Chapter 19 Giuliana
GIULIANA
The coffee tastes wrong this morning.
I stare down at my cup, frowning at the liquid that usually brings me such comfort. It’s the same blend Ramirez makes every day, the same way I take it with just a splash of cream and no sugar, but today it tastes bitter, almost metallic. Like my taste buds have suddenly betrayed me.
“Everything okay?” Luca asks from across the breakfast table, his dark eyes tracking my expression with that careful attention I’ve come to recognize. He notices everything about me now—every mood shift, every hesitation, every moment of discomfort.
“Fine,” I say automatically, setting down the cup and reaching instead for water. “The coffee just tastes off today.”
He frowns, looking down at his own mug. “I’ll have Ramirez check if the beans have gone bad.”
I stare at the cup again, moving it around. “That might be a good idea.” It’s not like Ramirez to not check the beans. The man is fastidious about his coffee. The one time I asked him for an iced coffee, he clutched his chest like I was giving him a heart attack.
Luca accepts it with a nod before returning to his tablet and the morning reports Danny sent over.
I watch him for a moment—the way his jaw tightens when he reads something that displeases him, the slight furrow between his brows when he’s concentrating—and try to ignore the way my stomach is churning.
I pull out my new phone, intending to review my schedule for the day.
I need to check on the animals in the sunroom and maybe call the supplier about new surgical equipment Luca approved.
I tap my finger against the table in thought.
Maybe I should research some of those specialized training programs he promised—
My calendar app is open, showing this month’s dates. And that’s when I see it.
The little red dot that usually appears like clockwork every twenty-eight days. Except it should have appeared almost two weeks ago.
My hand freezes on my phone. My mouth goes dry.
No. No, that can’t be right. I must have miscounted. I’ve gotten confused with all the chaos of the wedding and adjusting to married life.
But even as I frantically scroll back through my calendar, checking and rechecking dates, the math doesn’t lie.
I’m late. Very late.
The realization feels like a punch to my gut, stealing the air from my lungs.
The coffee cup in front of me suddenly makes perfect sense—the metallic taste, the nausea that’s been plaguing me for the past few mornings that I attributed to stress or rich food or literally anything except the obvious.
Oh god.
“Gigi?” Luca’s voice seems to come from very far away. “You look pale. Are you sure you’re alright?”
“I’m fine,” I hear myself say, my voice unnaturally bright. “Just—” I grapple with anything to say to him to not make him suspicious. “I need to check on something in the sunroom. One of the rabbits has been acting strange.”
It’s a weak excuse and one that normally Luca would see right through, but he’s already distracted by whatever Danny’s report says. He waves me off absently, and I practically flee from the breakfast room, my heart hammering so hard I can feel it in my throat.
This can’t be happening. This absolutely cannot be happening.
Except it might be. It probably is, given the late period and the nausea and the sudden aversion to coffee that I’ve never experienced before in my life.
I’m maybe pregnant.
The thought spirals through my mind as I make my way through the estate, not really seeing where I’m going. Pregnant. With Luca’s child. After everything that’s happened, after all the complicated mess of our circumstances—
I end up in my old suite, the one I haven’t used since the wedding. It feels strange being here now, like visiting a museum exhibit of my former life. The bed is still made with hospital corners, the surfaces dust-free thanks to the maids’ diligent cleaning, but it feels abandoned. Empty.
I sink onto the edge of the bed and try to breathe through the panic threatening to overwhelm me.
A baby.
I press my hand to my still-flat stomach, trying to process the reality of what this means.
There could be a life growing inside me right now.
Luca’s child. A tiny person who would be half me, half him—half veterinarian who saves wounded animals, half crime lord who destroys his enemies without mercy.
The duality makes me want to laugh and cry simultaneously.
I never thought children would be in my future.
Not after Mom died and Dad fell apart and I spent years just trying to survive and prove I could take care of myself when everyone I loved kept self-destructing.
Kids felt like a luxury for people with normal lives—people who weren’t carrying the weight of an addict father and a dead mother.
And then Luca happened. And suddenly my future became even more uncertain, more complicated, impossible to plan for because I didn’t know if I’d even have a future beyond serving his revenge plot.
