AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Then make changes. I did it for Sofia.”
“I can’t just walk away from my duties.”
“Why not? Your role in this family was handed to you by our father, not me. I am in charge now, and I can easily assign you to something else. The coffee trade has picked up. You can be a part of that. Hell, you can start your own company. I don’t give a shit. It’s your decision, Luca. You need to stop living your life like it is an obligation.”
“Is it really my decision, though. If I wanted to leave, would you let me go?”
“I won’t accept you not being a part of this family in some capacity. If that means I need to accept Scarlet into your life, then so be it. No harm will come to her. You have my word.” He leans forward a little in his chair, resting his hands together. “Valsetti blood runs through your veins, Luca. There is no way you could escape it. There is no riding off into the sunset on a white horse for us. We are Valsetti men. We live and breathe our family honor until death.”
“So, you’re saying I can have Scarlet and still be a part of this family.”
He cocks his head, offering me a small smile. “That’s up to you to convince Scarlet.”
“That is easier said than done.” I exhale loudly, recollecting the fiery stubbornness of Scarlet.
“I think once you see her again, it won’t be as hard as you think.”
Forty-Four
Luca
The market is busy. Bustling crowds gather to purchase their weekly fresh produce—rows and rows of ripe red apples, plump peaches, and rich greens color the stalls. The smell of freshly cooked fish fills my nostrils.
Here amongst ordinary hardworking farmers and patrons alike, I am a stranger. The locals warmly smile at me rather than cower. I am a welcomed guest, no longer seeing fear in the onlooker's eyes. The feeling is refreshing. It energizes my soul, washing me clean.
The moment my plane hit the tarmac, I felt closer to Scarlet than I had in months. My flight took just shy of eight hours, but it felt like an eternity. Anxious thoughts clouded my head in anticipation of finding Scarlet the entire flight. I can’t stop thinking about what it could possibly be that Nicolai saw that day he found her.
I have gone through a million crazy notions about what it could be. Yet, none of my guesses seem extreme enough that it would cause Nicolai to have a change of heart. It’s doing my fucking head in.
I originally started looking for Scarlet in Madrid, where Nicolai took the photograph of her—three weeks of solid searching before her path led me here to this small fishing town. There aren’t too many redheaded Americans traveling these parts of Spain with a ginger cat, which helped narrow the search. Now that I am here, I just have to find out where she is staying, and where better to ask than the marketplace where all the locals have gathered for the day.
Long flowing auburn hair catches the corner of my eye over by the lemon stand. Even though her back is to me, I know it’s her. I watch her from afar, chatting with the older man behind the stand. He laughs at something she says, and I catch myself smiling too.
Her head turns to the side, looking into the crowd as though she feels someone is watching her. The older man regains her attention, passing her a brown paper bag. The moment she walks away, I feel as though my legs are about to crumble beneath me. Wearing a soft blue sundress, the swell of her stomach stabs me hard in the chest.
She is fucking pregnant!
My head flickers through the timeline. It’s been a little over seven months since I last saw her.
There is no way. There is no possible way she could have gotten that pregnant in the previous seven months, well, not that pregnant anyway. She sure as hell was not pregnant when she was with me. I would have known. There would have been signs. She would have fought harder to save herself. To protect the growing life inside of her. Maybe she didn’t know?
But as I examine the size of her stomach and do the math in my head, it hits me like a ton of bricks, hard and fast.
That baby is mine. Scarlet is pregnant with my child.
Forty-Five
Scarlet
As I leave the market, I can’t shake the eerie feeling that I am being followed. Dread and unease rush through me at the thought of being found. That somehow, Nicolai Valsetti has discovered the truth that I am alive and is about to make me pay.
I pick up my pace as fast as I can waddle. In the last few weeks, my belly has grown so much, walking easily is a luxury I no longer have. A gentle breeze blows past me, filling the air with a sandalwood and citrus scent that sends all the hairs on my skin to prick up.
I know that smell. That is one I could never forget.
Spinning around, I search the crowds of people walking behind me—nothing, no one of significance anyway. I feel him, though. I feel him as though he was just standing right beside me.
I shake my head, taking one last look around. I am going bat shit crazy. Baby brain has squashed all sense of rationality, and I am losing my goddamn mind. Luca is dead. Perhaps it is his ghost that haunts me.
