Chapter 12
GIOVANNI
I’m not a patient man, and today, my patience is stretched so thin it will snap at the slightest provocation. The head doctor’s office is suffocating. It’s too clean and lifeless not to deliver bad news with a fake smile and legally binding paperwork you signed without reading it.
I’m only here because someone couldn’t follow a simple instruction. I told them to cancel Valeria’s appointment, yet here I am, wasting time I could use teaching Valentina that I never back down when challenged.
I have a lead—finally. Valentina’s license was for a US address, but there was a card tucked in the bottom of her purse for a local pub. From what I gathered from the owner when I visited to ensure both he and his patrons know Valentina is off-limits for anyone, her shift begins in an hour.
I’m so close to winning this game of chase that I can taste it. I merely have to conquer this last obstacle first.
Dr. Di Petro’s droning monotone brings my attention back to the present. He hasn’t shut up for nearly half an hour. It’s mostly gobbledygook medical jargon that means nothing to me.
I hurry him along by tapping my foot and glancing arrogantly at my watch. Nothing works, so I glare at him, silently announcing he has five minutes to get to the point or I’ll bring my gun to the party.
I have stalking to do. That doesn’t wait for anyone.
The good doctor would already be dead if he weren’t a close friend of my father’s. That’s how infuriated I become when someone doesn’t follow my direct order. I won’t just take down the fool responsible for the mishap. Anyone associated with him will also endure the brunt of my wrath.
“Stop wasting my time and state your business. I don’t have all day.
” I lean forward and glare at the doctor sternly enough for the tremor of his hands to be visible from across his desk.
“We won’t know if the embryo transfer was successful for another five to ten days, so why the fuck did you call us in early?
If it’s to apologize again for not heeding my request to cancel the procedure, it’s too late. The harm has already been done.”
Valeria, seated beside me, scoffs as if disgusted. The doctor doesn’t pay her any attention. His focus is solely on me. “Signor Caruso, there was a mix-up on the day of the procedure.”
“And?”
His face pales. “The sperm you donated months ago, to be placed into Valeria’s eggs… there was a mistake. They were placed into someone else.”
I don’t understand what he’s saying. I’m not stupid. His confession is just tainted with too many murky undertones to be comprehensible.
Then, slowly, the meaning of his words sinks in.
My child—the blood and legacy of my family—is out there in someone else. Not Valeria as per our contract and the woman my family expects. Someone else.
The mind swirls as my vision narrows. “You’re telling me”—my voice is dangerously calm but loud—“that a Caruso could be born outside the family? That my child, the fucking heir to my fortune, is in the stomach of a stranger?”
The doctor nods as his eyes widen with fear. “We’re so sorry, Signor Caruso. It was an administrative error. We’re doing everything we can to rectify—”
“Rectify?” I cut him off, my temperature rising. “How do you rectify something like this? This isn’t a missed appointment or a lost file. This is my family. My fucking blood. This is the Caruso name. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
Valeria scoots to the edge of her chair, her face ashen. She’s crying and clearly devastated. “I can’t believe this. You promised—”
I barely hear the remainder of her words as fury and disbelief rage war inside me.
The Caruso legacy is everything. It’s what my father built and my brothers and I have fought to protect.
It’s the reason for every sacrifice I’ve made over the past thirty-four years.
And now, because of some idiot’s mistake, it could all unravel.
I clench my fists while fighting the urge to put one through the wall. My jaw aches from how ruefully I grind my teeth. “Who?” I demand. “Who has my child?”
“Our child,” Valeria corrects. “They used my eggs too, Giovanni. This is as much my child as it is yours.”
The doctor shakes his head. “We can’t disclose that information. Patient confidentiality—”
My laugh is harsh and bitter. “Patient confidentiality? You think I care about your rules? You’ve made a mistake that could change the course of my family’s history, and you’re hiding behind paperwork? A signature won’t protect you from what you’ve done!”
