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That couldn’t be good.
“Ah, Giselle. There you are.” Behind me, he gave a nod to Zander. “I was hoping you’d come back soon, before we left.” I didn’t get the chance to say anything, to ask him what he meant by that, because his phone beeped, the screen lighting up. He glanced at it and said, “Ah, great. The movers are good to go for tomorrow.”
“The movers?” I asked, resisting my urge to toss a glance back at Zander. During our listening, we hadn’t heard anything about movers. Was my father doing business somewhere else? “Daddy, what are you talking about?”
His gaze rested on my gloved hands. “I assume you’re not wearing the ring Luca got you beneath those gloves. Enjoy it today, mija, because starting tomorrow, you won’t have a choice. I don’t think Rocco will take kindly to his daughter-in-law not showing the world she’s taken.”
The more he spoke, the more my heart sped up—and not in the good way. More of the oh shit, this can’t be happening way.
“I don’t understand.” Never had three words been harder to say, and never before did a look cut so cold from my father. The man was ruthless, but something about this situation didn’t sit right with me.
“You’ll be moving in with your husband and his father tomorrow. They’ll take care of you. You don’t have to worry about that.” The corners of his mouth still quirked upward, still smiling that evil, malicious grin, like he knew he was hurting me.
My husband? No. No, no, no. “But I’m not married. There was no wedding—”
He opened a drawer, pulled out a thin manila envelope. “Funny thing about marriages—it’s not the wedding that seals it. It’s the paperwork, and I have all the paperwork here.” He slid the folder to me, and I snatched it up off the desk, flipping through the few pages laying within. “It’s already filed with the state, too. It’s as legally binding as a marriage can be, wedding or not.”
The top form was a copy of the marriage license, while the bottom was the actual certificate. I saw Luca’s signature, but my eyes focused on mine. “This isn’t my signature,” I whispered, doing my best to stop my hands from shaking.
How long had he been planning this? How long had this been in the works? I literally couldn’t believe he was doing this to me. It was like a slap in the face, a knife in the heart—but why did I expect more from the man who I was pretty sure had one of his men shoot me?
“Isn’t it?” my dad asked, cocking his head just enough to let me know he knew the signatures were a forgery—that he’d done it all himself, the bastard. “It looks like your signature to me.”
I thought back to the conversation I’d just had with Luca. He didn’t seem like he was lying—was he just like Rocco after all? Was Luca a better liar than I gave him credit for, or was he roped up in this just like me? “Did Luca sign this, or was his signature faked, too?”
“I don’t think it matters much at this point.”
Squaring my shoulders, I threw the folder down onto his desk. “Why are you doing this?”
A shadow crossed his face, and for just a quick, fleeting second, I thought he was going to tell me, tell me why he hated me so much. But then a noise in the hall caused me to turn, and I faced someone new walking into the study, someone I’d never seen before.
My heart damn well nearly stopped when I saw her. Not because she was a woman. Not because she was pretty and young—I’d put her around twenty-five years old.
Zander was as speechless as I was, his mouth falling open as my father stood and walked around his desk. “Giselle, Zander, I think it’s time you meet Gianna Melendez, my fiancé.” He stopped when he stood beside her, setting an arm on her lower back.
“Hi,” she spoke, offering me her hand. Her other was too busy doing something else, holding onto a certain part of her that was rounder than it should be. “I’ve heard so much about you, Giselle.”
Everything I might’ve said wouldn’t be enough, so I didn’t dare take her hand. I couldn’t stop staring at her. Or, more specifically, I couldn’t stop staring at her stomach.
Gianna Melendez was a walking timebomb.
She was pregnant.
