Chapter Eight
“I’M GETTING MARRIED.”
“Married?” Ann-Sophie’s mother’s voice flickered in and out on the other end of the line.
Margarita Svensson was in Ethiopia, reporting on coffee beans that still grew wild in the mountain jungle and the farmers that harvested them.
Gorgeous location, thought-provoking discussions, but tenuous mobile service at best.
“Yes. Married.” Ann-Sophie emphasized the word.
“To whom?”
“The father of the baby.” It was a testament to her state of mind for the first seven months of this pregnancy that her mother needed to ask.
“I thought you hadn’t spoken with him because he was an—” The connection broke off, but her mother’s message was not lost.
“He was. But things feel different now.” This reasoning sounded weaker when she spoke it aloud, but it did feel different.
“Are you sure that you want to marry him?”
She stared down at the enormous diamond ring he’d slipped on her finger with a seriousness that she hadn’t expected. From my grandmother, he had said, his eyes guarded.
This was not a marriage built on love, she had reminded herself.
But still, the answer rang inside of her: She wanted to marry Alessandro.
She didn’t need it, but she wanted it. The problem was that she couldn’t stop hoping the marriage would be anchored in something more, no matter how many times Alessandro implied it would be about creating a family.
And having a lot of sex, if the past few days were any indication.
She was definitely not going to get into this with her mother, so instead she said, “I think this is the best choice for the baby. I want the baby to grow up around both of us.”
“You didn’t answer my question.” But then her mother gave a laugh. “You’ve always been such an independent child. Who am I to tell you how to live your life?”
The words warmed her. The last thing Ann-Sophie wanted was for her mother to feel like she had been a burden.
When her mother had taught her to differentiate between want and need, it had allowed Ann-Sophie to be the kind of child that left her mother free to have some of the kind of life she had before Ann-Sophie came along.
It was the least she could do for her mother.
“When is the wedding?”
“In a week,” she said. Then, in the silence, she quickly added, “It will just be a short ceremony. No party. Really, a small thing. You don’t need to come.”
There was another pause on the line, and then her mother said, “Okay. Well, please send me pictures.”
“I will,” she said. “I love you.”
“I love you more than you can imagine.” The words came through like patchwork, and Ann-Sophie clung to them after the line died.
She lay back on the bed she now shared with Alessandro, telling herself that her mother shouldn’t come all the way from Ethiopia just for a wedding that was for the baby, not a fairy tale about love.
Even if Alessandro did resemble a fairy-tale prince with an actual castle.
The next morning, they left for Rome.
As they drove to the airport, where Alessandro’s jet waited, Ann-Sophie thought about how much had changed since they had driven on this road for the first time weeks ago.
She was marrying this sexy, enigmatic man next to her, and they were going to an event of the kind she had only attended for work.
This time, she was a guest. Alessandro Carandini’s fiancée.
She would leave the other attendees with no doubt as to the reasons behind this surprise engagement, she thought wryly as she caressed her stomach.
It’s all for you, she whispered to her baby.
“Is your mother coming to the wedding?” asked Alessandro, as the family’s jet skirted the coast of Italy, the jagged shoreline on one side, the glittering sea on the other.
Ann-Sophie shook her head. “She has so much going on.”
Alessandro frowned but said nothing.
She raised an eyebrow. “Why? Are your parents coming?”
He gave a humorless laugh. “My mother is cruel, and my father’s image is more important than anything else. They are the last people we want at our wedding.”
“I see,” she said, though she wasn’t sure she did.
The flight to Rome was short, and when they landed, they were whisked away in a black limousine and delivered to the Hotel de la Ville in the center of town. The lobby was a cool relief from the hot Roman sun, and its black-and-white marble floors shone in the light of the chandeliers.
“It’s wonderful to see you again, Signore Carandini,” said the woman checking them in, then she glanced at Ann-Sophie. “I have you in the Roma suite, as usual.”
As usual. Ann-Sophie tried not to think about the other guests that had visited him in this suite over the years.
