Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 98321 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98321 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
“So we’ve heard,” I murmured, a little more sarcastically than intended.
“Let me guess—Mama Moretti is already on you about it. I wasn’t married to Pietro for ten minutes before she asked me when I planned on getting pregnant.” She laughed and tapped my arm. “Luckily, it happened on my wedding night, can you believe it? We weren’t even trying!”
“Wow. That is lucky. You have a beautiful family.”
“Thank you. You will too someday. But don’t wait too long. My sister’s best friend Anna—she’s an E.R. doctor—was always too busy to date and found herself still single at almost forty. She tried to get pregnant with a sperm donor, but it was too late. Her eggs were bad quality by then.” She shook her head sorrowfully. “They never tell you that, do they? That your eggs have a sell-by date.”
I tipped up the last of my wine. “I need to use the bathroom real quick. Be right back.”
But I never went outside again.
“Hey, you.” On the drive home from Pietro’s, Enzo took my hand. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m fine,” I said.
“Except that I know you, and you’re not fine. You’re wearing your Very Serious Face, the one you make when the sauce isn’t quite right and you can’t figure out what you need more of, and you’re hoping you don’t need less of something, because there’s nothing to be done about that.”
I forced a smile. “Ha.”
“Come on. Talk to me.” He squeezed my hand. “You signed a contract saying you wouldn’t make me read your mind, remember?”
“I remember the contract.” Especially the rule about not falling in love with you. And I’m terrified it’s happening.
“Are you still upset about this morning?”
“Yes.” It wasn’t a lie. It just wasn’t the whole truth.
He was silent a moment, and when he spoke again I thought he was going to say something trite or patronizing—in fact, I almost hoped he would, so I’d have reason to be angry with him—something like every cloud has a silver lining or you shouldn’t take this to heart or it just wasn’t supposed to happen yet.
But he didn’t. He took my hand, pressed his lips to my fingers, and held them there. Then he placed our hands in his lap.
My throat closed, and my eyes filled. Stop it, I wanted to tell him. Stop acting as if you love me, because I’m confused and scared.
“Lynne said something that made me feel bad,” I confessed.
“What did she say?”
“Nothing awful. It was just the wrong day to tell me how much she loves being pregnant, what a miracle it is, what a great dad you’ll make, how her sister’s friend waited too long to try to have a baby and never could because her eggs got old.”
“Why is she saying that shit to you?” He sounded angry.
“It’s just how women talk. She didn’t mean to make me feel bad,” I assured him. Somehow his anger on my behalf took away some of the residual sting from her words. “Half the women in your family—and mine too—love to ask me when we’re going to have kids. Sometimes it’s a struggle to keep the smile on my face and evade the question.”
“They should all fucking mind their own business,” scoffed Enzo. “And I’m going to tell them so next time I see them.”
I couldn’t help smiling. “No, don’t. It’s okay.”
“It isn’t. Anyone who messes with you messes with me.”
In the dim lights of the dash, I could see him scowling like he was ready to take on the playground bully for me.
And that was the moment I knew—I was madly, deeply, desperately in love with him.
But I couldn’t tell him. He could never know.
I swallowed hard, and focused out the windshield again, the streetlights blurring through my tearful eyes. Closing them, I fought back against the sob trying to rise in my chest. This wasn’t fair. This wasn’t fucking fair.
I wasn’t supposed to feel this way.
I wasn’t supposed to feel anything.
Back at home, I actually dug out the original contract we’d signed and locked myself in the bathroom with it, reading it over and over again, trying to get back to that place—that feeling like I was safe on dry land.
But it was no use. The tide had swept me out to sea, and now I was drowning.
From a distance, I heard myself laughing as I wrote the words: “Special rule for Bianca: No falling in love with Enzo Moretti, and if you forget for one moment what a cocky, arrogant, egotistical, presumptuous, swaggering ass he is, just come back and look at this list!!!!!”
I saw his outraged, offended face as he demanded I remove the last part and recalled adding all the exclamation points. I’d promised him I knew exactly who he was and I’d never expect him to be anyone else.
What I hadn’t realized was that I could love him exactly as he was, flaws and all. That the very things I used to dislike in him would one day make me smile. And how all the things I’d come to learn about him, how passionate and funny and sweet he could be—and what an incredible father he’d make—would turn my walls to dust.