Chapter One #3
Luca didn’t know yet, did he?
“Is her dress too tight?” he asked the nurse.
“It’s not uncommon to be lightheaded when pregnant,” the nurse assured him.
“I was the same way when I was carrying her.” The woman in the wheelchair glided close enough to touch her daughter’s cheek.
She wore a blue silk dress with a matching pillbox hat.
She had Jade’s coloring, although the orange in her hair had mostly faded to coppery silver.
Like Jade, the freckles in her complexion were downplayed by a light application of powder. “Come on, love. Come back now.”
Jade’s eyelids looked bruised by sleeplessness, but began to flicker.
“There she is,” her mother said with a smile of relief.
“What—” Jade’s eyes opened, then clenched them shut again. Her brow furrowed. “Did I faint again?”
“I told you not to turn this into a circus, didn’t I?” Noel berated. “Now look what you’ve done.”
“Take a step back.” Luca set a firm hand on the older man’s chest, resisting the urge to give him a sharp shove and merely using an insistent pressure.
Noel recoiled at being touched, exhibiting the sort of affront only the most entitled prigs could muster.
“Take a walk,” Luca said to the groom. “Give us a minute.”
“Good idea,” the vicar said. “Why don’t we all take a breath of this fine June day?” He gathered everyone with an open-armed shoo up the aisle.
Luca heard the groom ask Noel, “What about my money?” as they departed.
“Dear God.” Jade sat up on the pew and looked back at the door as it closed behind everyone, leaving only the two of them in this cool, hollow church. She covered her mouth with one hand as she lifted her lashes to warily meet his gaze.
“Are you going to be sick?” He had thought this couldn’t get any worse. Apparently, he was wrong.
“Not this second.” She swallowed. “How are you here?”
“Yardley told me you’re pregnant. Is it mine?”
She jolted slightly, then skittered her gaze around as though trying to decide whether to lie.
“Jade,” he growled.
“Yes,” she answered with a ring of frustration.
“You know that?” He couldn’t help sounding both skeptical and accusatory. He was both.
A stung, belligerent look flashed across her face before she smoothed her expression into one of cool dignity.
“I’ve slept with one man in the last two years. How many lovers have you had in that time? How many of them are pregnant?”
“None. I always wear a condom.”
“Do you?” she challenged, red-gold brows low with suspicion.
“You saw me put it on.”
“There’s such a thing as stealthing.”
“You think that’s what I did?” Secretly removing a condom while having sex was not only a vile thing to do to one’s partner, it was a dangerous game to play with your own health.
Whatever infuriated aggression was in his face pushed her back into the pew and made her drop her gaze.
“How else did I get pregnant?” She scowled at the white tips of her manicure.
“The condom failed? That’s what you’re saying?” He wore the damned things to protect more than his health. He had never wanted to be in this position again. “How? Why?”
“I don’t know,” she said in a beleaguered tone. “Email the HQ of condom manufacturers. Ask them.”
“Don’t make jokes. This isn’t funny, Jade. Nothing about this is funny.” He sliced his hand across the air. “Why are you marrying someone else if the baby is mine?”
“Oh, do I just call Italy and ask for Luca? Is that how I get hold of you?”
“You call Giselle and ask her for my number,” he said through his teeth.
“Right.” She looked away, showing him her rigid profile. “I can see how thrilled you would have been to get that call.”
Was he supposed to be happy right now? When he’d been blindsided by an unplanned, hidden pregnancy? She hadn’t even tried to tell him.
He had just become the youngest addition to the executive board of the principal bank of the EU. He couldn’t afford a scandal. He couldn’t afford to be here, getting this news. He was supposed to be in London, finishing up his meetings with high-level politicians from across Europe.
As for becoming a father… Dio. He hadn’t let himself imagine he would ever wade into these choppy waters again unless he made a conscious decision to do so. And so far, his decision had been a firm no.
He didn’t want to be here again, sifting through the implications, facing things about what having a family had done to his father. What it could do to him.
No. He didn’t have to think about any of that until he knew for certain that this baby was his.
He couldn’t take Jade’s word for it. Not when he knew even less about her than he had with his fiancée five years ago.
At least Trieste had been honest with him.
She’d been remorseful about the confusion and he ultimately hadn’t had to face what it meant to have children.
Jade was holding her chin at a belligerent angle, refusing to meet his eye. What if she was lying? She has a reputation.
What the hell was he supposed to do right now?
The door squealed open and the man he was starting to hate entered.
“Well?” Noel asked impatiently.