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‘Trust me to navigate the next steps.’
‘The next steps...?’
Flora closed her eyes briefly. What was she? A parrot? If shewaspregnant, where would that leave her? Single? But tied to a man she’d given her virginity to for the rest of her life simply because a condom had split?
‘What choice do you have,piccolina?’ His features did not move. Not even a flicker. ‘We will leave here now and do a test together.’
‘What if I am pregnant—?’
‘First,’ he interrupted, ‘we will find out if you are.’
‘And if I am?’ she pushed. Because this was her life, and she was tired of facts being withheld from her. Of finding out after everyone else.
‘We’ll get married, of course.’
‘Married?’ she repeated, because so easily had the word fallen from his mouth. As easily as the news that she might be carrying his child. She wasn’t finding any of those words easy. ‘Why?’
‘If you are pregnant with my child, the child also belongs to me. I protect what is mine.’
‘A baby’s not a possession. You can’t claim ownership. Pass it around like an unwanted pet—’
‘Would you have preferred that I left you to discover this on your own? That I left you to struggle with single motherhood?’
‘Iamsingle,’ she reminded him.
His lips compressed. ‘Not any more.’
‘You can’t claim me just because you will it,’ she said, dismissing his possessive claim with a wave of her unsteady hand.
‘If you are pregnant,’ he said, ‘our baby deserves to know where it comes from.Whoit comes from. It has a right to its father’s name.Myname.’
There was something in his tone—something raw. As though he’d revealed too much.
‘Are those your own words?’
She bit hard on her lower lip. Words were swimming in her head.Pregnant. A baby. Failure. A mistake. Discovered and abandoned. Unwanted.
‘Or words you’ve taken and recycled from my file? Did you read that my biological father is unknown to me?’
‘I did.’ His eyes darkened. ‘And I too understand—intimately—the weight of being denied your true origins.’
‘You were adopted too?’ she asked, her brain jumping quickly to that conclusion.
‘No. But I lived only with my mother, who told me stories of my father being a count. Italian nobility.’
His tone was flat and sober as he told her this, giving nothing away.
‘He’d hidden her away for the shame of having his illegitimate son.’
‘You’re the illegitimate son?’
‘I am,’ he confirmed.
‘Did it hurt?’
‘Which bit?’
‘The stories?’ she asked.
