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“Alessia. Talk to me.” He took her hands, brought them to his lips. “Tell me why you’re crying.”
It was just as the poets said. Time did stand still. She took a steadying breath.
“Nicolo,” she whispered, “Nicolo—I am pregnant.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
PREGNANT.
The word echoed in Nick’s head. Alessia was pregnant.
He felt a sheen of cold sweat break out on his forehead. If there was one word a man never wanted to hear from a woman with whom he was having an affair, that was it.
Over the years, he’d grown accustomed to hearing women say things that were upsetting. Like I love you. Like I know you said you weren’t interested in a serious relationship but… And on one memorable occasion, But what will my friends say if we break up?
Women said those things in different ways, never mind that he always made it clear, right up front, he wasn’t looking for forever. For all he knew, “forever” didn’t really exist.
So, yes, he’d heard women say a lot of things but he’d never had one claim she was…
“Pregnant?” The word came out sounding rusty. Nick cleared his throat. “Are you certain?”
“Sì.”
“How do you know?”
“I took a test. Many tests.” Her hands, still enclosed by his, were trembling. “That was what I was doing in the bathroom.”
“Have you missed your period?”
She blushed. And wasn’t that ridiculous? he thought, as coldness seeped into his blood. Her body had no secrets from him, not anymore, and she was telling him she was knocked up…but asking her about her menstrual cycle made her blush.
“I should have had it last week. I—I did not realize that it had not—”
Carefully, he let go of her hands. “You said you were on the pill.”
“I was. I am.” Her eyes met his. “But I did not have my pills with me that first night, Nicolo, and we made—we made love so many times before we went back to my father’s villa and I collected my things…”
“So, you weren’t on the pill. Not really, even though you said you were.”
She winced. Okay. He knew the question was coldly phrased, maybe even unfairly phrased but, dammit, she had said—
Nick eased Alessia off his lap, got to his feet and paced across the room before swinging around to face her.
“How could this have happened?”
She felt everything within her collapse. She knew his real question was, how could she have let this happen? It didn’t surprise her. In a world that talked about the equality of women, nothing was equal when it came to sex. She had always known that. At university, men who had a lot of lovers were sexy; women who took equal numbers of men were sluts.
As for getting pregnant outside of wedlock… Perhaps it was fine for Hollywood movie stars but it was far from fine in her world. Getting pregnant when you shouldn’t was invariably the woman’s fault, just as it was the woman’s responsibility to deal with.
Nicolo had not said any of those things. He didn’t have to. The way he felt was in his tone, his face, the very tension radiating from him.
“I told you,” she said, trying to stay calm. “I forgot—”
“Are you sure,” he said, his tone as brutal as it was flat, “are you absolutely sure I’m the man who made you pregnant?”
She had expected the question. Still, she hated him for asking it. She wanted to scream. To hurl herself at him and beat her fists against his chest.
How could he even think he was not the man whose seed had joined with her egg?
