Page 78 of Coerced Wife

“Maybe not, and maybe you’re right. Maybe I don’t understand everything. However, you didn’t grow up in my world, Saverio. You have no idea what I’ll do to protect my baby. You may think you know me, but you haven’t evenscratched the surface. I’m truly sorry for your pain. I know it’s not easy. But you can’t have my child to replace the one you won’t have. Using me like that isn’t only cruel but also unfair to meandto my baby. I’ll never sign the adoption papers.” I get off his lap, looking down at him while dark and profound sadness bleeds into every part of me. “If you want to take my baby, you’ll have to kill me first.”

I don’t wait for his answer, because there isn’t one.

He can’t kill me as long as he needs me, and thanks to his own clever design, he needs me now more than ever. He needs yet another alibi, and Luigi already relies on me to do his books.

Saverio De Luca dug a big fat hole for himself.

We both know it when I walk from the room.

And I’ll be damned if my heart doesn’t shatter into a million messy pieces.

CHAPTER

EIGHTEEN

Saverio

Anya and I haven’t spoken about last night, and frankly, I don’t know what to make of it. More accurately, I have no idea where to go from here except forward—get married and tie her to me irrevocably.

My treasure is quiet in the car on the way to the club. Despite my protests, she insisted on coming in with me to catch up on work. I much prefer she stayed in bed. Thanks to me, she didn’t get much sleep. Albeit, here she is, because she’s a perfectionist when it comes to numbers. She won’t admit it, but when the credit and debit columns don’t balance, it drives her nuts.

I glance at her. The skin under her eyes looks darkish and bruised. I want to fucking strangle Rachele. I clench the wheel hard as I imagine wrapping my hands around her scrawny neck. She had no right to tell Anya and spoil the small chance we had at peace, but I guess that’s exactlywhy my ex-wife did it. She won’t wish me an iota of happiness even though she got the happily-ever-after she always wanted.

The neon letters spelling After Dark over the façade of Luigi’s building shine up ahead through thick mist that rolls in between the skyscrapers. The red and green of the traffic lights appear washed out and fuzzy through the foggy layer that paints the morning sky white. The weather forecast predicts wet snow for later.

At the club, I park in the underground parking lot and escort Anya upstairs. She wears a stylish blue cashmere coat over matching blue pants and a sweater that she paired with burgundy ankle boots, a beret, and gloves, looking gorgeous although fatigue is written all over her features. I want to pull her under my arm and kiss her, but she’s been giving me the cold shoulder since last night.

And honestly? I can’t blame her. She called me out on my shit, and I only admire her more for that. So I keep my distance, respecting the space she demands. For now. Soon, however, I’ll push that wedding band over her finger, and then there’ll be no more hiding from me. No more running, no matter what. I want her next to me and pinned underneath me at every chance I get, and I’ll make her understand that the moment she says yes in front of a church full of witnesses.

When I open the office door, I stop dead on the threshold. Giorgio sits in the visitor’s chair with his ankles crossed on Anya’s desk, peeling an orange.

Motherfucker.

He was supposed to lie low and stay at his father’s house today where a guard or two could keep an eye on him after Luigi grounded him like a naughty child.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, not quite succeeding in hiding the hostility in my tone.

He launches a peel through the air, neatly hitting the trashcan. “Same as you.”

I turn and grip Anya’s hips between my palms, enjoying the feel of her baby belly that presses against me. Her stomach has grown a lot bigger over the last few weeks. A fierce protective urge washes over me when I imagine the small baby curled up like a bean in her womb. We saw him sucking his thumb on the last ultrasound, and my black heart melted into one big puddle. I already love that little person as if he were my own.

Pressing our foreheads together, I keep my voice low. “Would you rather work at home?”

She glances over my shoulder at Giorgio, narrows her eyes, and gives a terse shake of her head.

I swallow down my apprehension and lead her inside by the hand. She’s going to have to stand up for herself against Giorgio and Luigi. Like the rest of the family, they’re part of my life. I can’t avoid contact between them forever.

Giorgio shoves a wedge of orange into his mouth and mumbles something that sounds like, “Morning,” around the piece of fruit.

Ignoring him, Anya goes to her workstation.

Giorgio chews noisily, swallows, and wipes juice from his chin with the back of his hand.

I put her laptop bag on the desk and help her to remove her coat.

“I said morning,” Giorgio says with a spiteful smile and a mocking glint in his bloodshot eyes. “Maybe you didn’t hear me.”

I slap his ankles off her desk and pin him with a look. I’m about to tell him to apologize for speaking to my fiancée like that and to get the fuck out when she says, “I heard you. I’ll answer you when you mean it.”

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