JULIA
“Thanks, Irina,” I whisper, shooting a furtive look along the corridor to make sure the guard isn’t paying us too much attention.
The cook nods, reaching out to give my hand a tight squeeze. “It’s alright,” she tells me in her thick Italian accent. “You need anything, you come to me, okay?”
I nod, forcing a smile onto my face to express my gratitude—even if it feels like my stomach is going to burst with the sheer terror of what I might be facing right now.
I take the pharmacy bag that she has slipped onto the tray next to my dinner and empty it out on the bed, to find a pregnancy test staring back at me.
Well. Time to find out, one way or another.
I brush aside the food and take the test straight to the bathroom, locking the door behind me and pinching the bridge of my nose between my fingers.
I can’t believe that I’m doing this, can’t believe I’m even considering entertaining the idea that I could be pregnant.
But the longer I spend trying to dodge it, the more likely that I’m going to let this problem turn into something bigger than it needs to be—and to drive myself batshit crazy in the process.
I’ve been turning it over and over in my head for what feels like days now, ever since I realized that my period was running late.
Which could, to be honest, mean nothing at all.
With all the stress and shock of the last month, it wouldn’t exactly be unusual for my period to go AWOL with no warning.
But there’s something else nagging at me—the reminder of what I did with Antonio on our wedding night, and the fact that we didn’t exactly use protection.
Which means…well, in theory, at least, I could be pregnant.
Pregnant.
The word laces itself into my mind, pulling taut until it feels like I might pass out.
I’ve been trying to figure out how to get my hands on a pregnancy test, eventually pulling Irina aside when she brought me dinner and asking her to grab one for me.
It’s not as though I can just wander on down to the pharmacy and pick one up for myself, and as much as I don’t want anyone else finding out what has been going through my head, the last thing I need is to get stuck in my ruminations about whether or not it might be happening.
The sooner I can clear this from my mind, the better, and this is the only way it’s going to happen.
Irina has sworn up and down that she hasn’t let it slip to anyone else in the house, and I guess I have to believe her, given the way she has fussed over me since I got here.
I open the box and the test lands on my lap as I kneel on the bathroom floor. I read through the instructions, doing my best to ignore how much my hands are shaking, and when I’m certain I know what I’m doing, I rise to my feet, and take it.
Three minutes. That’s how long it said it would take. Three minutes between the me who exists now and the one who might exist when I discover that I am pregnant. I can’t believe I let myself get into this position in the first place, but on the night of the wedding, the only thing I wanted was him.
And even now, as I stare down at the piece of flimsy plastic in front of me, I find myself wishing that he was here at my side—that I didn’t have to do this alone, as inevitable as it feels, as much as it seems like there’s no other choice.
I count down the seconds in my head, trying to keep myself as busy as I can. God, I can’t believe I’m doing this. It’s a miracle I could get my hands on a test as it was without Antonio finding out about it, and if he does, no doubt he’ll be quick to interrogate me about the results.
I don’t even know if I will tell him one way or another—I mean, even if he came to me to ask about Andreo, even if he told me that he wouldn’t let his son get away with treating me like that, it’s a very different thing to be faced with a new family member of his own…
I finish the countdown, and when I open my eyes, they focus on the plastic strip in front of me. And my blood runs fucking cold when I see the results.
Positive.
No. No, no, no, no. There must be some mistake.
I grab the test, lifting it up so I can get a better look at it, willing my eyes to focus so I can see the truth, because there’s no way—there is just no way that this is right. But there it is, staring back at me, clear as day. I am pregnant.
I’m pregnant.
The test clatters out of my hand and onto the floor, and I slump back against the bathtub behind me as I try to wrap my head around it.
It feels like a nightmare, a kind of sick joke at my expense.
In some ways, it’s the most natural thing in the world—I got married, had sex with my husband, and now I am pregnant by him.
But there’s nothing about this that fits into my plans for my life, and I have no idea how Antonio will react…
I mean, if I have to tell him at all. I don’t exactly know how I could hide it from him, given that he seems intent on not letting me out of this house, but maybe I could find a way to sneak out, get rid of the child before he even finds out about it.
A pang clenches my chest at the mere thought of it. No. No, I don’t want to get rid of this baby. I’ve never exactly imagined being a parent before, but now that I’m faced with the possibility, I know that I can’t let go of the baby.
My own parents were so cruel to me, so nasty, so abusive, and I swore a long time ago that I would do anything in my power to make sure that my own little ones never have to face the same thing.
And how am I going to give them that chance, if I go through with a termination before they even take their first breath?
I’m keeping this baby. Which means…
I am going to have to tell Antonio about it.
I can already guess at all the questions he’s going to have for me, and I don’t blame him for any of them.
I mean, he will think, I guess, at first, that this child belongs to Andreo and not him.
And he’s well within his rights to see it that way.
But Andreo and I hadn’t slept together for a while before the wedding—at least a month.
He was out late most nights, and I was busy getting ready for the wedding…
I was glad for the excuse not to have to sleep with him, to be honest, though I would never in a million years have admitted it.
There is no way that this baby can be his, it can only belong to his father…
His father. Fuck, that means that this is going to Andreo’s sibling.
It’s so fucked-up I can barely wrap my head around it, mind swimming as I try to fit the pieces together.
I feel like I’m losing it. But then, how could I not, given the circumstances?
