Episode 34
Episode 34
A Recipe for Disaster
GIOVANNI
Gio, we need to talk.
I’m pregnant. Eight weeks.
You may be the father.
Bianca’s text invaded my mind like a parasite, gobbling up all the good I’d just experienced with Julianne on our wedding night.
Could it be possible she’s carrying my child?
Technically, yes.
The last time we were intimate was eight weeks ago. The morning of our rehearsal dinner. The same night when I walked in on my best friend in the entire world plowing my fiancée from behind in a small private dining area in the back of the restaurant. I’d just lost my parents a month before, as had Brenden and Jules, but we decided they’d want us to continue living our lives to the fullest. I wanted to postpone the wedding, give us all some time to heal, but Bianca was adamant that we proceed.
I clenched my teeth as I pulled on a pair of slacks.
“Gio, come here.” Jules patted the empty space on the bed next to her.
I turned around and looked at the most beautiful woman in the world. My wife. Somehow, we’d finally ended up exactly where I once dared to hope we’d be. Together, married, having just consummated our marriage. And it had been life changing. I’d never been happier than when I was pleasuring the woman I’d been in love with most of my life. Not that she would be the wiser to my long-standing feelings.
Everything about Julianne called to me. From her lush curves to her fiery spirit and her incredible mind, Julianne was the whole package.
Now, what was I? Some chump who’d been taken for a ride by his then-fiancée and best friend. And now I was possibly going to be a father. To my wife’s niece or nephew.
My stomach churned as that realization stabbed me in the gut like a poison-dipped arrow.
“Please, sit next to me.” Julianne held her hand out.
I sighed deeply and approached the bed. I lifted a knee and sat so that I was facing her as I took her hand in both of mine.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured, guilt and shame twisting up my insides painfully.
“Gio, is it possible the baby is yours? Truly?” She spoke gently, as though I might crack and break at any moment.
“We were intimate exactly eight weeks ago. Same day I caught her with your brother. However, she’d been on birth control our entire relationship. The possibility of her being pregnant is unexpected.”
Jules sucked in a sharp breath and snarled. “So it could be yours, or it could be Brenden’s.”
I nodded as a numb sensation slithered across my skin.
“I’ll never be free of her,” I whispered, sounding hoarse. My emotions were clouding my ability to criticize and judge the situation from a ten-thousand-foot view.
Jules squeezed my hand and cupped my cheek. “Look at me,” she demanded.
My gaze went straight to hers. Her eyes were so open and blue, I wanted to drown in them and let everything that just happened disappear as I gorged on the goodness that was my wife.
“She could be playing you, Gio. Hell, she could be playing you and Brenden. The woman is evil, and the carnage she’s wrought on this family has been devastating. Who’s to say it’s not part of some grand scheme? Maybe she’s not even pregnant. We haven’t seen any proof.”
A small glimmer of hope shimmered at the edge of my mind. Julianne made an excellent point. Bianca has been nothing but destructive since she was caught two-timing me. And she doubled down when she got Brenden to marry her. Then she tripled that wave of ruin by firing Julianne from our company. Now she’s suddenly pregnant with a child that could be mine or Brenden’s?
“It’s all too convenient, if you ask me,” Jules added.
“You’re right.” I frowned, running through all she’d brought to light.
“I usually am.” She winked playfully then got up onto her knees, the sheet molding magnificently to her gorgeous body. I wanted more of her. So much more. I didn’t think I could ever get enough. Julianne was made for me, and tonight, marrying her and then making love to her proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Unless Bianca was pregnant with my child…then I could lose her.
I swallowed down the fear clogging my throat. “I have to ask you a serious question, but I want you to think about it. You don’t have to answer right now.”
Her brow furrowed. “Okay…shoot.”
I gritted my teeth. “If she is pregnant with my child, are you going to leave me?” I whispered, sounding weak and defeated even to my own ears.
She closed her eyes and shook her head slowly, then let out a long breath, her shoulders slumping. “You think so little of me?” Her gaze lifted, eyes filling with unshed tears. “After all this?” She spread her hands around the bed and then between us. “We’re married, Gio. We just consummated our commitment…fantastically, I might add.”
“I agree,” I rushed to explain. “It’s just,” I let my gaze fall to the bed. “I couldn’t ask you to stay and help raise another woman’s child. Your husband’s child, with your brother’s wife ,” I almost gagged on the truth in that statement, because the entire situation was repugnant.
