Chapter Three #2
He let her go, but instead of taking this as a dismissal, Alessandro followed her through the hallway.
Her body felt so alive right now. Alessandro’s sudden appearance and promise to whisk her away into a life of luxury was a rush of relief and hope that made her feel vulnerable.
After the way he’d left her so abruptly, he was the last person she wanted to see her this way.
She turned into her kitchen, with the table in the breakfast nook on one side and the little balcony that looked out onto the courtyard of her building. She headed for the refrigerator.
“Are you hungry?” she asked. “I haven’t been home in a week, so I don’t have much to choose from. I was thinking broccoli soup and sandwiches.”
“You should be eating—”
Ann-Sophie braced herself for oncoming pearls of wisdom on pregnant women—from the man who was likely the least knowledgeable on this topic in the continent.
But he stopped, mid-sentence, and she felt a shift in tension in the room.
She turned and found Alessandro looking at the built-in shelves next to the table.
Actually, glaring was a more accurate description, and she immediately saw what had caught his eye.
Her blood-pressure monitor, lying on top of the sheet she used to record the results.
Ann-Sophie crossed the room to snatch the paper away before he could get a closer look at it.
“Is there a problem with your blood pressure?” His tone was even, but she could hear a hint of warning in it.
“Right now?” She tilted her head, as if she had to consider his question. “Yes, in fact. The direction of this conversation is likely shooting up my blood pressure. Thank you for your concern.”
She wasn’t sure what she expected his response to be. Perhaps an argument or maybe blame, much the way she blamed herself. But he said nothing. He simply stared at her, looking genuinely stunned. Finally, he gestured to the table. “Sit down. I will make supper. Please.”
The word please rippled through her with a rush of relief in its wake.
She tried to muster up a little bit of frustration that he was taking over, but she was tired.
The early meeting, the apparently less-than-subtle wander to Alessandro’s offices in Milan, the flight, Dr. Azzizi’s news and the thought of early maternity leave—it was all just…
a lot. She closed her eyes, trying to gather her feelings.
Even if she had no interest in marrying a man who had so easily ditched her before, he could make her supper.
Especially since the other methods of relaxation he could provide were not a good idea.
So she settled at the table as he watched her, arms crossed, his expression inscrutable. “What are you hungry for?”
She chose to ignore the sexual undertones her exhausted mind was gravitating toward and focused on his actual question.
She was always hungry these days, a fickle kind of hunger that demanded everything from bacon-flavored chocolate, to pickles, to wasabi peas.
And cinnamon rolls, of course. None of those things could be classified as supper.
“It doesn’t matter. Whatever you can make from the ingredients in my bare cupboards,” she said.
Alessandro waved off her comment and pulled out his phone, and his side of the conversation suggested the person on the other end of the line was waiting for him nearby.
He ordered a list of ingredients that made her mouth water, and she felt more of the tension of the day fall away.
It was just a meal, she reminded herself.
She hadn’t agreed to anything. Definitely not marriage, a demand she still hadn’t completely processed.
Why on earth was he interested in getting married?
The last thing she wanted to hear about was some antiquated notion of bloodlines.
There had been something almost raw in his voice that suggested his real reasons lay closer to the heart.
If this man had a heart. After his cold dismissal of her in Nice, she wasn’t so sure.
He ended the call and then turned to her. “While we wait, is there anything else you need to tell me? Twins, perhaps?”
“There is only one baby,” she said, “though at this point I look like I’m carrying at least two.”
“What is the gender?”
“I’m not going to find out,” she said, hoping that he could hear that this was not negotiable.
“We will do a paternity test, of course,” he continued in a tone that implied that she should be taking notes or doing something to make sure she carried out his wishes to his liking.
“Will we?” She raised her eyebrows. “No one is backing you into this situation. You can walk away at any point.”
He opened his mouth as if to reply, then closed it. Frowned.
Ann-Sophie sighed. “There are no other candidates, Alessandro.”
“And I should take you at your word?” He gestured to her belly. “You kept this from me for seven months.”
She closed her eyes and sighed. “I’m sorry you found out this way. I was going to tell you before the baby came, but I couldn’t figure out how.”
He raised his eyebrows doubtfully.
She frowned. “I can’t change what I did. If you have so little faith in me, then you should probably leave right now. Remember my stress problem?”
Alessandro looked like he had plenty to say on this subject but refrained. As it turned out, high blood pressure was proving to have at least one upside.
He turned to face the counters, and she watched as he familiarized himself with her kitchen, inspecting her utensils and pans.
This suggested that he himself was planning to make the meal, which surprised her, considering the fact that he had an army of staff at his disposal to take care of these things for him.
But cooking was apparently one of the things he valued, something he had clearly decided not to fully outsource.
That thought was a little depressing, considering how quickly he had talked about outsourcing the care of her and the baby to resorts and nannies.
Alessandro’s back was to her, and she watched his muscles move under his crisp, white dress shirt, triggering memories of what those muscles felt like under her hands, what it felt like when his arms were around her as he laughed at her stories and kissed her so tenderly.
No, it wasn’t what his wealth could buy that was the hard to resist. It was the man himself.
