Chapter 13
VALENTINA
For the next month after the gala, things go well. I get calls and emails from guests asking to book me. My schedule fills completely for the next year, which is insanely gratifying. Still, something is off.
For a while, I convince myself I’m just stressed.
It’s not much of a stretch. Stress is the most reliable thing in my life these days.
It’s there when I wake up, there when I go to bed, sitting heavy in my chest like something I swallowed wrong and can’t cough back up.
It’s in every strange car lingering too long at a light.
Every bouquet that arrives without a card.
Every unknown number that spikes my pulse before I can stop it.
I keep reminding myself that Adrian is in New York.
He’s in New York. He’s not here. He can’t be here. He’s just doing what he always did best, which is finding ways to make me feel watched, and then gaslighting me about it. He wouldn’t shut down his operations just to fly to LA and stalk me.
It’s just lingering PTSD. My therapist would have a field day if she knew. She’d ask whether I’m grounding myself. Whether I’m distinguishing between fear and evidence. Whether I’m taking care of my body while my mind is in overdrive.
The answer to all of those questions is no. I’m barely taking care of anything but work.
Which is why, when I start feeling sick, I blame stress.
For a week straight, I wake up nauseous, carrying this weird heaviness in my stomach that comes and goes.
Some days the very idea of food makes me want to die, and other days I can’t focus until I order the exact right sandwich from my favorite deli down the street.
I throw up once after brushing my teeth too fast and stand over the sink afterward convincing myself it’s anxiety.
Anxiety has done worse to my body before.
By the end of that week, though, I’m exhausted in a way that scares me. I know how exhausting it is to run events. This is different. I’m not just overworked, my whole body feels disconnected from me.
One afternoon I nearly fall asleep during a floral consult. Lila catches me staring at the same spreadsheet so long she asks if I’m having a stroke.
“I’m fine,” I tell her automatically.
She narrows her eyes. “You’re lying.”
“I’m just tired,” I deflect.
“You look pale.”
“I was born pale,” I shoot back.
She snorts and goes back to her desk.
I’m sleeping badly. I check my locks twice every night, to the point that it becomes a ritual. I take different routes home just to be safe. I tell myself I’m being paranoid, even though I know that flower and note didn’t appear out of thin air.
The next week passes, and I feel about the same. I’m standing in my bathroom one morning trying not to gag while putting on mascara when the date on my phone catches my eye. I go still.
In all the stress and paranoia, I haven’t been paying attention to the important details. Like the fact that my period is late. Very late. Like over a month late.
Stress can do this, of course. Being terrorized from three thousand miles away would wreak havoc on anyone’s nervous system. I’m working too hard, sleeping too little, and all of that could explain why my period is late.
Then a flash of memory streaks through me without warning. A hot night in a hotel room. One night to get him out of my system. One night without protection.
I sit down hard on the closed toilet lid. This cannot be happening. I stare at the bathroom tile until my vision blurs, then do the only sensible thing I can think of. I call Gia.
She answers on the second ring.
“If this is about flowers again, I’m going to commit a felony.”
I laugh once, and it comes out thin and wrong enough that she goes silent immediately.
“Val?”
“I need you.”
That’s all it takes.
Her voice changes at once, warm and alert and serious. “Where are you?”
“At home.”
“I’m coming.”
“No,” I say too fast. “Don’t come here. Just meet me outside in ten minutes.”
“Okay,” she says. “I’m leaving now.”
I’m dressed and downstairs before she arrives, pacing in front of my building like a lunatic. Gia pulls up in her SUV wearing oversized sunglasses, looking like a starlet on a covert mission. She takes one look at my face when I climb in and pouts.
“Who do I need to kill?” she demands.
“No one.” I let out a hollow laugh. “I just need you to take me to a pharmacy. And stay with me while I take a pregnancy test.”
Her reaction is almost comical. Her jaw drops, and I can see her eyes go wide behind her sunglasses.
“Fuck,” she hisses. Then she sucks in a breath before having her own meltdown.
“Okay, this is not the end of the world. Babies are cute. They cry a lot and smell pretty awful, but they’re cute, right?
Holy shit, who’s the father? You never go out.
You’re basically Mother Teresa. Except—oh God. No. Shit.”
“How are you freaking out more than I am?” I almost laugh.
“It’s Sebastian’s, isn’t it?” she answers quietly.
“If there is an ‘it’ at all, it’s definitely his,” I confirm. “He’s the only person I’ve been with in…”
I trail off because doing the math is depressing. We end up at a pharmacy a few neighborhoods over. There’s no real reason for that, it’s not like I know a lot of people in my neighborhood. I just feel the familiar paranoia of being watched and want to go somewhere outside my routine.
