Page 46 of The Baby His Secretary Carries

He ignored thatbutand closed his hand on hers again, trying to impress on her why their marrying was so important to him.

“Having an heir matters, Molly. Look how exposed Rafael is without one.” He nodded toward the door.

She caught her breath, and her profile seemed to grow hollow with angst.

An acquaintance approached them. They had to circulate, but Molly was so quiet and withdrawn, he insisted they leave a short time later.

CHAPTER NINE

“I’LLGOTOthe meeting alone,” Gio said the following morning when Molly came to the breakfast table. Given both men’s demanding lives, and Rafael’s recent injuries, they’d had to reschedule this signing of the final agreement for a Sunday, but that didn’t mean Molly had the day off. “Go back to bed. You barely slept.”

“Did I bother you last night? You should have let me go to the other bed.” Molly had had a tension headache by the time they got back to their hotel. She’d been awake much of the night, trying not to toss and turn.

When Gio had asked her why she couldn’t sleep, she had tried to leave, but he had spooned her. His cradling hold had been such a comfort against her angst-ridden thoughts, she had stayed in his arms, still awake, trying to make sense of the incomprehensible. Then she’d felt a faint, fluttering sensation in her middle that had made her want to cry into her pillow with a mixture of elation and misery.

Would Sasha care that this baby was beginning to make itself known with those tiny movements? She didn’t even remember Molly! Neither she nor Rafael had acknowledged that Molly was carrying their baby. Did she even remember that she had given birth to Libby eleven years ago?

The idea that she had forgotten Libby broke Molly’s heart. Libby would never know, but it was still tragic. Patricia would be equally upset to hear it.

It was tragic for Sasha, too. Maybe the suppression of the memory of her daughter was something her brain was doing to protect her, but it also meant she didn’t remember how devastated she’d been over her recent fertility troubles. Or how she had seemed so jubilant when Molly’s pregnancy had been confirmed.

“You look exhausted. That’s not an insult. It’s concern,” Gio continued.

“It’s one meeting,” she mumbled, wishing she could skip it. Facing Rafael again, and pretending they didn’t have a closer relationship, would be a difficult test of her acting skills. “Once I shower and put on makeup, you won’t even notice how awful I look.”

“I will always notice how you look and I will always be concerned if you don’t look well,” he assured her. “If your insomnia had anything to do with what you said to me yesterday, before we left for the museum—”

“Oh, God, please don’t.” She covered her face like a child, too mortified for him to continue. She had revealed her heart in the most glaring way, then had felt raw all the way to the museum, waiting for him to say something while praying he wouldn’t.

That torture had been eclipsed by their encounter with Sasha and Rafael and everything Gio had said about how precarious Rafael’s position was, but her mortification was still sitting under her skin like a splinter that wouldn’t stop throbbing.

“Molly.” Gio reached across to take her wrist, urging her to look at him while he tangled their fingers. “I hope you understand that any emotional reserve on my part is a result of my childhood. It took me a long time to accept that my grandfather genuinely cared about me. I was taughtnotto attach to people. The few who were kind to me, always left.”

She clung to his hand, searching his expression for something more than concern. Tenderness. Affection. Something that would indicate that he returned her love.

“Hearing those words from you...” His expression flexed with anguish, but his eyes were burning flames. “I know you wouldn’t say something like that lightly. It means a lot to me that you did.”

She knew he was being sincere, but it was still a disappointing shortfall compared to what she longed for him to say. Her mouth began quivering and her eyes filled, which only made her feel transparent, increasing her agony.

Her personal phone, the one she had been carrying like a lifeline since Sasha’s crash, pinged with an incoming message.

“That’s early for Libby,” Gio noted as she picked it up to glance at the screen.

It’s R. When can we talk?

“What’s wrong?” Gio asked sharply, making her realize she’d allowed her shock—and relief?—to show on her face. Finally she would have an explanation!

“Nothing. It’s Mom. Late night with a client,” she lied. “I will stay here while you go to the meeting,” she decided, texting essentially the same thing to Rafael, asking him to come up as soon as Gio left. It took all her courage to lift her gaze and betray nothing of the way her nerves were screaming with tension. “If you don’t mind.”

Gio’s brow furrowed as he searched her expression, but after an endless moment of silence, he nodded jerkily.

Gio left an hour later. She texted Rafael, then hurried to change from the pajamas she still wore, pulling on a pair of floral leggings and a belted shirtdress.

She clutched her roiling stomach as she waited.

The room phone rang and the concierge said, “You have a guest. Rafael Zamos?”

“Send him up, thank you.”

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