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“You look as if you might have cancer,” he said.
She covered her face with her hands, and he could see that she was pressing hard against her eyes. “I don’t have cancer, Luca. I don’t... I’m pregnant.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
SHE FELT DEVASTATED. Standing there looking up at the horror on his face. She hadn’t been able to let him think that she was sick. She just couldn’t do it. Even after...
When she had seen him charging up the steps she had been certain that he had known somehow. How could he? She wasn’t certain, but he was well-connected with the medical world, and she wouldn’t put it past him to put some kind of alert on her name, privacy laws or not.
They hadn’t used a condom the night that they were together, and surely he must realize that.
She hadn’t thought about it until it was far too late to do anything about it. But he must have... Luca Salvatore did not forget anything. And yet, he had forgotten a condom. And she was living with the consequences of it.
Though, she had decided that she was not... She wasn’t sad about those consequences.
She had been shell-shocked at first, of course. But the more she had sat with that, the more she had realized she wanted this baby. That she wanted a chance to build a real, healthy connection with her child, to love someone wholly and utterly without the need for protection. Not only that, she was more than able to take care of a child physically. She had an extremely supportive employer, she made enough money.
She knew enough not to repeat the mistakes of her parents.
And perhaps it wasn’t ideal for her baby to not know its father, but she had thought that maybe someday in the future...
Except she couldn’t imagine Luca as a father.
Staring at him now, at the abject horror on his face, she still couldn’t.
He hadn’t come for her. He had come for her excellent personal assistant skills. He had not come for the baby, he had come for his own convenience.
She hated that moment where she’d hoped it was for her. She hated herself for feeling it, for being so weak with him. Always.
She had decided that she would not be telling him about the child. Except... Except then that horrible, stricken look on his face when he had thought that she might be genuinely ill.
“You cannot be,” he said.
“I assure you, I am. Medically confirmed and everything.”
“No,” he said. “That isn’t possible. I have taken my share of lovers, and I have always exercised precautions.”
“Luca,” she said, outraged on so many levels right at that moment. “You didn’t use a condom.”
Yes, they were in fact standing on the steps of the Milan fashion house yelling about condoms, but at least they were speaking English. So probably only three quarters of the people around them knew what they were talking about.
“Yes, I did,” he said. “I never forget such things.”
“You did,” she said. “You did with me. You forgot, because you had a...a human moment. That’s what people do, Luca. They throw away all of their good sense so that they can have an orgasm. And that’s what we did. We didn’t think of anything. Not the repercussions, not the consequences to each other, not the devastation that it might create. We decided that nothing else mattered except being together, and look at what it’s gotten us.”
He looked undone. And the thing was, she was pretty sure that he was more upset about forgetting to use a condom than he was about her being pregnant. More upset that he had been called out on overlooking something, which she was entirely certain he had never done before.
“You must come with me,” he said.
“I must do no such thing. I am on my lunch break, and I intend to go eat.”
“Then I will go with you.”
“No,” she said, beginning to walk away from him.
“You cannot stop me from walking on a public street,” he said.
“I could call the police and tell them that you’re harassing me.”