Chapter 17
“I need to…” My voice faltered, and I cleared my throat. “I need to go to work.”
Marco frowned, his hair falling over his eyes.
“Work? Bianca, look at yourself. Look at what happened yesterday…”
“The Ferraro Empire doesn’t grind to a halt just because I had an emotional breakdown, Marco.” I stood up, pulling my robe tightly around me, struggling to put my armor back in place, even though it was becoming more and more shattered.
I expected him to yell, to order me around, to restrain me… Instead, Marco just sighed and stood up—tall, powerful, and terribly kind.
He didn’t come over to me. He just took the empty cup from my hand.
“You can’t skip breakfast,” he said gently. “For the baby’s sake.”
I stood there, confused. This wasn’t the man who’d thrown me against the wall. This was… someone else.
I went to the bathroom. I took the quickest shower of my life and got dressed in the clothes my mother had sent. When I came out, I was ready. A dark maternity suit, my hair pulled back into a strict bun.
Marco was in the kitchen, handing me a plate of fruit.
“I’ll drive you.” It wasn’t a question.
“I have my own driver.”
“I’m your driver,” he roared, authoritatively.
My resistance was still there, a constant buzz, but it was overshadowed by this new… strange domesticity.
“Marco, this…” I gestured between us. “What happened last night…”
“That was just the beginning,” he cut me off, his green eyes serious, leaving no room for argument. “I know you haven’t forgiven me. I’m not asking for that yet. I’m asking you to let me try.”
I stared at him. My anger had dwindled to a smoldering ember. My pride was still wounded, but my need for stability for the baby was stronger.
I just nodded, picking up a slice of apple.
The drive to Ferraro Uomo’s headquarters was quiet, though not with anger. It was a truce. When he pulled up in front of my building, I didn’t move to get out right away.
“Are you going to be okay?” he asked in a low voice, with genuine concern.
I stared at him. The man who had destroyed me and the one who had publicly humiliated himself for me… were the same person.
“I don’t know,” I replied honestly.
“Call me if you need anything.” He held my hand, forcing me to look at him.
I just nodded briefly and got out of the car before Marco could say anything else.
As I walked through the marble lobby of Ferraro Uomo, I felt the stares of my employees. There was no more mockery or pity… there was admiration.
I felt safer than I had ever felt in my entire life, and that was the most terrifying thing of all.
The Ferraro Uomo office was supposed to be my sanctuary. After that morning, I needed my throne, the smell of glass and steel, the hum of the computers, and the comforting weight of my empire.
But the day was a silent hell.
I could feel the stares. Marco’s press conference had changed everything.
The whispers of “rejected lover” that had followed me for months were replaced by something new: a reverent admiration.
I was no longer the joke; I was, apparently, the reason why the all-powerful Marco Valenti had publicly gotten down on one knee.
That was, in a way, worse.
The strain of pretending to be normal—giving orders in a firm voice while still carrying the aftershocks of the previous night—left me exhausted.
It was almost seven in the evening. The office was nearly empty. Chiara, my assistant, had already left. I was alone on the top floor, reviewing the Asian projections, with the light from my monitor cutting through the dimness.
I was rubbing my temples, feeling the headache throb, when I heard a ding.
I froze. It wasn’t the service elevator. It was the private one—the one that led directly to my floor and required a code that only I, my brothers, and the head of security had.
My heart raced. Marco…
I stood up slowly, my hand instinctively reaching for the taut curve of my eight-month-pregnant belly.
My heart pounded wildly, torn between anticipation and reason. While the businesswoman in me thought Marco shouldn’t be there, the woman in love—who was slowly winning me over—was eager to see him.
The brushed steel doors opened, but it wasn’t Marco.
My blood ran cold.
Silvio was standing in the doorway. He didn’t look like a businessman but rather like a cornered animal. His eyes—shrewd and full of venom—were bloodshot and wild. His expensive suit was wrinkled, and his tie was askew. He reeked of alcohol and desperation.
“How…,” my voice faltered. “How did you get in here? Security!”
“Do you think your guards can stop me?” he hissed, taking a step inside. The elevator doors closed behind him with a soft click, sealing us in. “I used the emergency code. I know everything in this city.”
“Get out of my office, Silvio,” I ordered, forcing myself not to tremble.
My hand reached for the phone on the desk.
“You!” he growled, and the speed with which he crossed the room took me by surprise. Silvio slammed his hand down on the phone before I could dial. “It was you!”
“I didn’t do anything to hurt you!” I shouted, stepping back.
