With my throat too constricted for a long sentence, I keep things short. “Go on.”
She walks us into the main part of our room, plonks me on the bed still rumpled from our hours of escapades, then sits next to me. She’s close enough that I feel the warmth of her body, but not enough to drown out the loud thuds of my heart.
“While waiting for my appointment at the clinic, I read every pamphlet in the waiting room. One was about amniocentesis testing. It’s usually done to check for genetic conditions or infections, but it can also be used for DNA testing.” Her breathing is uneven now, but she pushes on. “They use a really thin needle.” She traces the air with my finger as if that makes it less frightening. “It’s inserted through the abdomen and into the uterus so they can draw out a small amount of amniotic fluid from around the baby.”
The image her description paints slices a knife across my jugular. “No.”
“Gio—”
“No,” I repeat, louder this time. “I’m not letting anyone put a needle in your stomach.” Just the thought of someone doing that to her has me itching to kill. The doctor who came to collect a blood sample last week to check her HCG levels barely made it out alive, and his needle was minute compared to the one I’m imagining. “I don’t care what they promise or how safe they say it is. It’snothappening.”
Before I can pace out my anger, Valentina grabs my hand andholds me still. “They do it with ultrasound guidance, so they seeexactlywhere the needle goes. It’s quick, but…” Her words trail off to silence.
“But?” I ask, my brow arched.
She considers lying, but the combined scents of our arousal on the sheets scrunched around her ass stop her. She knows I can force the narrative, so she chooses honesty.
“It’s not without risk. There’s a tiny chance of miscarriage… and infection.”
“To you?” The fear gripping my throat makes it difficult to speak. “Is the risk of infection to you?”
She sheepishly nods. “That’s why they only recommend it when there’s a valid reason.” I shake my head when she murmurs, “This is a valid reason. I can’t carry this child for nine months and then hand it to Valeria.”
“You won’t have to.”
“You don’t know that. There’s no prerogative with cases like this. It all falls on which family the judge deems the better fit.”
“Which will be mine.”
She acts as if I never spoke. “We could both lose custody if Valeria wins the popularity contest she’s been priming for her entire life. I’m?—”
“Worth a million times more than whatever her strongest point is.”
You have no idea how hard it is not to strip her bare right now and fuck her as raw as the emotions in her eyes are shredding me. The only reason I don’t is because she needs this. She needs to shed the dead layers of skin Valeria’s lies coated her in.
Eventually, Valentina discloses the true cause of her unease. “If you don’t want to do the amniocentesis test, we need to play nice.” She drags her shaky hands down the front of her dress, ridding her palms of sweat. “That’s why I invited Valeria to my mother’s birthday dinner.”
I jackknife back so quickly I mentally book a chiropractic appointment. “You did what?”
She doesn’t reply. She doesn’t need to. Her silence paints the entire picture.
“That’s fine. I’ll tell her she’s no longer invited. I doubt she’s even started getting ready yet. She’s infamous for being late.”
Valentina slows my stomps to the door with a confession. “She’s already here. She is getting ready down the hall.”
I turn on my heel like a dog detecting fear. “You invited her into my home without considering how I would feel about that?”
She stands her ground, and as much as I hate admitting this, I’m glad. “Don’t do that. Don’t tell me I have as many rights here as you do, then strip away the privilege when it doesn’t suit you. Either I have a voice here, Giovanni, or I don’t. Which one is it?”
I love her gall. It proves what I’ve always known. Every man in this house would fall on his knife for her and then kneel at her throne. But it doesn’t hide the truth. “She hurt you.”
“Because she’s hurting, Vanni. Gosh. How can you not understand that? This is hard on her, too, and since I’m the easiest person for her to take it out on, I’m subjected to the brunt of her wrath.”
“It is only hard on her because she’s not getting her way.”
My hands twitch to spank her when she rolls her eyes. “Hello, pot, meet kettle.”
I don’t understand her metaphor, so I ignore it. “You don’t know this woman,dolcezza. You don’t know what she is capable of.”
