distancing himself meant leaving Stella free to be with someone else. A stranger would become his child’s father.
An inner voice howled in protest.
He wasn’t sure he trusted himself to be a father but he couldn’t relinquish that role to a stranger.
Tension tore at him as he levered himself out of the pool and grabbed his towel, drying his hair and body.
It wasn’t just a baby. There was Stella too.
His belly contracted at the thought of the woman resting upstairs. Even knowing who she was, he’d fallen for her charm. He’d convinced himself she was an innocent, until she’d run away, proving she had something to hide.
Yet instinct kept urging him to trust her. When he’d seen her so ill this morning, all thought of her machinations and her family had fled, replaced by concern and protectiveness.
A sound from the terrace made him turn. There she was, poised in the doorway as if conjured by his thoughts.
His heart gave a mighty thump. Her colour was better, courtesy of her rest or the red dress? She looked sexy and sophisticated.
He wanted her in his arms.
That made him pause.
As did the fact she carried his baby. For a moment he’d been too busy drinking in the sight of Stella to remember the child.
His gaze narrowed on the fit of her dress but from this angle he could see no baby bump.
Dropping the towel, he sauntered over, feeling a surge of satisfaction at the way her gaze clung to his body. She claimed to despise him but she was no more immune than he was to her.
‘Are you feeling better? Would you like lunch?’
‘A lot better, thank you,’ she said to his collarbone. ‘But I don’t need food, not yet.’ Her dark eyes suddenly snared his and fire filled his veins. ‘I need to clarify something.’
Was she going to make an admission of guilt? Crazily, he preferred the idea he’d got it wrong about her.
Because you’re enamoured with the sweet woman who ensnared you, despite everything you knew.
How he could hold two such opposing thoughts, he didn’t know. But the way she made him feel had been remarkable, right from the start.
‘Come and take a seat.’
He led her to the chairs clustered near the pool, with a view across the gardens and lake to the mountains beyond.
She sat and made a production of smoothing her dress. Was that a tiny bump below her waist? His pulse sped.
He looked up to catch her taking a survey of her own. Her gaze traced his bare torso, lingering in a way that stoked inner heat, then she looked away abruptly.
Gio wanted to haul her close. But this time he’d let his mind do the thinking, not his libido. They had to talk. For the baby’s sake if not their own. ‘You were going to clarify something.’
‘I’ve thought over what you said.’ Her gaze caught his. ‘After I had a chance to process my outrage, I realised I need to explain some things.’
‘Go on.’
‘I still find it unbelievable you’d think me a spy. And I’d never sleep with someone to learn commercial secrets.’ Her eyes flashed pure scorn. ‘But I realise there were some seemingly suspicious circumstances.’
‘I’m listening.’
Stella smoothed her hands down her dress and Gio’s mouth dried as he imagined his palms stroking down her thighs. He swallowed and yanked his attention to her face.
‘First up, yes, I knew it was your hotel in Rome. That’s why I chose it.
’ She lifted her palm as if to silence an interruption.
‘It was the last place anyone would look for me. We all know my father hates the Valenti family so it would never occur to one of us in normal circumstance to stay in a hotel of yours.’
She moistened her lips with her tongue. ‘My father and I had a disagreement. He wanted me to do something and I…was agitated. I needed time away to consider my options. If I’d stayed at home my family would all pile on, trying to persuade me.’
Gio’s pulse quickened. Whatever Barbieri had suggested had really unsettled Stella. It was there in her body language and taut features.
‘So I decided to take a holiday, my first break in years. I thought I’d go to Rome, play the tourist, and think.’
Gio stared. That would explain her insistence on leaving Rome immediately after seeing her brother near the hotel. He’d thought at the time she was scared. Were her brothers bullies like her father?
Anger stirred at the thought of the three men pushing Stella around, into something she didn’t want to do.
But he was getting ahead of himself. What she said was plausible but there was more. ‘You lied about your name.’