AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I put her down gently and kissed her passionately.
“Are you okay? How are you feeling? You should sit down—maybe we shouldn’t have gone on that run.” My words were running together and my mind was all over the place. This was as far from the usual, composed Rafael Santino as I could get.
“I’m fine. I’m just pregnant.”
I became serious. “We’ll have to stop going for our runs now.”
She shook her head. “Exercise is good for pregnant women. We just might have to take it a bit easier later in the pregnancy, but we’ve got nine months to worry about that.”
I put my hand to her stomach, knowing that our baby would be a tiny speck. “Nine months of waiting to meet this baby.” Already I was impatient. I still couldn’t believe there was another life in her, a life that we had made together. “When can we tell everyone?” I asked.
“They say the pregnancy is generally safe after the first twelve weeks have passed. Hopefully, the sickness will pass by then because I can’t imagine feeling like this every day for the next nine months.”
“Why don’t you take a shower, Jess, and I’ll get started on making us breakfast.”
“Don’t you have to get to work?” Normally I showered while Jess made breakfast, so that I could eat and then head straight off to work.
“There’s nothing more important than you right now. You and our baby.”
CHAPTER 24
RAFAEL
After the Monday Post-Mortem dinner the following week, Nate and Nancia got up to leave.
“No, don’t leave just yet. We need to talk to you, Nancia,” Gabriel said.
Nancia sat back down, and Nate automatically sat down as well. Anything that concerned her, concerned him as well. A deep frown marred Nate’s forehead—he could already feel it was bad. It was like he had a sixth sense when it came to his twin.
Gabriel frowned. “I’ve been going through our father’s papers. Nancia, it seems that before his death, he promised you in marriage to Leoluca Veneti.”
Nancia’s blue eyes widened as the words sank in. She had, of course, heard of the Veneti name.
Nate interrupted. “But she was only promised? No contract was signed, so the promise isn’t binding,” he said, more in hope than anything else.
“The engagement contract was signed. Our father signed it in Nancia’s stead,” I replied.
“For fuck’s sake,” exclaimed Nate. “She’s not marrying that bastard.” And for once, neither Gabriel nor I admonished his bad language.
“We all agree with you on that,” responded Gabriel. “We’re not going to follow the contract. We’re going to tell the Venetis that it’s canceled.”
“But will they allow you to do that?” said Nancia, finally speaking. She was trying to make her tone strong, even when she was just in front of us, but she couldn’t prevent her voice from trembling.
“It doesn’t matter whether they want to accept it or not. You’re not marrying him. And that’s all there is to it,” I said firmly.
“However, it will mean tensions will escalate between us and the Venetis,” added Gabriel. “And it will probably mean war between our organizations.”
“I don’t care how many of them we need to kill,” growled Nate. “Nancia is my twin, and we have to keep her safe from him.”
JESSICA
The next morning, Gabriel and Rafael had left for work while I was having breakfast with the twins.
“I can’t believe our father wanted to marry you off to a Veneti,” said Nate, still raging about what he learned last night.
Nancia’s dark blue eyes were huge on her face. “I’m worried,” she said to her twin.
I felt uncomfortable that they were talking about this in front of me, feeling like an intruder in their conversation. When they spoke like this to each other, it was like they shut out the whole world around them. I concentrated intently on eating my cereal and tried to pretend I wasn’t listening.
