Page 1 of Modern Romance December 2025 5-8

Baby Before Vows

Tara Pammi

CHAPTER ONE

Renzo DiCarlo satfuming in his tinted Maserati, watching the different occupants of the house—women of varying ages—come back from work, dates, or whatever else they got up to at the end of the day.

The two-story Victorian home, located in a village near London, wasn’t where he had expected his quarry to be.

The house was sturdy and beautiful, with a redbrick facade and elegant wrought iron railings that led to a deep blue front door. Even in the waning light, he could see the vibrant garden full of flowers and neatly trimmed shrubs.

At least she had chosen a quiet little village, relatively safe, instead of a city like London or New York. He should be thankful for small mercies, Renzo supposed.

Given the excited chatter the PI he had hired to locate her had spewed about the local folklore being rich in history, he shouldn’t be surprised.

Mimi Shah had always been bookish, standoffish, and more interested in documenting other people’s lives. Also utterly uninterested in the public life that her world-renowned actress mother constantly courted.

That she would prefer to share a home with a bunch of working women, instead of choosing to tell his family about the child she was carrying, grated on him.

But then, everything about Mimi Shah had always grated on Renzo. Even though, in theory, she was the exact opposite of her stepsister, Pia, his sister-in-law of six years. The intensity of his own reaction to Mimi had never made sense to Renzo.

Just then, a pregnant woman stepped out of a beat-up car that had rounded the small courtyard in front of the home.

Her gait was off-balance as she bent to gather her bags, smile strained as she thanked the driver.

Renzo gripped the steering wheel tight as he watched her make her way towards the worn steps to the main door. With a hand bracing over her lower back, a cloth grocery bag in one hand, and her usual black backpack hitched on her shoulder, she took a deep breath and started the upward trek.

The way he was parked, he could see her body sketched carefully by the fading light. As if just for his benefit.

His jaw tightened.

She was slender to the point of gauntness, so her belly looked even more protruding on her thin frame. But it was her face that held his attention. All sharp angles and serious eyes, as if her stubborn nature had etched itself into her features.

Compared to her stepsister, Pia, Mimi Shah could be called average. Especially since, he realized with new insight, she made it a point to blend into the background.

Pia had been stunning—the kind of beauty that grabbed everyone’s attention immediately. By the balls, he would say, thinking as a man who, for just a second, had also been caught in the trap. But that was the high point of knowing Pia.

Each minute, each day after that, the beauty would start to sag and fade under the claws of her personality. The spoiled, attention-hogging, immature woman that emerged within minutes of meeting her had forever put him off.

Pia had been vapid and shallow and manipulative and exhausting, but his brother, Santo, had loved her. Had found something in her to like.

Renzo thumped his head against the headrest of his seat, a sudden pike of grief skewering him.

How he wished Santo had never met Pia.

How he wished Santo had been stronger and asserted himself more around Pia, so she didn’t play with his heart like it was a rag doll.

How he wished Santo had cut off all ties with her after the first time he’d discovered she had cheated on him.

But no…

His older brother had been as loyal and loving as only he could be. Always willing to see the good in everyone around him—whether it was his wife or their father, who fluttered around women as if he was a bee sniffing around flowers for pollen. Or Renzo himself, even when he got too cynical and ruthless for Santo’s liking.

How Renzo wished he could have stopped Santo, and even Pia, from getting into the car on that stormy night and taking that dangerous curve while they were probably still in the middle of the argument he’d witnessed as they drove away.

Months later, the grief was just as fresh and just as sneaky, coming at him in a sudden blinding wave to nearly choke him. And it was one of those waves now that filled him with anger and frustration and resentment for this woman who was carrying his child.

His child…