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Positive.
Positive?I stared at it for long moments, working my mind around what this meant.
It was something I’d never even considered happening. I never thought I’d be prepared enough to lose my virginity. I’d never evenconsideredthe repercussions. It hadn’t ever been something I’d thought about.
I was carrying Dante’s child, and tonight was the night I’d end his life. It had to be done. There was no way around it.
Nausea churned in my gut as I shook off my pounding thoughts and steeled myself. Emotions and what-ifs didn’t matter right now, though I couldn’t seem to push them away, no matter how hard I tried.
I’d be killing the father of my unborn child.
Could I really follow through with that, especially after living a life without my own biological parents? I could remember all the times when I was a child, crying in the dark for a father who would never come. I’d had Valentino to pick up the pieces, and this baby—this future child—would have nobody but me.
Was I really enough to carry the love of both parents?
Would my child grow up to resent me for killing their father in the same way as I resented Dante for killing mine?
The thoughts wouldn’t stop pounding into me with unrelenting fervor. It took every ounce of willpower to keep my breathing even and push them back, one at a time. I could take care of this…situation. I’d figure out what to do, but Dante’s survival wasn’t an option, not after learning the full truth of his involvement in my father’s murder.
It had been ignorant to believe he was a good man beneath the dark façade.
I strode from the room and tucked the vials in a back pocket, loosening the cap of the poison as I moved up the stairs.
My heart pounded through my ears, and everything around me blurred as I stepped into the cool evening air and saw Dante sitting leisurely at a pre-set table. Two plates already awaited us, and I wondered how long they’d been sitting there.
He stood and moved toward me, offering a genuine smile at the same time as he offered a hand.
Right now, I couldn’t begin to fathom how I’d do this. If there was one thing I knew for sure, he cared for me. He wanted me. And I wanted him in a physical way that I couldn’t allow myself to experience.
“You look stunning,” he said, guiding me toward the table.
I only nodded, offering a muted smile.
I could act through this. I could do it.
His smile dropped slowly. “What’s been bothering you?” he asked.
I leaned on the table, glancing down at two salads that looked delicious. I imagined an entree would come when he called for it, but I couldn’t let it get that far. I didn’t think I could hold myself together long enough to eat multiple parts of a meal.
“I just—” I could ask him what I wanted to know. It was my last chance, after all. “I need to know something.”
“Anything.”
God, he looked so sincere as he looked down at me.
For the first time, he looked like he wasn’t going to deny wanting me. Like I wasn’t just a prisoner to him.
“Did you start killing when you were young?”
“Relatively,” he admitted with a slow nod.
“How young?”
He shook his head, and I knew he wouldn’t answer that question. “This is not a topic for conversation over dinner tonight,” he said. “We grew up with two different lives, and in mine, killing wasn’t something that was saved for late adulthood.”
He had no idea how wrong he was. I considered our age difference. I was eight when my father was killed, and that meant he was around fifteen, give or take a year. It was about the age I’d taken my first life, too.
I turned and strode toward a small patio table, reaching for two wine glasses and pouring a sweet red into each. I discreetly pulled the clear vial from my pocket and poured it into one glass, swirling it with a finger before turning back toward him and taking a sip of my glass.