Julianne cupped my cheeks, and I cast my gaze to hers.
“You and me, we are in this together. Not only as man and wife, but as life-long best friends. We may not have ever believed we’d be right here, married, about to take on the world as we know it, but we’ve always been there for one another. That will never change, regardless of what the future might bring.”
“Or what a demon might birth.” I scowled, refusing to believe I would have to raise a child with a woman I loathed. Then again, thousands of families did it every single day. I wasn’t special by any means.
I pressed my forehead to Julianne’s. “I don’t deserve you,” I admitted for more reasons than just this new development.
“No, you don’t, but then again no one does,” she teased before pressing her lips to mine.
We kissed for a full minute, reigniting the fire that had been banked by Bianca’s message. Now it was a raging inferno once more.
I slid the satin sheet from her naked body and pressed her back down on the bed. Ready to worship my wife in every way possible. Delete the last half hour as if it never existed until we were forced to deal with it again.
Her hand went to the button of my slacks then slid down the zipper. “Just so you know, I have an IUD. No unplanned pregnancies happening for us.”
I rubbed my nose along hers and stared into her eyes. “I wouldn’t care if you were the one who was pregnant, Jules. If I’m being honest, I may have imagined a life over the years where we were together, and chasing a couple redheaded little ones running around the family estate.”
She beamed in response. “Maybe I had similar dreams at one time.”
I closed my eyes as her hand wrapped around my hardening shaft. “Are we sure this new thing between us can handle another hit from Hurricane Bianca?”
“I’m more sure of you and me than I am of anything else in my life right now. And ewwww, don’t say her name when we’re being intimate,” she grumbled and then stroked my cock until I moaned. “When we’re in bed like this, it’s me and you. The rest of the world slips away. Deal?”
I leaned down and took her mouth in a wet, deep kiss.
“Deal.”
* * * *
Julianne was a force to be reckoned with when we got off the plane in New York and into the limo for the ride to her penthouse. She didn’t even ask if I wanted to go to my home, immediately instructing the driver to take us to hers. It didn’t matter to me. Already my staff were flying from the lake house to my Manhattan home. Muriel was shocked but elated when I called her from the plane and told her I’d married Julianne. My longtime assistant hated my ex-fiancée with a passion.
We exited the limo, and I held Julianne’s hand as we entered the elevator and rode up to her home.
“I hope you don’t mind coming straight here instead of your place. I couldn’t stomach the thought of sleeping in the same bed you’d shared with her.” Julianne’s pale cheeks reddened and her brows pinched together in what I could feel was a deep loathing for the woman in question.
“Fair enough. I’m not even sure if all of her belongings were removed since I went to the lake house immediately after the rehearsal dinner.”
She nodded as we exited the elevator into the foyer of her apartment. I followed her through the living room and into a long hallway. There were large, framed pictures and canvases lit from above by track lighting, highlighting each piece. I’d always known Julianne was a lover of art, and now she was revealing a piece of herself I imagined not many got to see. It made me feel special to have been invited into her sanctuary.
Julianne opened a set of double doors into the master bedroom at the end of the hall. A huge king-size bed was positioned across from a luxurious sitting area, complete with an electric fireplace with a television hanging above it. This must be where she watched TV since I didn’t notice one in the main living area. The bedroom was large and filled with sleek birch-colored furniture trimmed with gold hardware. A sumptuous, cozy-looking plush couch and loveseat also surrounded the fireplace, inviting visitors to sit, put their feet up and stay awhile. A glass, gold-framed coffee table and end table with modern crystal lamps completed the space. Her bed was covered with a buttoned-back gold-toned shiny fabric. A puffy white comforter with gold swirls and several king-size pillows finished the look. Julianne planted her ass on a bench at the foot of the bed and removed her shoes.
“Do you want take a shower and sleep some more?” she asked, glancing out the window where the sun was just rising over the New York City skyline.
I shook my head, all that occurred buzzing through my mind like a horde of angry wasps. “I think I need to call Bianca, see if she’ll meet me somewhere. Maybe pop into my place and grab more of my things. You’re good with us both staying here for the foreseeable future?”
“Honestly, that would be preferred. I think we’ll have more clarity here and be able to relax better away from things that might hold some difficult memories of your time with her before…”
I completed her sentence. “Before everything went to hell in a handbasket?”
She grinned sheepishly. “I wouldn’t have put it like that exactly.” She stood and walked over to where I was standing in the center of her room. She lifted her arms and wrapped them around my neck, plastering her body against mine. “You know we’re going to get to the bottom of all this, right?”