Alessandro had talked about his past with women in such an impersonal way that she hadn’t thought much of it.
At the villa, they had their own world, the one they could make their own.
But they were far from the secluded life of the villa.
Here, Alessandro had a name for himself, a tabloid reputation that she was stepping into.
She wasn’t sure how she was going to deal with that.
They rode the elevator to the top floor, and an intricately carved red door waited for them at the end of the hallway.
They entered into a living room with sofas, a writing desk and abstract art in muted colors.
French doors led out to a balcony that overlooked the tall, elegant city buildings, partly obscured by cypress trees.
On the coffee table was a tray of drink options and another filled with meats, cheeses, olives, apricots and different spreads for the small loaf of bread.
“I called ahead to make sure you and the baby don’t go hungry, as supper will be served late at this event.”
She grabbed a handful of spiced almonds. “First, I need to find a dress.”
She had tried on her only maternity dress that came close to being suitable and found that she had already outgrown it. In the last three weeks.
“I took the liberty of ordering a selection of dresses, shoes and intimate wear.” His eyes flared with desire at these last words, and he gestured to the doorway into the bedroom. “If you don’t find anything you like, we can send out for a new selection.”
Ann-Sophie blinked in surprise. She knew personal shopping services existed, and that people like Alessandro lived the kind of life where things were delivered at their convenience, but she still couldn’t quite get used to the fact that she was living that life.
A life where questions of need versus want were irrelevant because she could have both.
Alessandro would give her whatever she wanted.
Except the thing you want the most from him, said a voice deep inside her.
“Thank you,” she said and entered the bedroom. The suite was located on the corner of the building, and light poured into the long tall windows that looked out at the ancient buildings that surrounded them. The shadows of leaves filtered the light in ripples across the white bedspread.
Ann-Sophie crossed the elegant room and opened up the armoire.
Inside, it was filled with silky dresses, all floor-length but in different colors with different necklines, and at the bottom were stacks of shoeboxes.
She ran her fingers over the selection, touching the soft materials.
Of course, nothing so gauche as a price tag was in sight.
It was all so unreal. She stared at the rainbow of colors and finally picked a light blue dress made of soft silk, the color of her eyes.
She slipped off her cotton sundress, one that had miraculously turned up in her wardrobe shortly after arrival, and let the soft silk slip over her body.
It fit perfectly. The low V emphasized the extra fullness in her breasts, and the gathered material spilled over her baby bump and hung in shimmering waves.
She turned to search for a mirror and found Alessandro standing in the doorway.
He was leaning in the threshold, his crisp white shirt rolled at the sleeves and his hands in his pockets.
His eyes were heavy with desire. She flushed with awareness as a slow smile curved on his lips.
“That one. Definitely.”
She walked into the large bathroom suite and stood in front of the full-length mirror. It was so flashy and it definitely highlighted her belly. For the first time since her body had started its accelerated expansion, she felt…beautiful.
“I love it,” she said.
Alessandro came up behind her, and his hands skimmed over her arms as he stared at her image in the mirror.
“We’ll need to find more places to wear this, cara,” he said and brushed a kiss on her neck.
She laughed. “Let’s see how this evening goes before we make plans for future appearances.”
He met her gaze in the mirror, and his smile turned darker. “You will be by my side in this gown. There’s nothing else that I want out of this evening.”
The words sent a rush of that dangerous, giddy hope she had felt too often this week.
When he said things like this, she couldn’t stop herself from hoping this could be about more than just the baby and physical attraction.
Maybe they could find their way to the kind of more she shouldn’t think about.
Because the real version of fairy tales with castles and princes didn’t have happy endings, she reminded herself. They were much more complicated.
The afternoon was a flurry of hairstylists and makeup artists and lounging on the long, surprisingly comfortable sofa, as Alessandro answered calls and plied her with food from the generous trays.
And by the time they sat in the limo on their way to the gala, Ann-Sophie was starting to think maybe she could get used to this life.
Even if it did not seem attached to any sort of reality she had known.