I thought it would be a long, long time before I became a mother in my own right, but now I’m looking at a future where I have fallen pregnant by a man I barely know—but a man I am married to.
Shit, it’s such a mess, I don’t know where to begin…
I need to speak to him. That’s where all of this starts.
Once I talk to Antonio about this, I will be able to clear my head somewhat, make some sense of the mess that’s taking place in there right now.
I rise to my feet and splash some water on my face, looking at myself in the mirror. I can do this. I know I can do this, as difficult as it might be to imagine it right now.
The conversation Antonio and I had the other day about Andreo has convinced me that he is capable of handling news as enormous as this, and I am keen to get it off my chest. It’s clear he wants to do right by me, and I just have to pray that extends to this baby I’m carrying too, as hard as it might be to believe.
I change clothes a couple of times, not exactly sure what outfit is most in fashion for telling the man who’s twice your age that you just so happen to be pregnant with his baby.
But I eventually settle on a dress, and I step out of the room to head down the hall and negotiate with whatever guard I have to in order to get out of here.
Paulo is there, and I sigh inwardly—no doubt he’s eager to make it known that he is taking his job seriously, and he won’t let me just wander out to go and speak to Antonio in his office. I reach his side, sugaring my smile as best I can, and gaze up at him hopefully.
“Paulo, could you tell Antonio that I want to talk to him?” I ask him, cocking my head to the side slightly.
He eyes me for a second, no doubt still irritated that I managed to land him in trouble before. “What about?”
“It’s private.”
He sighs. “He’s busy. He can’t just—”
“It’s important,” I tell him, raising my eyebrows at him pointedly. “Very important. Not the kind of thing that can wait. Okay?”
I try my best to make it clear to him that I’m not going to wait, but he just crosses his arms over his chest and shakes his head. “He’s busy. Whatever it is—”
“Well, if you’re not going to get him for me, I’m just going to find him by myself,” I reply, irritated, and I brush past him and head toward the door. I can practically hear the panic in Paulo’s voice as he calls after me, trying to keep me from getting him into trouble.
“Julia—”
“I told you, this is important!” I call back over my shoulder, giving him one last chance to do as I ask instead of trying to brush me off. “I need to speak to him.”
I put my hand on the door and glance back toward the guard, practically daring him to disagree with me. He must know by now that I’m not the kind of woman who just lets go of what she wants, and I don’t care if it lands him or me or anyone else in trouble.
I have to see Antonio. Now.
He grimaces as he catches up with me, eyeing me as though searching for any small chink in my armor that he could use to brush me off. But, finding none, he shakes his head and walks past me. “I’ll get him for you,” he replies. “But you—you have to wait here, understood?”
He sounds stern, and I almost laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation. This man, looking at me, telling me that I need to play by the rules or else I’ll get in trouble. I’m going to be a mother, and I have to play along in the hopes of not pissing him off.
I just nod and turn away from him, pacing the corridor like a caged animal as I wait for Antonio to appear.
And it only takes a few minutes until he does. It seems like the conversation we had the other day has been enough to break down at least some of the barriers between us, and now he’s willing to talk to me at short notice like this.
He locks eyes with me, no doubt sensing that something is amiss. “What’s wrong?” he asks. “Something wrong with the dinner Irina made you?”
“No, no,” I reply, shaking my head. “I just…I needed to speak with you, that’s all.”
He glances to Paulo, and jerks his head toward the end of the corridor.
Paulo leaves at once, and Antonio puts a concerned hand on my arm, gesturing for me to follow him.
He guides me down to my room and pulls the door shut behind us.
My dinner is still sitting on the bedside table, untouched, and I feel more than a little guilty for abandoning it like that with no explanation.
I don’t want Irina to be offended, though I suppose she, if anyone, will understand what is going on here.
“Are you okay?” Antonio asks me, his eyes searching mine as though intent on getting to the bottom of what has caused me to seek him out like this.
I nod, almost more on instinct than anything else. “I just…I needed to see you,” I murmur, and I take a step toward him, all at once feeling a swell of relief that he’s here in front of me.
I know it’s not going to be easy, to put it all into words like this, everything that’s going on inside my head, but as long as he’s here, I know I can find a way.
I’m going to have to, right? No matter how hard it seems, no matter how much it makes my head hurt, there has to be a way through this.
A way for him to hear what’s going on without flipping his shit.
To my surprise, instead of reacting with frustration as I’ve known him to before, Antonio reaches a hand to my cheek.
His touch sends a shiver down my spine, the very same touch that got me into this mess in the first place.
And God, I know that I should know better by now than to indulge it, but when he lays a hand on me like that, it’s as though every bit of good sense within me just vanishes, and all that’s left is the way he looks at me.
He doesn’t speak, but his eyes tell me all that I need to know. That he understands me, that he knows why I might need him like this. That there’s a part of him that needs me too, even if he hasn’t been able to say it yet.
I run my thumb across the wedding band on my finger, and as he stares at me, I feel a rush of something I’m not sure I’ve ever felt before—a sense of surety, like I’m right where I’m supposed to be.
As I look into the eyes of the man I married, he cups my face in his hand, listening intently to work out whatever it is he can do to make things right.
And I know then that the words will fail me. All that I want to say has vanished now that he’s looking at me like this.
I lean forward and press my lips to his, promising myself that I will pick up where we left off soon…
But right now, the only thing I need is his touch.