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But it could also be a beautiful thing, her heart whispered. One she wanted so much she could scarcely bear to hope for it. A child that she would love and never reject, never subjugate to her own needs. A child that would have so much more of a chance than she and Issy ever had.
Guilt swirled heavily in her stomach. Issy had lost so much, sacrificed so much for a vendetta that she had instigated. Had her mother known? That their father had been corrupt? That he had sold land knowing it wasn’t fit for development? That he had conned people—people who had put everything they had into their plans? People like Alessandro and Gianni. So much had been lost to her father’s greed. Who would she and Issy have become had they not spent ten years on this path of vengeance? Where would they be now?
Free.
The thought came unbidden to her mind and for such a soft word it hit her with the force of a truck, rocking her to her core.
Standing in the doorway, he saw her sway. The phone he’d seen her use to make a call—probably to her sister—hung listlessly from her fingers. He fought against every instinct he had to go to her. Earlier that morning, he might have. But he’d managed at least four hours’ sleep and now he was thinking more clearly.
This woman had committed an act of sabotage against his business. Her motivation mattered little. She had done something to Rossi Industries and before he could even think about her pregnancy, he needed to know what she’d done. Only once that was resolved, could they talk about...
His gaze landed on her stomach, knowing that there would not be any signs of the baby she carried for at least another three months. Instead of letting his thoughts linger there, he took in the rest of her. She was dressed in the clothes he’d put out for her before he’d retreated to his room. Despite the way she had rolled the waistband of the trousers, they still hung a little low on her hips.
He probably could have raided Gianni’s compound, fairly sure that there would be some women’s clothing left behind by one of his lovers, but the thought of dressing Amelia in another woman’s clothes made him faintly nauseous. Instead, he’d found a shirt from years ago, before he’d filled out into the broad shoulders he was now used to. Still large on her, she’d twisted the edges of the shirt into a knot and somehow looked carelessly fashionable.
Desirable.
No. In his mind a hand slashed through his thoughts, sending them scattering. Enough. Ever since the phone call from Gianni, he had been on the back foot. With so much at stake, he needed to take control of the situation.
‘Amelia,’ he said, calling her attention to him. When she came out of her thoughts, her gaze cleared enough to look at where he was gesturing to the table. She returned her phone to her bag and left it on the sofa, slowly making her way to a table she eyed with discomfort.
‘Would you prefer to talk elsewhere?’ he asked, not out of consideration for her feelings, he told himself, but more for curiosity.
‘What, for Interrogation Take Two?’ she asked, a forced lightness to her tone attempting to take the sting out of her words as she sat on the opposite side of the table. He eyed her coffee cup with a suspicion that must have been obvious because she defensively explained that it was decaf.
He sat down and rolled his shoulders, trying not to pull at the collar of the shirt he had dressed in. Earlier it had made him feel in control, but now that Amelia was dressed more casually, it felt almost puritanical and obvious. As if he were trying too hard to maintain a boundary between them that had already been obliterated.
‘Obviously the...’ baby ‘...pregnancychanges a lot. But I need to know what you did,’ he said.
Her eyes flared, guilty slashes painting the paleness of her cheeks a glowing red, and his stomach dropped.
‘It’s the Aurora project,’ she confessed. ‘I’m sorry, if I’d known—’
‘Just that? Or are there any other projects that are at risk?’ he interrupted, his thoughts scrambling to damage limitation. The instinct to call his CFO was riding him hard, but he didn’t know if there was more.
‘No. Just Aurora.’
He nodded once. ‘Is it salvageable?’ he asked, a buzz ringing in his ears. It had been a project he’d spent years on. One that would be visible from his father and uncle’s vineyard, it was meant to be not only Rossi Industries’ crowning glory, but the final twist of the knife in his father and uncle’s back.
She bit her lip. Neither lush nor pouty, her mouth shouldn’t have been cause for any kind of fascination—but still he noticed the way the top lip line was more straight than curved, the bottom lip marginally fuller than its partner, exposed by the straight white teeth pinning and blooming the soft pink flesh—
Dio mio, he needed to get a grip.
‘Have the contracts been signed?’ she asked, shoving him back into the conversation at hand.
Before he’d caught the few hours of sleep he’d needed, he’d managed to get a message out to his staff to stop any paperwork going through at all on any project. It had caused absolute chaos, but clearly it had been worth it.
‘Have they?’ she asked in the face of his silence.
He was tempted to let her stew, but that seemed almost petty now.
‘No.’
She breathed a huge sigh of relief, her head falling into her hands, before she swept the hair back from her face and he caught a glimpse of the woman he had worked beside for two years.
She nodded as if to herself. ‘It’s Firstview. They don’t have the capability to see the project through.’
‘We would have picked that up,’ he said, dismissing her statement.
