Page 101 of Modern Romance October 2025 5-8

She blinked, the backs of her eyes hot and her throat constricting.

He was right. She couldn’t bear it if anything happened to her precious child. Even knowing its father was all she despised, she loved it with her whole heart.

She heaved a shuddering breath and finally nodded. ‘Okay. I’ll see the doctor. Alone.’

To Gio’s credit he didn’t argue. Even when she refused to let him carry her upstairs—she didn’t think she could stomach his touch—he acquiesced. But it might have been easier to let him carry her. At least it would have been over quickly. For it was a slow process, climbing the stairs. Her legs felt weak and it didn’t help that he hovered at her side, his arm around her, not touching but so close she felt his warmth and the inevitable spark of awareness.

By the time they reached her room she felt done in, stress catching up with her. She didn’t even bother protesting when he accompanied her across the room, pouring a glass of water from the carafe on the bedside table.

‘You can go now.’

She thought he’d object. Instead, he said, ‘Call if you need anything.’

Absurdly, as Stella watched him go, she had the crazy desire to call him back. She resisted it and closed her eyes. She needed to recruit her strength.

‘Morning sickness, exacerbated by lack of sleep and stress.’

The doctor’s piercing look as she pronounced her verdict was vivid in Gio’s mind even now, well after her departure. Her disapproval had been obvious in her clipped tone. She’d made it clear she was sharing that information only because her patient permitted it.

It was a reminder that Stella was her own woman and that without a paternity test he had no legal rights over their child.

Damn it, it wasn’t about legal rights. Not yet. For now he just wanted to know Stella and their child were safe.

Their child.

He finished another lap and grabbed the end of the pool, heart hammering. Not from exertion, despite his attempt to work off his emotions in the pool. His heart was racing at the knowledge he’d been right. Stella was pregnant, with his child.

He scrubbed his hand over his wet face. He’d been sure before but the doctor’s confirmation of morning sickness had made it real.

All being well, he was going to be a father.

He’d have a family.

Jumbled feelings sideswiped him. For years he’d prided himself on managing his feelings, keeping them restrained. He couldn’t any more. Hadn’t been able to from the moment he learned Stella planned to marry another man.

Now her pregnancy turned his world on its head.

Gio had avoided the idea of creating a family, unwilling to become hostage again to the marrow-deep pain of loss.

But now it wasn’t a matter of choice. The decision was made for him.

The news opened the rusty gates of the past he tried not to revisit, taking him to a long-lost childhood.

His sister’s teasing and her smiles as she played with her little brother. His mother’s hugs, her lullabies and the taste of her cooking. Nothing in the world tasted as good as that. And his father, not the dour, haunted man he’d become, but a vital and happy man, always with time to play.

That was what Gio wanted forhischild. A warm, safe world full of love and unshadowed by grief and distress.

But could he, who’d turned his back utterly on emotional connections, provide that? Did he even want to try?

Yet if he didn’t, another man would take his place with Stella and his child.

Gio’s palm slapped wet tiles. The idea was untenable.

Were his early childhood memories enough to show him how to be the father he wanted to be? Or did he share his father’s fatal weakness? The inability to pick himself up when the world fell apart? A selfish obsession with his own loss?

After the disaster that killed half his family, his father had ignored Gio, giving himself over to unending bereavement. His world had shrunk to grief and the need to avenge his wife and dead child, as if his living son didn’t matter.

Gio hadn’t been enough for him.