Chapter Ten
“OLIVIA. I NEED you at once. I simply cannot handle all this baggage alone…”
“I apologize, Signora—”
Before Olivia’s voice had reached the end of the last word, the other woman’s voice began again.
“Travel has been a complete nightmare. The storms ruined the last three days in Seychelles, and then, the pilot had the nerve to tell us that he would not fly in the weather. Can you imagine? So I asked him what we were paying him for. Why were we paying the salary of a pilot who won’t fly?
I demanded the very moment that the airport would allow that we would leave.
Which happened to be late at night. As you can imagine, sleeping on the plane, no matter how comfortable they say the beds are on planes, they just never lit live up to expectations. And then…”
The words were now muffled in the distance, leaving only hints of that distinctive voice.
Ann-Sophie rubbed her eyes and tried to get her thoughts in order.
She opened her mouth to ask Alessandro what was going on, but when she turned to him, his expression had gone blank.
The only hint of emotion was an ominous tightness in his jaw.
His mother. It had to be her. Just her voice had taken every ounce of softness, every hint of raw vulnerability that she had seen in him the night before, and turned it all to stone. She lifted her hand to his face, but he flinched and moved away.
“My parents have arrived, only a day late for the wedding.” His voice was hard. “I should introduce you.”
He managed to make this sound like a threat.
Ann-Sophie told herself that this was painful for him, but the past night he had opened himself to her.
They could get through this. So she got dressed and brushed her hair.
When they started down the staircase, the hand he offered her felt like the one he had offered on the walk home from the doctor’s clinic, out of duty rather than care. Ever the gentleman, she thought darkly.
They walked through the endless halls, following that voice and its endless string of commentary and complaints.
Ann-Sophie felt as if they were walking to their execution.
The thought was a bit dramatic, but when she glanced at Alessandro and squeezed his hand, searching for their connection, he didn’t look at her.
Instead, he released her hand and continued into the dining room, where Olivia and Cinzia were bringing platters of food to the table.
“Good morning,” said Olivia, giving Alessandro what looked like a worried glance. But Alessandro didn’t seem to notice. He was looking at his parents.
His mother was, in the most objective sense, lovely, a combination of nature and money that made the most of her features.
She wore a cream silk blouse and matching wool trousers that accentuated her fashionably thin figure, and her hair was twisted in a neat updo that suggested careful preparation rather than a night of hardship.
She was talking to Alessandro’s father, who was reading the newspaper and murmuring in agreement.
Neither of his parents seemed to notice their entry until they stood next to the table.
His mother’s gaze lifted to her son with a flicker of disappointment. “Alessandro, where is your brother? We were told he was here. We need to talk to him about our flat in Milan, which was simply not usable when we arrived, after hours of horrendous travel.”
Alessandro’s jaw tightened. “Mother, Father, I would like you to meet my wife, Ann-Sophie.”
His father looked up over his newspaper, and gave Ann-Sophie a brusque once-over, then turned back to his newspaper.
His mother’s gaze was more assessing, and she furrowed her brow, as if confused.
Her eyes traveled down Ann-Sophie’s body, stopping at her very prominent belly.
Then she looked back at Alessandro and gave him an exasperated smile.
“Oh, yes. I do remember Massimo mentioning something about a wedding to someone, but it was too…” She waved her hand as if the excuse was self-explanatory.
Then her gaze sharpened as it settled on her belly. “Now, I understand.”
Ann-Sophie stared at this woman, who had no memory of her son’s wedding and certainly no intention of coming for it. She seemed to exist on an entirely different plane of reality—one where everything centered on her.
His mother still hadn’t stopped talking. “Poor girl. You got knocked up by the wrong brother. But I suppose he does come with money, so he has some appeal.”
Ann-Sophie froze, so horrified by the casual cruelty this woman—Alessandro’s mother—was capable of. Alessandro had told her, but she hadn’t expected…this.
“Get. Out.” Alessandro’s voice was low and cold enough to make his father look up from his paper.
“You have no right to tell us to get out of our home,” his mother said dismissively. Then she turned back to the coffee in front of her and busied herself with the creamer.
“Get out of this house.” This time, Alessandro’s voice was louder.
Harder. Ann-Sophie found herself trembling, not for herself but for Alessandro.
All at once, she felt the surge of anger that he kept so carefully buried.
This was the emotion he feared, and she was watching as it began to consume him.
She had no idea what to do. There was so much hurt behind this and she felt a helplessness that made her angry, too.
No one should have to endure the kind of callousness that Alessandro had come to expect from his mother.
“Son.” His father put down the paper, and his voice was filled with warning.
“This is not your house,” Alessandro snapped at his father. “It hasn’t been since you drove your father’s business into the ground.”
“That might be true,” said his mother coldly, as if she was not watching her son’s anguish play out in front of her. “But, since you insist on specifics, we all know it’s Massimo who keeps this family’s fortunes afloat, not you. We’ll leave this decision up to him.”
Fury blazed from Alessandro’s eyes. Ann-Sophie reached for his hand, but he yanked it away.
“Don’t.” The words came out as cold and hard as the look he gave her. It was the same one he had given his parents. Something twisted in her stomach. She wrapped her hands around her belly protectively, as if shielding the baby from his glare.
“Please, Alessandro,” she whispered, fighting every instinct to leave this place, run far away. “Go upstairs. I will meet you there.”