Except now. Now things are different. Aren’t they?
The past two weeks of marriage flash through my mind in a cascade of moments that feel simultaneously real and surreal.
Luca holding me in the morning before we’re fully awake, his arms tight around my waist like he’s afraid I’ll disappear.
The way he looks at me across the dinner table when we’re having a conversation, like I’m the most fascinating person he’s ever encountered.
His touches are loving now and when he grabs me, it’s usually to pull me close, not to hurt.
He’s made me promises. The clinic he’s going to help me build, the additional schooling he’s committed to financing. He’s planning our future with my input.
Is it real? Is any of it real, or have I convinced myself my captor actually cares?
No, not my captor. My husband.
But then I remember last night. The way he held me after we made love, his face buried against my neck, his voice rough when he whispered, “I don’t deserve you, Gigi. I don’t deserve any of this.”
That didn’t sound like a performance. That sounded like a man in love. Which is a good thing because…
I’ve fallen for him. Completely, irrevocably, stupidly, but I’ve fallen in love with Luca Marchetti.
The man who tore apart my life and forced me into marriage has somehow become the man I look for when I wake up, the one whose approval makes me warm with pleasure, whose touch I crave even when logic says I shouldn’t.
I’m in love with him.
But instead of scaring the shit out of me, it feels like the most honest thing I’ve acknowledged since I came here.
And now there might be a baby. His baby. Our baby.
The possessive thought makes my breath catch.
I need to know for sure. I need to confirm this before I let myself spiral further into what-ifs and maybes.
But where the hell do I get a pregnancy test when I can’t even leave the estate without Luca knowing? I tap my foot anxiously against the floor, thinking.
I bolt upright a moment later. A conversation plays through my mind that I’d half-listened to while passing through the service wing last week.
Two young maids, probably in their early twenties, talking in hushed voices about keeping “supplies” in their shared bathroom.
One of them had laughed and said something about not wanting to make pharmacy trips when you work for someone like Luca Marchetti, how the staff had pooled resources for emergency contraception and pregnancy tests so no one had to risk the awkward questions.
At the time, I’d felt a pang of sympathy for them—these young women working in a crime lord’s household, navigating all the complicated risks that came with that. But now—
Now their foresight feels like providence.
I check my phone. It’s barely past nine, which means Luca will be in meetings until at least noon. The staff is busy with morning routines—Ramirez in the kitchen supervising lunch prep, the groundskeepers outside, most of the maids, including Linnea, cleaning the upper floors.
If I’m going to do this, now is the time.
My heart pounds as I make my way to the service wing, trying to look casual, like I have every right to be here. Which I do, technically. I’m Mrs. Marchetti now, this entire estate is supposedly my home.
But it doesn’t feel like it. Not this section where I’m still the boss’s wife rather than just Gigi.
The shared bathroom is empty when I slip inside, thank god. It’s small but clean, utilitarian in a way the main house isn’t. I lock the door behind me and start searching, trying not to disturb things too much.
Behind the cleaning supplies under the sink, I find it. A small cardboard box, the kind that comes in multipacks from drugstores. There are three tests left inside.
I stare at the box, my hands shaking. This is theft. I’m stealing from the household staff who probably can’t afford to replace this easily.
But I need to know. I need to know before I see Luca again and have to look him in the eye and pretend everything is normal when everything might actually be imploding.
I take one test, carefully rearranging the box so the missing item isn’t immediately obvious. I’ll replace it. I’ll change things for the staff so they don’t have to worry about buying their own supplies. But first, I need to do this for myself.
I slip the test into my pocket and make my way back through the estate, my heart hammering with every step.
What if someone saw me? What if they ask questions? What if word gets back to Luca before I’m ready—
But I return to my old suite without incident and lock the door. I stand in the bathroom with the test in my trembling hands and realize I have no idea what I’m hoping for.
Do I want it to be positive? Do I want there to be physical proof that Luca and I have created something new?
Or do I want it to be negative? To have more time, more space to figure out what we are to each other before bringing an innocent life into this complicated mess?