AllFreeNovel
Share Us
But Claudia was shaking her head. “This isn’t about lunch,” she said. “Amy wants to speak to you.”
“Amy?” He frowned. “Why didn’t she call the house line?”
“Shedidcall the house line. I told her she could come over.”
“You know I haven’t got time today. Tell her I’ll get in touch with her later.”
Really, Amy couldn’t jerk him around like this. The last thing she had said to him was that they needed to see less of each other. Now she was coming over here in the middle of the day as if that had never happened, interrupting his work? It didn’t make sense.
Claudia wasn’t leaving. She leaned against the doorframe, clearly waiting for him to get up. “You should go speak to her,” she said. “She’s really eager to talk to you. And between you and me, boss, she’s kind of upset.”
“What is she upset about?”
“Oh, no.” Claudia shook her head. “I’m not getting involved. Talk to her about it, not to me.”
That was fair, even if it was frustrating. “You can send her in,” he said.
“She’s in the den. She’s waiting for you there.”
Adriano frowned. “Why would you send her into the den? Now I’ve got to interrupt my workflow.”
“Boss,” Claudia said. She was the only one of his staff who got away with calling himboss. “If you’re ever going to listen to me about anything, let it be now, all right? Go talk to her in the den. I promise you won’t regret it.”
It was clear that she wasn’t going to leave until Adriano complied. He wasn’t used to his staff being demanding like this. They were usually good about giving in to what he wanted.
And although a part of him wanted to tell her off for presuming to order him around, there was another part of him that recognized the fact that such a wild change in her behavior probably meant there was something going on that he needed to know about.
What if Amy had decided she’d been wrong not to kiss him? What if she was ready to take that back, and she had told Claudia?
She did say I wouldn’t regret it…
Suddenly it felt as if he couldn’t get to the den quickly enough.
And sure enough, there she was, sitting on the very end of the couch with her hands knotted in her lap, waiting for him.
She was obviously nervous. He didn’t think he had ever seen her look like this before. She looked like she was about to jump off the couch and go running back to the guest cottage. Something about her demeanor made him hesitate to approach her. He was afraid he might spook her and make her take off.
But when he sat down on the couch, she stayed.
“Hey,” she said quietly. “Thanks for agreeing to see me. I know I’m interrupting your workday.”
“Of course.” His heart was racing, and he couldn’t understand why he was suddenly so nervous. Talking to women never made him nervous.
When had this happened? When had she begun to have this powerful effect on him, and why couldn’t he shake it off?
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “We need to talk,” she said.
“If it’s about what happened at the lake, I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I know it was more than you wanted from me. I shouldn’t have pushed things.”
“It isn’t about that,” she said.
There was something else? Adriano wracked his brains trying to figure out what it might be, but nothing else had happened between them recently. Was she going to tell him that she didn’t want to see him at all anymore? Was she going to say the only time she’d come out of the guest cottage was to advise him on medical matters?
Maybe she was about to tell him that she couldn’t serve as his doctor and she was going back to America. She had had doubts about the sense of coming here in the first place, and really, hadn’t he proven her right to doubt by continuing to pursue her? He hadn’t meant to do that—but he couldn’t deny that it was what had happened.
She took another deep breath, then looked up into his eyes.
“I’m pregnant,” she whispered.