Inside, the fluorescent lights are offensively bright. I wish I had my own pair of oversized sunglasses and maybe a scarf over my face. It’s like I’m onstage with a spotlight tracking me around the store.
I stand in front of the tests for so long that Gia finally puts three different boxes in the basket herself.
“I don’t think there’s that much of a difference.” She shrugs. “Pregnant is pregnant, right?”
“Would you keep your voice down?” I hiss.
She glances around, gestures at the empty aisle. “I think the cashier’s going to figure it out when he rings us up,” she says in a mock whisper. “Why do women need to feel shame about buying pregnancy tests?”
“This wasn’t exactly part of the plan, was it?” I point out, a knot forming in my stomach.
“He doesn’t know that,” she volleys. “Just put your tests on the counter, pay, and walk away. You’re never going to see him again.”
I take a fortifying breath and nod. She’s right. This isn’t the hard part. The hard part comes an hour later when we’re standing in Gia’s bathroom, staring at one of the sticks and willing it to give us a sign. Preferably a negative.
Then the little plus sign comes into focus. For one second, I genuinely think I must be reading it wrong. That the line means something else. That there’s some kind of user error, some technical glitch, some reason the universe is not actually this cruel.
I grab the second box out of the bag with shaking hands.
“Give me a minute,” I tell her, ignoring her sympathetic expression. “This one could be defective.”
She and I both know I’m full of shit, but she gives me the space to take the second test. Then the third, just for good measure. Three minutes later, I’m staring at three positive results.
I must be in shock. I don’t remember opening the bathroom door, but one minute I’m standing over the sink feeling like the world is ending, and the next I’m in the living room wrapped in Gia’s arms.
“Oh, sweetie,” she says softly. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to get through this.”
That does it. I start crying so hard my whole body shakes. She guides me to the couch, throws a blanket over me, and pulls me into a tight embrace. She rubs my back and whispers soothing words, and for the first time in a long time, I feel the sharp grief of being motherless.
My child is never going to know its grandparents, and I don’t have my mom here to tell me everything is going to be okay and walk me through this next chapter.
“I can’t do this,” I choke out.
“Yes, you can.”
“No.” I shake my head hard enough to make myself dizzy. “No, Gia, you don’t understand. I can’t. I can’t be pregnant. I can’t.”
She waits until I can breathe again before she says, very carefully, “You are the strongest person I’ve ever met, Valentina Moretti. Whether you decide to keep this baby or not, I know that you’re going to make it through this.”
I close my eyes. “I just want my mom,” I say in a weak voice.
She squeezes me tighter but doesn’t try to make my mother’s absence better.
I’ve barely talked about my parents’ death with her, just the fact that they’re not here anymore.
They’ll never get to meet their grandchild.
After I left Adrian, I promised myself I wouldn’t bring kids into this world, and here I am, pregnant and single.
This was so, so stupid. What the hell was I thinking?
I press my hands over my face and groan. “I was just trying to get him out of my system.”
Gia, to her great credit, does not laugh.
Instead she says, “That was a deeply flawed strategy, but not our biggest issue right now.”
I let out a watery, miserable sound that might technically count as a laugh. “I can’t even think straight.”
“It’s okay,” she soothes. “You have time to figure this all out.”
“I don’t.” My voice cracks again. “I really, really don’t.”
There’s too much going on in my life right now.
My business is finally taking off in a way I’ve only ever dreamed possible.
I have a stalker dogging my every step, and to top it all off, I’m still trying to force myself to believe that my one night with Sebastian really was just one night. It’s a lot.
Gia disappears for a minute and comes back with water, pressing the glass into my hand until I drink.
“Okay,” she says, sitting beside me again. “We’re going to breathe. Then we’re going to talk like adults.”
I nod and take another sip of water. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“Should we try for big decisions or small ones?”
“I don’t know,” I groan. “Let’s tackle a big one, I guess.”
She nods and takes a deep breath, like she’s hesitant to say what’s on her mind. “I think you need to tell Sebastian.”
I shoot her a murderous glare, but she doesn’t shrink. She lifts her chin, defiant, in a way that says she’s not dropping this.
“Seriously,” she says, narrowing her eyes. “You two were really cute together on that dance floor. I know you were trying to keep a professional distance, but the gala is over. Why are you really avoiding him?”
Where do I even start? It’s such a complicated question, even though it shouldn’t be.
“He’s my brother’s best friend,” I remind her. “It would get messy.”
“Can’t get much messier than an unplanned pregnancy,” she points out. “Just think about it. Might be nice to open up to someone for once.”
Ouch.
“Okay.” I sigh. “You’re right. I need to tell him.”
“Good.” She grins. “Now let’s talk nursery patterns.”
I roll my eyes and take another sip of my water.