Chapter Five
HAVE TO. NOT WANT.
He didn’t want her. She had known that the moment she’d been left to find her own way home from the party that night, but it still stung.
“I can’t.” Her palms began to sweat.
“Why not?”
Because it wasn’t on her mental if-then flow chart.
“Think this through, Jade. Marry me and you will have all the resources you need to provide for the baby and look after your mother. Our baby will never struggle the way we have.”
We? She shot a look at him, but he was continuing his pitch.
“Your father will be out of your life. Completely. Immediately.”
“That—” She couldn’t imagine a world where she didn’t have that axe of the man hanging over her neck.
Nor could she imagine replacing him with another who had even more leverage against her in the form of their child.
“I need to sit down,” she murmured, even though this dizziness was merely a very full, active brain going into overload, trying to imagine marrying a stranger and moving to Milan.
His strong arm came around her, pulling her into his warmth, which was overwhelming in a whole different way as he guided her into the lounge and sat her on the sofa. What was it about his touch that he made her feel as though she was floating? Euphoric.
Then abandoned as he released her.
“Can I get you something to drink?”
“A shot of brandy would be great, thanks.” She used irony to cover her reaction.
“I meant water,” he said patiently. “Or tea. You English love that, don’t you?”
“Is this you thinking you could marry me, move me to Italy, then divorce me and sue for custody?” Why else would he suggest it? She couldn’t get ahead of his game and it was frustrating her.
“This reset of ours includes beginning to trust one another.” He looked down his nose at her. “I am taking you at your word that your baby is mine, Jade. Take me at my word when I say that I want my child to know both its parents.”
He abruptly pulled his phone from his pocket and read the screen. “See? Your father’s minion has done his own legwork.”
“I haven’t agreed to marry you,” she blurted, heart tripping in panic. “Don’t you dare tell him I have.” She needed to think this through.
His brow went up. “I don’t intend to tell him anything. But between skipping my wrap-up meetings and your groom sitting in a pub drowning his sorrows, gossip is likely making the rounds. I need to make a statement and soon.”
He brought his phone to his mouth and said, “Luca Cardillo and his partner, Jade Denison, welcome the news they are expecting their first child. They will reside in Milan and marry in due course.” He lowered the phone and lifted his brows. “Any notes?”
“To the master of brevity? I wouldn’t dare.” She had never felt she could get away with anything so impassive and succinct, always compelled to overexplain and defend herself.
“Is that a reference to how quickly we conceived? Because you got your entrée and dessert, cara. I’m a master of efficiency.”
She blushed. Hard. And couldn’t hold his gaze.
“I haven’t agreed to any of that,” she reminded him petulantly.
“The press needs something. It doesn’t matter if we change our plans later.”
“So if I agree to your releasing that, it’s not really an agreement?” She understood about reading the fine print. It was all she’d ever done.
“What do you need to hear in order to agree?” he asked.
Reside in Milan. Marry in due course.
Her insides quivered at the idea of enduring yet another massive change to her life, but he wasn’t wrong about the gossip.
Reggie had no doubt told his family that the wedding was off.
His best man wouldn’t sit on news this ripe and delicious.
Like a stone dropped into a pond, Luca’s crashing of their wedding was already sending ripples outward.
That’s why her father was trying to get ahead of it.
As for marriage, one of the reasons she had agreed to marry Reggie was the fact that she was illegitimate herself. She had grown up envious of her half siblings, certain her life would have unfolded differently if her mother had been married to her father.
The thought of Luca issuing a statement that said he welcomed the news of their baby was so heartening, she couldn’t help but feel a sting of appreciation. Of hope.
Even so…
“I think…” She gathered a cushion to her stomach and curled into the corner of the sofa. “I think you need to know that people don’t like me. Attaching yourself to me could make things difficult for you.”
“How?” He pushed his phone into his pocket, becoming all business.
“My father doesn’t like to be reminded of his mistakes.
He doesn’t like his family to be reminded.
People don’t curry his favor by bringing me into their circles or by being my friend.
