Chapter Two #2
Ten minutes later, Jade had hurried into the library without noticing him, turning to lock the door behind her. Lust had gripped him all over again. And when he had kissed her—
Don’t. He clamped down on letting the memory turn into a replay that he knew from experience left him hard as a rock.
“You work for Giselle?” he asked instead. “Are you a model?”
“No.” She snorted, looking at him askance, as though she thought he was messing with her. “I run her company.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.” Her tone dropped into subarctic. “There’s a brain inside this bimbo that you hit and quit. Frankly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell you about the baby since all I knew about you was that you seduce women with defective condoms and ghost them on the stoop.”
“I was called away to a family emergency.” He took umbrage with her scathing summation of him. “Did the valet not tell you that?”
“No,” she said stiffly. “He gave me a lift to the train station for the low cost of trading numbers. I’ve since ghosted him, so karma, I guess.” She looked out the window.
“My grandmother had a stroke.”
She turned back to him, expression sobering. “I’m sorry to hear that. Is she…?”
“She’s recovering.” She was in a rehabilitation facility in Palermo, with a good prognosis for moving back into her suite at his villa soon. “I feared I wouldn’t reach her in time to say goodbye, otherwise I would have taken you home that night. I wasn’t hitting and quitting.”
She sniffed and looked out the window again.
He hadn’t expected their encounter to turn into more than that night, though. He had presumed she was a socialite with no need or desire to work. Someone who was living in both London and the moment, not giving serious thought to her future.
“I wasn’t questioning your intelligence,” he said, since she was obviously offended. “I’m only surprised that you run the company when Giselle’s brother Yardley led me to believe she does. He said she was awarded Entrepreneur of the Year.”
“For being a girl-boss billionaire?” Jade drawled. “That’s branding. Coming up with that tagline is the limit of Giselle’s creative vision or business savvy. The company is barely worth seven figures and only stays afloat because I spend my entire day putting out the fires she lights.”
“Which makes you feel sick and tired. Why do you work for her if that’s the case?” He’d been in that position as a teen, taking whatever work he could get, but she seemed to have enough advantages that she shouldn’t be that desperate.
“Is it not obvious? Mum has an immune disorder. She needs her wheelchair, her accessible home and Kandili’s specialized, full-time care. Stress is very bad for her so I do what I have to for her sake.”
“Why isn’t your father looking after her? Are they divorced?”
“He’s always been married to someone else.
” Her mouth stretched into a pained smile.
“He supported me while I got my degree and covers Mum’s expenses provided I keep his friend’s daughter from going bankrupt.
And avoid embarrassing him by allowing rumors of my slutty behavior to get back to his real family. ”
“And marry a man who is not the actual father of your unborn baby,” he added with disgust.
“I can’t work and take care of Mum, especially with a baby on the way.
I can’t afford to pay Kandili’s salary and Mum’s living expenses along with my own.
His Lordship owns Mum’s home. If he turns his back on us, Mum will have to move.
Finding another place to accommodate her chair isn’t as easy as it sounds.
I don’t have a lot of good options so I took the one that is best for Mum and the baby. ”
“If your baby really is mine—”
“Quit saying ‘if.’ It’s yours. I’m sorry the condom failed and the planets aligned and I didn’t get a chance to consider other options, but trust me, unless I was abducted by aliens in my sleep, there’s no one else who could have conceived this pregnancy.”
He took a moment to absorb that. “You’re saying Giselle’s gossip kept you from terminating? Otherwise, you might have?”
“It crossed my mind.” She chewed the corner of her thumbnail.
“But I’ve always imagined having children one day and…
” Her brow crinkled again. “Mum’s condition has taken a turn lately.
There will be a time when holding a baby may be impossible for her.
I would have preferred to be more independent before becoming a mother, but the timing is good for her to become a grandmother. ”
Nonna would be thrilled with this news, Luca realized. For the first time, he stopped thinking of this pregnancy as an unmitigated disaster.
“The arrangement with Reggie is a good deal.” Jade dragged his attention back to her.
“For who?” he scoffed.
“Everyone. Mum gets to attend my wedding.” She plucked at the lace on her gown.
“Reggie gets a bailout and back into his father’s good graces.
I get into mine by putting Reggie’s father in His Lordship’s pocket.
He keeps paying Kandili’s salary so she keeps her job.
The baby gets the respectability of Reggie’s family name and you don’t have to worry about any of it. ”
“How kind of you to think of me in all of this.” The words arrived like bitter poison on his tongue.
“I’m not saying you can’t be involved in the baby’s life. I’m saying you don’t have to be. You’re welcome, by the way, for giving you choices I didn’t have. The baby will be well looked after. Reggie’s family is very wealthy.”
“So am I,” he said pithily. “I don’t need strangers to look after my child.” He was insulted that she would think he wanted an easy out from the most profound role a person could take on, even as that suppressed part of him shifted uneasily under the weight of it.
“How do you imagine you’ll do that?” Her hands came up in splays of helplessness. “I assure you my father is calling everyone he knows as we speak, asking who the hell you are and making a plan to wipe the floor with you.”
Luca snorted. “Let him try.”