Page 52 of Claimed By Him

Our last conversation before I walked out of her apartment proved that she would be happier without me anyway. And to be honest, she’d kind of disappeared after that. I thought I would still see her around because our siblings were married, and we could honestly never avoid each other for years before now, but I hadn’t seen her, not even once. She must have been going out of her way to steer clear of me. It agitated me, and I still thought about her every fucking day, but I knew I had to stay away if she was going to live the life she wanted.

She had dreams that I didn’t fit into, and I needed to figure out what the fuck I wanted for my own life and what my own dreams were before I could even think of approaching an ambitious woman like her again.

So, I headed out with no destination and no time plan. All I knew was that I wanted to find a cabin in the woods somewhere with no phone signal and lots of trees to practice throwing my knife a thousand times a day. That would be my fishing.

21

Fiona

Another four months later

“Urg! Stupid fucking car!”

I struggled with the gears, becoming frustrated with the clutch because I’d only ever driven automatic cars before. It didn’t help that my massive pregnant belly was in the way, and I couldn’t even see where I was putting my feet.

“Why drive stick, Gio? Why?”

I shoved the gear stick into first and revved the engine until the big black town car jerked forward with speed. It was late at night, and I was alone; Gio didn’t even know I’d taken his Merc. I planned to leave it at the airport and send him a message when I was on the airplane.

However, I’d only made it a few blocks away from the house so far. He could probably run after me at this point. My plan was to make it to JFK and find the first flight to anywhere in Europe before anyone caught up with me, and I was sticking to it. My bags were in the trunk, my passport was in my handbag, and I was ready. So fucking ready.

I had to leave because my life had bombed. Completely just collapsed in on itself.

Four months ago, after talking to Alex, I tried to call Tony. I tried to do the right thing. But the call didn’t even go through to his phone. In the car, I asked Gio if he would find Tony and quietly let him know I needed to speak with him, but Gio couldn’t find him either. Apparently, he’d left town, and no one really knew why.

I mean, what the fuck? His goddamn basis for not being with me was because he had to stay here and protect his family, so where the fuck did he go? When I eventually saw his sisters, they told everyone that he needed time to clear his head before taking on the role of being Don Romano.

Well, whoopty-fucking-doo!Good for him. Meanwhile, I sat with backaches, heartburn, needing to pee every fucking five minutes, and getting absolutely no sleep because my body pained so badly, and that was just to name a few of the things going on with my body I could actually understand. Not to mention, the judgmental stares and comments from everyone in my life—except Gio—who thought I got knocked up by some one-night stand I couldn’t remember the name of. Okay, there was Ari too, she knew everything, but she could only comfort me so much from her new student apartment at Columbia University.

Then, a month ago, my heart broke for the last time.

Alex died unexpectedly from a stroke.

I couldn’t remember ever crying as much as I did then, not even when my father died. Alessandro was the kindest and most pure human being I’d ever known. Maybe it was his maturity, but I never felt as safe and comfortable in a man’s presence as I did when I spent time with him.

We had so many plans together; the wedding was going to be six months after my due date—just enough time for me to get back to my fabulous self and for my son to be old enough for travel because we would have left immediately after the wedding to see the world and finally settle down in Italy.

All those plans were ruined now. Alex left me as his sole heir, but it meant nothing if I didn’t have him to share his wealth, to travel with, to build a life together. They were just assets now: money, his New York Marchesi estate, and other property across the globe. I still wasn’t allowed to live on my own; Antonio immediately refused any idea of me keeping my Milan plans without Alessandro with me. I was back to square one.

Onlythissquare one was more like a negative five because now I had my baby to raise all on my own. Even if Tony magically appeared again from wherever the fuck he’d gone to, I was way too broken and angry to consider telling him anything. He wasn’t here when I needed him; I’d gone through all of this on my own, so he didn’t deserve the truth. I’d probably only scare him off anyway; I mean how could he want me now? I was fat and depressed and came as a package deal. I knew he would just end up doing the “right thing” and look after me, but that was the last thing I wanted.

If he didn’t want me at my best, I definitely wasn’t going to force him to take me at my worst. Talk about a romance killer.

So here I was, trying a last desperate attempt to disappear into the world and live my life independently. I had enough money to hire a whole company of bodyguards to protect me, so Antonio would have to just suck it up when he eventually found out.

I clasped the steering wheel and ground my teeth together as I tried to remember how to get to the highway. I was climbing up the hill in third gear, and the car was losing power, but I couldn’t find the damn clutch pedal, and I was losing my fucking mind!

Okay, clearly, a panic attack was setting in.

“Aaaaah!” I cried out in pain.

Maybe it wasn’t a panic attack…

“Oow!”

I swerved to the side of the road, stopped the car, and dropped my head against the steering wheel, hearing sudden honking behind me. I quickly found the hazards and switched them on, hoping people would just move past.

Shit!Was I seriously going into labor now?Now?When I still had a week before my due date? When I was alone and on the run?Fuck!

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