By the time Alessandro tossed the pasta with fresh sausage, garlic-sautéed spinach, pine nuts and Parmesan, he was in control of his emotions again.
He had been forced to control them after the bombshell of Ann-Sophie’s high blood pressure was followed by her comment that suggested that he was, in fact, a current stress factor.
The urge to pressure her was strong, to get her to follow him to the nearest church immediately and get this situation under his full control.
Marriage would bring stability to this situation and to their child’s life—something he had never had.
Right now, he was in no condition to consider what being a father would require of him; he would figure that out when the baby came.
Instead, he focused on the way marriage would soothe the volcano of emotions that had been erupting since Massimo had walked into his office this morning.
Guilt, obligation and subtle exercises of power were some of his well-traveled negotiation routes, but these relied on creating increasing stress on the target, a method that was now out of the question. Alessandro needed to drastically reevaluate his approach.
He set the plates of pasta on the table, and she looked at the food with open desire. She took a deep breath of the mingling spices that wafted from the dishes. As she took her first bite, the tension eased from around her eyes.
“You can cook,” she said with a hint of surprise, and he noted that her voice had lost a little of its sharpness.
“Of course, I can,” he said, waving away the comment. “Meals give us three opportunities every day for pleasure. Why wouldn’t I take advantage of them?”
She gave him an amused smile. “Good point.”
Was this a negotiation path to marriage, one guided by pleasures? Foods, comforts, luxuries and physical desires… Some combination of these could sway with her.
“I used to cook more often when I stayed with my grandmother during the summers,” she said, a little wistfully. Then she gave a little laugh. “A lot of meatballs and boiled potatoes. Not like this.”
“I learned to cook from my grandmother, too,” he said. She raised an eyebrow, and he raised his hands in protest. “You don’t believe me?”
Ann-Sophie shrugged. “I’m just having a hard time picturing it.”
“It was an interesting summer,” he said darkly.
She rested her fork on her plate and tilted her head, watching him as if she was waiting for him to continue.
It brought him back to moments ago, when, reeling from the high-blood-pressure revelation, and struggling to contain yet another surge of emotions, Alessandro had come close to pleading with her.
Please. That one word had revealed far too much of the raw fear she had triggered, but it had also gotten through to her.
The emotions he kept under tight control were another tool he could use, one that clearly got Ann-Sophie’s attention.
This path was more dangerous, but he would never let himself get out of hand. Never again.
When he didn’t continue, she asked, “When are you planning to return to Milan?”
“This depends on many factors,” he said, holding her gaze. “Are you planning to return to Italy soon?”
Her forehead wrinkled, and she shook her head. “As of today, I’m on maternity leave.”
Judging from her frown, she was not happy about this. Interesting. “You are free?”
“Apparently.” She flashed him a tight smile. “My job is triggering higher blood pressure, so I am under doctor’s orders to reduce my stress.”
She gave him a pointed look those last words.
He studied her closer. “You have no plans for the next couple months except to take care of yourself and the baby, correct?”
“Correct,” she said, then gave him a wary look. “Please don’t follow that up with a marriage proposal.”
Alessandro ignored the comment and gave her a seductive smile because a more specific plan was forming, one that gave him more time to introduce her to the pleasures he could provide for her.
“I have a different proposal. Our family’s home sits in the foothills of the Alps, amid a countryside that guidebooks call charming.
The temperature is warm and mild this time of year, and you can enjoy a swimming pool, fresh-baked pastries from the local bakery, naps and anything else that you may like. ”
Her eyes widened with unmistakable interest. Yes, pleasure was the right path. She claimed she didn’t want his wealth per se, but just as he had thought, she would enjoy the spoils of it.
“And this enormous house just sits empty?” There was a hint of censure in her voice that he couldn’t read.
“It’s a country retreat. I assure you, it’s well kept.”
She tilted her head to the side, and her gaze was penetrating. “And you, of course, will be busy working.”
Alessandro could hear the edge in her voice. This was a test, and he was not sure she even knew what answer she wanted from him. But he had learned from her comment earlier when he had made the calculation error of letting her know she and the baby would be alone. This was not what she wanted.
For the last seven months he did not seek her out, despite the way his body ached for her, he reminded himself. He could remain under control. So he offered her a compromise. “I will stay there when I can get away, if that is what you want.”
“Italy is lovely this time of the year,” she said, almost to herself.
Ann-Sophie, whose job was to be a neutral medium for others’ ideas, looked so far from neutral right now.
He let her debate this option as they ate.
After a few moments of silence, she set down her fork and straightened in her chair.
“Thank you for the offer,” she said carefully, “but I’m fine where I am.”
But Alessandro had not brought his family’s company and name back from ruin by laying all his cards on the table in the first round of negotiation.
He hadn’t even begun to use all the tools he could leverage.
But for now, he focused on the lowest-hanging fruit: This woman loved books.
She loved to read, as was clear from the half-read books scattered across her living room.
So he turned to her and smiled. “I neglected to mention a feature of this house that might be of particular interest. We have an enormous library. Perhaps you would at least like to see it?”