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And if that wasn’t enough, now she had a baby to think about. His baby. A little person who would look like him and remind her every day of the man she loved who couldn’t love her back. At least their baby would love her, and she could pour every ounce of love Aidan didn’t want into their child.
Someone knocked on the door, and she turned her head to see Sofia peek around the frame.
“I still don’t want to see him, Sofia.”
Aidan had been coming by nearly every day since she’d left him standing in their—his—room at Glenmore House. A few times, she’d been able to hear his voice drifting up from the bottom of the stairs while he argued with Sofia, who’d assigned herself the role of official gatekeeper. One she seemed to delight in entirely too much each time she turned Aidan away.
“Not Aidan. I haven’t seen him today, thankfully. But you have visitors who are worried about you.”
Sofia pushed the door open all the way, and Viv saw her three best friends standing in the hallway. A fresh wave of tears washed over her at the sight of them, and they all rushed in.
Immediately they climbed onto the bed, exactly like they would have done in high school, Felicity on one side, gripping her hand tightly, Dani on the other, and Alex at her head, stroking a hand over her hair.
“We’ve been worried after what happened at the party with Collin,” Felicity said.
“You haven’t been answering our texts,” Alex added.
“But this is more than that,” Dani finished. “What happened, Viv?”
Viv inhaled a deep, shaking breath. “Collin has been stalking me.”
“He what?” Alex gasped.
“For months. He’s sent me pictures, left notes on my car, called me names, threatened me. I guess Felicity’s party was his next escalation.”
“Is that why you suddenly started going everywhere with Aidan?” Alex asked, threading her fingers through Viv’s hair.
Viv nodded. “Collin showed up at the engagement party and did everything but outright threaten me. When we left later that night, he’d vandalized our cars. Aidan insisted on a protective detail whenever I wasn’t at home, and he was the first to volunteer.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Dani wondered, rubbing Viv’s arm gently.
“I wanted to, but my dad asked me not to. He’s trying to do right by the Mafia. We’ve been so broken for so long. Giordano would have—”
“Done absolutely nothing,” Felicity said, anger in her voice. “Because you’re only a woman.”
“Or ordered his execution. Depending on his mood.”
“Papa wanted evidence it was really Collin. So it didn’t look like he was executing Collin for no reason or for some vendetta. And we didn’t have any. He was too good. Hiding from the cameras, never leaving anything behind that we could definitively identify him with.”
“Until the party,” Dani said.
“Right. I think he would have tried to rape me if I hadn’t put up such a fight. Or if we’d been somewhere my fighting wouldn’t have mattered.”
Viv felt Felicity squeeze her hand at the same time Alex’s fingers stilled in her hair. The reality of that admission, that Collin would have raped and probably killed her given the chance, had sat like a heavy weight on her shoulders. The reality of how close she might have come if not for Aidan.
“But if Collin is dead, why are you here?” Felicity wanted to know.
“And why are you so sad?” Dani added.
“Because Aidan and I…” Her breath hitched. “I don’t think it's going to work out between us after all.”
“What do you mean?” Alex resumed combing through her hair. “What happened?”
“This whole time, he’s been faking it. Making me believe he was falling in love with me so he could get what he really wanted.” Viv wanted her voice to sound bitter. She wanted to be angry about it instead of hurt. Anger felt like an emotion she could harness to move on instead of being saddled with this burden of grief.
“What did he really want?” Dani’s voice was soft.
“To get me pregnant to solidify the alliance so he could go out and sleep with other women.”