Instantly, I regret leaving my gun with my driver. Valeria knows I am a hothead, and when my short temper is combined with the frustration of my direct order being ignored, I become a raging lunatic.
The doctor would be dead at my feet if she hadn’t convinced me to go into this meeting with an open mind.
I understand her objective. She still wants to go through with our agreement. She even pledged to turn a blind eye to any “indiscretions” I might have throughout our marriage.
I told her I was no longer interested. That if this round of IVF was successful, both she and the baby would be taken care of for the rest of their lives, and our child would inherit his or her share of a billion-dollar fortune. But if it failed, our contract would be voided.
Now I don’t know which way is up.
Valeria is sobbing now, and her hands cover her face.
A pang of guilt strikes my chest, but it’s hardly felt by the flames of my anger licking my insides.
I’m itching to tear this place apart and to make someone pay, but I can’t until I have answers.
If there is a Caruso descendant in the making, I deserve full disclosure on the person bringing him or her into the world.
Valeria’s composure breaks as she confronts the head doctor. “I’ll sue you for this.” Her eyes blaze with unbridled fury. “You ruined everything! I’ll make sure everyone in the clinic never works again!”
Foolishly, the doctor stands his ground with the protocol I’ll abolish the instant I burn this hellhole to the ground. “You signed a waiver, Ms. Raimondo. You knew the risks and agreed to them.”
Raimondo? Valeria’s surname is Giuffrida.
With Valeria’s anger boiling over, she shoves away the paperwork he flapped in her face, her expression contorted with despair.
“It’s her, isn’t it? The one with the similar name.
” Her eyes dart wildly over the paperwork scattered across his desk.
“I joked that they might get us mixed up. I didn’t think it would actually happen. ”
“Who are you talking about? What woman?”
Dr. Di Petro’s lips twitch, but before he can speak, Valeria strikes him hard across the face.
Her slap is firm enough that I must intervene.
I seize her wrist to prevent further harm, mindful that the man she’s attacking is our only source of information.
More than a hand mark will mar his face once I’m done with him, but I need him coherent enough to speak at the beginning of our exchange.
“She has my baby, doesn’t she?” Valeria shouts as I carry her toward the exit, tears streaming down her face. “That reject is carrying my child, isn’t she? Tell me the truth!”
When I throw open the door to deposit Valeria into the waiting room so I can conduct “business” man-to-man, I unearth the reason the hairs on my nape are standing to attention.
Torturing men for information doesn’t give me any satisfaction.
I do it as a means to survive. This woman, however, makes me doubt all that I know.
Valentina is standing in the hallway. Her eyes are wide, and her face is pale.
For a second, I’m too stunned to speak. What is she doing here at this hour?
My appointment this evening shows that this clinic operates outside business hours to conceal their mistakes from new and potential patients.
They wouldn’t let a random person stalk their halls at this hour.
When I see the glimmers on Valentina’s cheeks, fury surges through my chest. She’s been crying. Tears blotch her cheeks, and her posture is rigid, as if her confidence was sideswiped by a truck.
“What happened? Did someone hurt you?”
My anger hardly diminishes when she shakes her head. Her dismissal is weak, and she is aware of that fact as much as I am.
“Then what happened? Why are you crying?”
Her wet eyes shifting between the doctor and the paperwork Valeria dumped on his desk swirls something inside me. It isn’t the carnage and brutality I’m accustomed to. It’s hope.
What the fuck?
Gradually, the situation becomes clear. The timing of our reunion, her confession that she had a procedure done that would keep her safe from pregnancy for a month, and the name the doctor used when trying to calm down Valeria. It all makes sense.
I stare at Valentina as my thoughts race away on me.
Could it be?
Is it possible?
Valeria’s distraught accusation answers my unvoiced questions. “It’s her.” The rattle of her sob reminds me that she’s still in my arms. “She’s the woman carrying our child.”
I stumble backward, shocked. My child, a direct descendant of the Caruso legacy, is growing inside the woman I am obsessed with.
I couldn’t have planned this better if I had tried.