He looked at her, but it was as if he didn’t quite see her, his gaze was so full of anger. It was as if he was unraveling right in front of her eyes.
“No. You need to get far away from here,” he snapped. “And don’t come back.”
It was an arrow straight for her heart, and it hit. Ann-Sophie startled at the intensity of his voice. Anger and anguish seemed to ricochet between them. Everything about this hurt.
Alessandro closed his eyes. Ran a hand through his hair.
“Go,” he said, biting out the word.
Ann-Sophie swallowed, torn between his plea and her instinct not to leave him alone with his parents. He glared at her, or maybe it was a plea. It didn’t matter. She took a step back. Another. And another until she was at the threshold of the hallway.
When she rounded the corner, out of sight, Alessandro’s voice boomed, “If you don’t leave my house, I will physically remove you.”
It was as if the entire house went still, and in the silence, Ann-Sophie understood that the threat was not empty.
Tension coiled around her, and she stopped in her tracks as her belly seized.
Deep, calming breaths. She took a shaky approximation of a yoga breath and reminded herself that she had four more weeks before the baby was due.
Even the false contractions made it sometimes feel like it would be sooner.
Ann-Sophie stood frozen in the hallway, trying to breathe her way out of this mess, until the scrape of a chair on the tile floor released her.
Footsteps.
Ann-Sophie started down the hallway, away from the dining room, but her belly seized again. She headed for an armchair and sank into the red velvet cushion.
Deep, calming breaths.
The footsteps grew louder, and when she looked up, Alessandro’s mother was there.
“I’m sure this display was educational,” the woman said with a forced lightness, but the high flush in her cheeks suggested she was unsettled. “He’s always been like that.”
As if Alessandro was a teenager throwing a temper tantrum.
As if his mother hadn’t noticed any other part of him for more than half of his life.
Because this description of Alessandro had absolutely no basis in the man that she knew.
It was a portrait of the teenage boy Alessandro had hinted at, one he had worked to leave behind.
One that haunted him for very real reasons, she reminded herself.
His father came up behind his mother but kept his gaze fixed on the front door.
“I am carrying your grandchild,” said Ann-Sophie quietly. “Nothing is more important to me than protecting my family from the kind of harm you so clearly have given Alessandro for his whole life.”
His mother turned away, but Ann-Sophie continued. “You have been trading on the Carandini name for years, as far as I can tell, so let me make this clear. If you ever speak to any of us like this again, I will make sure the press knows exactly why we won’t allow you around your grandchild.”
His father’s gaze landed firmly on her, and she got the sense that he was seeing her for the first time.
He paused, his eyes narrowed, before he looked away and continued to the door.
As the heavy wooden door shut behind Alessandro’s parents, Ann-Sophie promised herself that she would do everything in her power to protect her child, no matter where that took her.
Alessandro paced across the dining room like a caged animal.
But no matter how many times he stalked back and forth, the anger inside him would not go away.
His mother’s careless cruelty hadn’t just been aimed at him.
It had been aimed straight for Ann-Sophie, too, and that had pushed him over the edge.
He had not only brought another innocent person into the mess of his family, but he had also let his anger flare out of control.
Enough that he had lashed out at Ann-Sophie.
Alessandro glared at the room around him.
The excess of food and elegant dishware, combined with the heady scent of the flowers from their wedding, all seemed to mock him with the naive illusion of the night before, when he let himself wonder if he had finally escaped the wounds of his childhood.
How wrong he had been. How quickly their poisoned legacy had found him.
Better now than after the baby was born, he thought darkly.
He didn’t hear Ann-Sophie enter. He didn’t notice her until she was standing right in front of him. The look of devastation on her face dissolved any control he’d managed to claw back. He was so fucking angry at all of this mess.
“I warned you,” he said, gritting out the words through clenched teeth. “All along, I warned you.”
“They’re awful,” she said quietly. “I’m so sorry you—”
“Don’t,” he growled, cutting her off. “You know nothing about me.”
But the sharpness of his words was like a punch in his own gut. He stumbled back to a chair and sank down in it, his elbows on his knees, his hands buried in his hair.
“I’m leaving,” he added when his voice was a little more under control.
The room was quiet, and then her voice came, quiet but determined. “I’ll come with you.”
“You are the last thing I need right now,” he groaned. The words came before he could think to hold them back, and the cruelty of the statement hit him again in his gut. Ever his mother’s son.
But being near Ann-Sophie was simply too much right now.
She made him feel. Even pleasure, the one place he had allowed himself to follow his instincts, was tainted with every other emotion.
She had stripped away the barrier he had built and left him vulnerable at the worst possible moment.
It occurred to him that this had been his fear for some time now—that he was hurting Ann-Sophie and he was continuing to hurt her, ruining every ounce of good they had found between them.
Alessandro needed to be far away from her, to close this open wound and get himself under control the way he had all those years ago, after their last expulsion from school.
Leaving would hurt Ann-Sophie, but not worse than staying.
How could she not see this? Alessandro took a deep breath as grim determination edged out a little of his anger.
But when he looked up, Ann-Sophie was clutching her belly, and the anger and sadness had faded from her expression. Instead, he saw pain.
Alessandro shot up from his chair. “What’s happening?”
Ann-Sophie met his gaze, and her eyes were filled with fear. “It’s the baby. Something’s wrong.”