“Oh, you didn’t do anything?” He laughed, an ugly, broken sound. “You’re the one to blame for turning him against me! He destroyed me and exposed me publicly!” His eyes were wild. “He took everything from me! My contracts, my reputation… all because of you! Because of that filthy belly of yours!”
The adrenaline of sheer panic hit me. I was defenseless, pregnant, and trapped on the top floor with an unstable man.
“You brought this on yourself, Silvio,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady as I backed away from my mahogany desk. “You’re the one who lied and poisoned Marco. You deserve everything he did to you.”
“I deserve it?” He slammed his fists on my desk, making my monitor shake. “And what do you deserve, puttana? Do you think you’ve won? Do you think he’ll stay with you? He abandoned you once. He’ll do it again!”
“Get out!”
“If I can’t destroy Marco,” he hissed, his eyes dropping to my stomach, “I’ll hit him where it hurts.”
A wave of panic overwhelmed me. Silvio wasn’t talking about the company. When he started to circle the desk, I turned and ran.
Running while eight months pregnant was almost a joke. I was slow, heavy, and my center of gravity was all off.
“Leave me alone!” I shouted, trying to reach the door at the end of the hallway.
I’d only taken three steps before he caught up to me. Silvio grabbed my hair with one hand, yanking my head back so hard that my neck cracked. I screamed in pain, scratching his arm.
“You… you bitch!” he growled, his hot, alcohol-scented breath on my face.
“NO! LET ME GO!”
“You’re going to pay for what he did to me!”
He was blinded by rage. With his other hand, he shoved me.
It wasn’t a casual shove. It was a violent blow, with his open palm, right in the center of my back.
The world shifted… the adrenaline made everything go in slow motion.
I felt my feet leave the ground. The weight of my belly pulled me forward and downward. I tried to twist and protect my stomach, but there wasn’t enough time.
I hit the polished marble floor.
The sound was a dull, sickening thud. The impact wasn’t on my belly. It was on my hip and my shoulder. But the impact reverberated through me, jolting the baby inside me.
I lay there, gasping for breath, feeling the air being ripped from my lungs.
Silvio stared at me, his eyes wide and terrified by what he had done.
Then I felt it.
The pain came first. A sharp, excruciating twinge deep in my lower back, radiating to my abdomen, which contracted in a spasm as hard as stone.
And then… The heat.
A warm, damp sensation spreading beneath me, soaking my expensive suit, spreading across the pale marble.
No.
My shaking hand reached down. The smell of iron and salt hit me.
No. No. No.
I looked at my fingers.
Red…
“What… what did you do?” stammered Silvio, taking a step back, his panic turning to revulsion.
I couldn’t answer. The smell of iron and salt hit me, leaving me even more dizzy and disoriented than I already was.
“You…” I tried to move, but another contraction hit me, stronger and deeper. I screamed again, feeling the sound tear through my throat.
“I didn’t… I didn’t even touch you!” he shouted, in a panic that sounded ridiculous after everything he’d done. “You fell!”
The horror was so absolute that it left me calm. The panic froze and turned into a single, focused goal: to survive.
“Wait…” I hissed at Silvio, who was now backing away toward the elevator. “Help me!”
He looked at me, lying in my own pool of blood. The contempt on his face returned, overcoming his fear.
“The Ferraro empire,” he spat on the floor. “Finally brought to its knees. Tell Marco I sent my regards.”
“No!” I screamed. “Silvio! Don’t leave me here!”
The elevator doors closed, and I… was alone.
The empty top floor buzzed in my ears, mingling with the beep of my idle computer, the hum of the ventilation, and the sound of my own blood dripping onto the floor.
No!
Panic returned, hot and suffocating. The baby. My son!
My purse. Where was my purse? On the table. A few meters away. An eternity.
I needed to move.
Move, Bianca!
I crawled.
The polished marble was slippery with my own blood. The pain was like a knife in my belly with every centimeter. I left a red, obscene trail on the floor of my sanctuary.
I was reduced to pure instinct.
Five meters… four…
Another contraction. I screamed into the floor, biting my lip until I tasted my own blood in my mouth, mingling with the smell of iron that surrounded me.
Three meters…
I reached out, trembling. My fingers brushed against the leather of my purse. I pulled it toward me.
My cell phone fell, sliding across the marble, coming to rest just inches from my face. The screen was smudged with a red, bloody fingerprint, and my hands were shaking so much I could barely hold it. I grabbed it.
Panic overwhelmed me again so intensely that it seemed to rob my lungs of all their breath. Who should I call?