AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His nod was distracted. ‘Is the baby okay?’
‘So far as I can tell.’ The doctor smiled reassuringly.
They’d only ever talked about children briefly. Skye was too young to have been thinking of having babies and Matteo hadn’t entered into the marriage with procreation on his mind. But still! She must have known how much this child would mean to him.
And she’d been intending to take the Vin Santo heir away from him. To raise his child as a Johnson!
Fury whipped at the soles of his feet, spurring him forward. ‘Did my wife’s handbag...?’
‘Yes, I believe it was dropped off separately.’ The doctor nodded curtly. ‘Someone found it on the pavement.’
His expression was grim.
‘I’ll have it brought in.’
‘Thank you.’
He waited impatiently, staring at Skye, trying to make sense of this, trying to hold his temper together. But, the more time that passed, the more he came to suspect the worst.
She’d been so adamant about the divorce—that it had to be right now. She had no time to wait.
And she’d held out the perfect carrot to get him to fit in with her plans! The hotel! The damned hotel. He would have done anything to get it back, even marrying her. And, yes, even divorcing her.
He’d wanted the matter of their marriage and the hotel resolved and she’d given him that on a platter. What a fool he was! He’d almost let go of the most valuable thing in his life.
His child.
How could he have been so stupid? Hadn’t he learned his lesson with the whole Maria debacle? He’d just been a boy then. A young, foolish boy. He’d fallen for her lies hook, line and sinker. He’d fallen in love with her too. And learned how stupid a notion love was. He’d sworn he’d never trust a woman again, and here he’d been about to take Skye’s request at face value. Damn it! She was a Johnson, first and foremost. When had he forgotten that?
A hospital staffer arrived minutes later, handing the handbag to him in a large plastic bag.
He took it without speaking, reaching for her bag and ripping it open. There were the damned divorce documents, alongside his purchase contract on the hotel. He removed both angrily and stuffed them in the still-damp pocket of his suit.
He was about to drop the bag to the floor when something else caught his eye.
Curiously, he reached for it, and his anger only darkened when he saw that the object was her passport with a ticket folded neatly inside. A quick inspection showed that it was to take her to Sydney, Australia, later that night.
The evidence was truly damning. All doubt evaporated and left inside him a seed of anger so powerful that it ripped his soul in half.
She had been going to take this child from him. His flesh and blood.
Nausea rolled through him, rising in his chest. He gripped his hands together, his eyes resting on his wife’s face—so beautiful, even like this.
Had she truly wanted to raise a child away from him? Without him ever even knowing?
The pain at the very idea was sharp.
‘Signor Vin Santo? We have spare clothes if you would like to get changed.’ A nurse was smiling at him kindly.
He didn’t return it. He couldn’t. ‘I’ll stay with my wife, thank you.’ The words rang with derision, yet the nurse didn’t seem to detect the undercurrent of Matteo’s tension.
Fury was at war with disbelief.
A machine was rolled through the door, its wheels making a soft squeaking noise as it was brought to rest beside Skye. The doctor he’d been speaking to earlier bustled in and sent him a look of reassurance.
‘Try not to be so worried,’ she said, pushing Skye’s dress up and arranging the blankets around her
hips, exposing only her stomach. It was so flat. Was it possible that the doctor had got it wrong? How could a baby be developing inside her tiny frame?
