30. Isabella
CHAPTER 30
Isabella
T he second I stepped out into the hallway, my throat squeezed shut. My whole body started to shake, and it was pure luck that I was able to make it to the nearest bathroom before I was emptying my stomach into the toilet.
When there was nothing left, I gagged as my stomach continued to spasm painfully. Someone knocked on the door; I could do nothing but press my forehead against the cool porcelain and groan. “Isabella?” It was Amalia. “Are you okay?”
I tried to tell her that I was fine, but my stomach clenched again, and I whimpered. A moment later, the door flung open. “Oh, bella ,” she tutted. I heard the sink running, and then Amalia placed a cool, damp washcloth against the back of my neck. “Are you sick? You didn’t come—” She gasped when I sat up. “Are you bleeding?”
I glanced down and gagged again. “It’s not mine,” I mumbled.
Fear flashed over her face. “Elio?”
I shook my head. “Damian. He should be okay, but I had to do stitches.”
Amalia took the washcloth from my neck and dabbed it at my face, wiping at the blood. “You did good, then,” she cooed. “We need to get you cleaned up.”
But when she tried to help me stand, I wretched again, twisting so that I was bent over the toilet. Bile burned my throat, but once the cramp was over, I felt a bit better. I was able to stand upright. “Sorry,” I said.
Amalia’s eyes were gleaming. “How far along are you?”
“What?” She raised her eyebrow, challenging me, and it took me another second to understand what she meant. “I took a test this morning. I was going to tell Lorenzo when—” The torn flesh of Damian’s shoulder came to mind, vivid and red, and I shuddered.
I had never had such a strong response to blood before. But there was something about being tacky with someone else’s blood that sent me back to lying on my bathroom floor, shivering as my own pooled around me.
Panic gripped me by the throat again, and I struggled to pull in a big enough breath. Amalia wrapped her arm around my waist to steady me. “It’s okay,” she said, rubbing my back. “You’re going to be fine.”
I shook my head over and over; it was like I couldn’t stop. “I can’t stay here,” I murmured and pressed a hand to my belly. “This baby.” My baby . It wasn’t fair to bring any child into this kind of life. I knew that before, but it was even more stark and apparent now.
Amalia kept shushing me softly, as if I were a spooked horse she was trying to soothe. “You know that’s not going to change,” she said, never one to sugarcoat, even while she was comforting someone. “Lorenzo would?—”
“Are you pregnant, Isabella?”
I shut my eyes tight and let out a breath. “Yes,” I murmured without looking at him. “I took a test this morning. That’s what I was coming to tell you.”
“Were you talking about leaving just now?” he asked. His voice was deadly calm. I did my best to force myself to open my eyes and look at him. Lorenzo wasn’t in a rage, not like when I went into Sienna’s study, but I could see murder in his eyes. He had gone past the hot anger and had reached that cold place in his head that I knew existed. How else could someone survive a life like this?
I swallowed hard. “Yes, but?—”
Lorenzo’s fist went through the wall; Amalia swung me back with a yelp, putting herself between he and I. “Amalia, get out.”
For the first time since I’d come to live at the estate, she shook her head. “Not until you promise that you won’t touch her.”
Lorenzo’s eyes were on fire. “Get. Out.”
But Amalia didn’t back down. “You can either be honorable and promise not to touch this terrified woman, and let her explain herself. Or you can say whatever you want to say with me standing here.”
Please don’t leave me . I gripped Amalia’s arms, digging my fingers in until I knew that she would be bruised, but I couldn’t let go. “Lorenzo, I —”
“I won’t hurt her,” he said. “On my honor, I won’t lay a hand on her.”
Tears welled up in my eyes as Amalia extracted herself from me. “I will be down the hall,” she promised. “I can be here in seconds.”
He could kill me in that length of time. “Okay.”
She scooted around Lorenzo, eyes on him the entire time, and then we were alone. “I wasn’t going to leave,” I insisted before he could say anything. “I wouldn’t do that. I just panicked.”
It was clear that he didn’t believe me. When he stepped into the bathroom, I jumped back, but there was nowhere for me to go. I bit my lip to hold in the whimper that wanted to escape.
“I could do whatever I wanted to you right now. There is nothing that Amalia could do that would stop me.” His words were careful and measured, and each one landed like a blow to the abdomen.
“I know.”
“Good,” he said. “It’s good that you know that because I will never allow you to leave this estate with my child.”
Being pregnant is the only thing keeping me alive , I thought. No matter what we had been to each other over the last few months, I knew that he could and would kill me if he thought he had to. He wouldn’t even blink an eye at it. “I wouldn’t,” I insisted, though I couldn’t quite meet his eyes. “I was upset about the situation with Damian.” The words tumbled from me in a rush, anxiety bubbling out like a fountain. “I was training to be a nurse, you know? I have seen blood before. I’ve done stitches, even though I wasn’t really supposed to. I shouldn’t have reacted so strongly, but I…” The words fizzled when I finally looked at Lorenzo.
He couldn’t have cared less about my feelings. He still looked like he was picturing creative ways to hide my body under his floorboards. “If I ever hear you talking about leaving again, even if you’re ‘just panicking,’ I’ll put you in a room with the bolt on the outside of the door for the rest of your pregnancy.”
Lorenzo didn’t have to explain what would happen to me after I had given birth in that scenario. It wouldn’t end with me returning to my life like this experience was all a bad dream. “I won’t .”
I hadn’t changed his mind in the slightest, despite my promises. “I’m going to call Dr. Coleman. I want confirmation that you really are pregnant.”
For some reason, that cut into my chest even more deeply than being threatened with being locked up for the duration of my pregnancy. “I can show you the test I took.”
“I want an ultrasound.”
He wanted irrefutable proof…and, to be honest, so did I. The first test had been negative, so which one was correct? “If I’m not pregnant?”
Lorenzo’s expression chilled me to the bone. “Pray that you are.”