Page 125 of Secret Baby for the Mafia Don
“I'll go to Italy and stay with Luca. It’s early enough that everyone can think I was with someone else. You’ll be off the hook. No suspicion on you.” She gives me a brutal smile that makes me feel like the biggest piece of shit in the history of the world. “Not your problem.”
Then it dawns on me that she’s got this all figured out already.
Which means she’s been thinking about it for some time.
Which means she wasn’t going to tell me.
The pain that sears through my chest is unexpected.
“You weren’t going to tell me about the pregnancy.”
"You don't want me or this baby,” she says matter-of-factly.
"You'd just take my child halfway across the world?"
Her hands still on the suitcase, her dark eyes turning toward me filled with rage. "Your child? Five minutes ago, you were accusing me of trapping you. Now suddenly, it's 'your child'?"
I want to scream because I can’t sort out the contradictory emotions colliding inside me.
I've spent my life avoiding exactly this scenario, yet the thought of her leaving with my unborn child makes me want to burn the world down.
"You can't just decide this on your own." There’s a desperation in my voice that unsettles me. I’m not a man who feels desperation. Especially not involving a woman.
"Watch me." She zips the suitcase with finality. "I'm doing what you want, Marco, freeing you from the burden of family. Isn't that what you've always wanted?"
Yes. No. Fuck! I don't know anymore.
I want to grab her, to shake her, to beg her to stay.
The impulse is so foreign to me that I freeze, paralyzed by the intensity of it.
This woman has worked her way under my skin, past all my defenses, and now she's walking away. Again.
She looks at me with something like pity. "Go. Your real life is waiting."
I stand frozen as Gabriella brushes past me. Something in my chest fractures. My jaw tightens. I remind myself that this is what I want.
I finally propel myself forward out into the hall and watch as she descends the stairs, her phone to her ear as she requests a ride home.
It’s probably Frank she’s calling.
She’ll be fine with him.
And she’s right, she can be protected as well at her father’s home as mine.
Unable to watch her walk out on me again, I return to my room. In the bathroom, I stare at the pregnancy test.PREGNANT.
I find it difficult to think a man as broken and… soulless as me could even create life.
And yet here’s proof that I did.
A child. My child.
Growing inside the woman who just walked out my door.
What do I know about being a father?
My own was a monster who taught me that love is weakness and family is a chain that binds you to suffering.