I sighed and hugged her, enjoying the simple act of being held and cared for by someone I knew with my entire soul wouldn’t ever screw me over.
“I’ll head to my apartment and call Bianca to see if we can meet there.”
“Ask her for proof of the pregnancy including the name of her obstetrician. We want to know exactly how far along she claims to be, and what is the soonest we can get a paternity test to confirm. As a matter of fact, do you want me to come with you to meet with her?”
I grinned, instantly imagining how badly that would go. Bringing my new wife to see my ex-fiancée who’d betrayed me. Not even including the connection to Brenden, it was a bad idea all around.
A gruff laugh escaped me at the visual. “I’m thinking having you and Bianca in the same place right now would be a recipe for disaster.”
Julianne smiled coyly. “On second thought, I think you’re right. I’d probably scratch her eyes out the moment she opened her mouth. And if she is pregnant, hurting her would make me feel guilty, even though I want to do more than scratch that bitch’s face.”
I chuckled and held her close, enjoying that we could talk so freely after all we’d been through. It had been the worst three months of both of our lives and the drama only seemed to be getting started now that we had this potential pregnancy concern to deal with.
“You going to be okay while I head to my place?”
“Will you be here to sleep next to me tonight?” she asked flatly.
“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
A sweet, relieved expression slipped across her face. “Then yes, I’m happy to do some work and follow-up with my lawyers regarding the contesting of my parents’ will. Also, I need to notify the PR department about our marriage so they can issue a press release. Is there anything you do or do not want me to say? If we don’t announce first, you know the media will have a field day with their speculations.”
“True. I can’t think of anything. Just run it past Muriel if you could. She’s excellent at reading between the lines of things and can ensure the information comes across as we want it to.”
“Good idea. I’ll do that. I’m going to take a shower and take a nap. You kept me up all night, mister.” She prodded my chest with a jaunty finger. “But first, I’ll walk you out.”
I took her hand and she led me into the kitchen where she opened a drawer and pulled out a square keycard like the room keys at a hotel. “Use this to bypass the front desk,” she offered.
I pocketed the keycard and at the elevator, turned to her. “You know, you’re an amazing woman, Julianne. I don’t know a single person that would take on all of this as gracefully as you have.” I threaded my fingers through her hair, gripping the bulk and hefting it in my fist so I could tip her head back and kiss her deeply.
She mewled and sighed, resting her hands against my chest and leaning in.
I took her mouth in a way that was possessive as fuck, and I didn’t care. I wanted her to know exactly how she made me feel, sticking by my side, trusting me to talk to Bianca alone, and welcoming me into her home so completely.
When I reached my fill of her mouth and she’d relaxed fully against me, I pulled slowly away. She nipped and pecked at my lips, gifting me a needy groan. “Are you sure you have to go now?” Her suggestive smile left no doubt about her desire.
“If we want to get the answers we need as soon as possible, then yes.”
She pouted obstinately, and it was adorable coming from the normally intense, hard-ass, take-no-prisoners woman I knew her to be.
“Fiiiiiiiinnne,” she dragged out the single word right as the elevator whirred into motion.
I frowned. “Who has full access to your home?” I barked, pulling her away from the double metal doors while stepping in front of her, putting myself between her and the elevator in the event she needed to be defended from an unwanted presence.
“Uh, no one… Shit! Except…” There was a subtle ding that announced the elevator had arrived on her floor.
“Brenden,” I growled as the doors opened and my ex-best friend appeared, disheveled, and wearing a suit that looked like he hadn’t changed clothes in at least two days. His brownish red hair was all over the place, and there were dark smudges under his eyes.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he bit out when he saw me.
“Funny, I was about to ask you the same thing,” Julianne sneered.
“I came here to see you! Apologize for what happened at work. I didn’t intend for things to get so heated.” His gaze took in our stance and how I was holding onto Julianne protectively. He spoke through gritted teeth. “What’s he doing here?”
I smiled deviously. “I live here now.” I cuddled Julianne close. “You should probably tell him before the announcement goes out,” I encouraged.
“What do you mean, you live here now? And what announcement?” Brenden snarled, his entire body a riot of buzzing negative energy.
Jules glanced at me and cocked a brow, smirking like the sexy little vixen I now knew she was, inside and outside the bedroom.
“Gio and I got married this weekend. Surprise!”