When…” This was so humiliating. She fiddled with the tassel on the cushion, wishing she could be proud of who she was, rather than chagrined.
“When I came into the library that night, I was hiding from my half sister. I didn’t know it then, but I learned later that Giselle was angry at Abigail for dating her ex.
That’s why she insisted I be there that night.
She was throwing me in Abigail’s face.” Tit for tat.
Always an object to be batted about, never a person with feelings.
The silence became oppressive.
She risked a glance upward and found Luca watching her with an unreadable expression.
“There are dark alleys in Palermo with less cold-blooded backstabbing,” he said drily. “But I’ve walked those streets when necessary. They don’t scare me.”
“Who are you?”
He ignored that, asking, “Is that your only hesitation? You’re worried I might decide your father has more value to me than you do? You’re the mother of my child, Jade. I won’t let my grandmother talk down to you, never mind all these nobodies that you seem to be worried about.”
There was a deep pull within her that yearned for his promise to be real, but she had thought she had a man on her side once before and he had ultimately rejected her, worried about conflict with her father.
No, she wasn’t naive enough to believe Luca was offering a real future, but saying she was marrying Luca Cardillo would buy her a little time. Considering how influential Luca was, her father might even be pleased about this connection.
“Fine. Release the statement. But I’m not really agreeing to marry you.” Not until she had worked out all the new paths this opened and how she would plan for each potential obstacle and consequence.
There was the whoosh of a sent email.
She flashed her gaze upward, wanting a sign that he could be trusted. That he was pleased by this. That he wanted her.
“Call your mother with an update. I’ll speak to my grandmother.” He walked out.
Luca cautioned his grandmother, Filomena, that he was waiting on the official test.
She was elated all the same. “When will you come home? When can I meet her?”
“As soon as I have the result,” he promised.
When he ended the call, he glanced at the time.
His jet was booked to leave for Milan in a few hours.
He would have to change that to Sicily and a morning departure, but did he need the result before flying?
The risk analyst in him demanded he wait for certainty, but his gut told him the baby was his.
He leaned back in his desk chair, allowing himself to sift through reactions that had been swinging like a pendulum inside him all day: anger at Jade for not making more of an effort to find him, reluctance to trust her word, disgust with her father, pity for how ill this pregnancy made her. Fresh shock at impending parenthood.
That was the piece he didn’t want to examine.
His feelings about becoming a father were raw and tangled.
It wasn’t just the way things had gone with Trieste, though he still held on to threads of betrayal and disappointment around that situation.
And guilt, because he’d ultimately been relieved that her baby wasn’t his.
He had cared for Trieste, but he hadn’t loved her. He hadn’t wanted to love her, wary of what that emotion meant for him.
You don’t know what you’ll do for someone you love.
His father’s words, so much like a warning they had imprinted on Luca’s psyche, were the reason he had always been ambivalent about starting a family.
It was one of the reasons he hadn’t proposed to Trieste before she became pregnant.
He had known she wanted children and he’d been undecided about it.
His grandmother had always assumed he would marry and have a family, but it had very much been a “perhaps” for Luca.
At the time, he’d still been trying to make his mark with his career.
The prospect of a wife and child to support had been daunting.
Nevertheless, he had stepped up exactly as he expected of himself.
Then Trieste had confessed to her uncertainty and seeds of doubt had crept in.
He could have been kinder to her. He could see that now, especially when he saw how overwhelmed and ill Jade was.
It put a new lens on how confused and worried Trieste must have been.
She’d been so stubborn about taking the test. Angry with him for wanting it.
To him, it had been a simple means of getting an answer.
When the baby had turned out to be that other man’s, Trieste had left and Nonna had been profoundly disappointed. Luca had hated himself for building up her anticipation only to dash it.
She was that much older and more fragile these days. He couldn’t do that to her again.
So why had he jumped the gun with Jade, announcing the baby and their impending marriage as though it was a fait accompli?
He knew the answer, but hesitated to acknowledge it.
It arrived in his head—and his chest and belly and groin all the same: jealousy.