Finally, Alessia was alone.
Her hands shook as she opened the kits.
She took the tests, one after another, drinking as much water as she could between them, but the results were all the same.
She was pregnant. Pregnant! How could it have happened?
She was on the pill. She’d been on it for almost a year, ever since her gynecologist had told her it might help ease the crippling pain she suffered every month. Nicolo had asked her if she used birth control, and even though it wasn’t birth control, not for her, she’d assured him that she was….
Alessia stared at herself in the mirror, hands braced for support on the bathroom sink as the world began to turn gray.
But she had not been. Not that night. She always took her pill at bedtime but she had not taken it that night; she had left the little packet in her room at her father’s villa and in the excitement of making love, such incredible love with Nicolo, she had forgotten ev
erything but him.
When had she finally taken another pill?
She sank to the cool marble floor. A sob rose in her throat. She put her hand to her lips, bit down on her thumb to muffle the sound.
Not until two days—and two nights—later, when they’d returned to Villa Antoninni so they could retrieve their things.
She had missed three of the pills. Three! How could she have been so stupid? She had messed up and now she was pregnant. Nicolo’s baby was in her womb, tiny and helpless.
And unplanned. Unplanned and surely unwanted by its father…
“Alessia? Sweetheart, I’ve been waiting downstairs for you. Are you okay?”
Her heart pounded. She shot to her feet and swept all the EPT boxes and sticks into the wastebasket.
“Alessia. Answer me. Are you ill?”
“No,” she said in a high voice that bore no resemblance to her own. “I mean, yes, sì, I am. I—I have my period and—and—”
“Baby. Open the door.”
“No! Nicolo, per favore, I told you, this is a female thing.”
Nick narrowed his eyes. He knew about “female things.” When you grew up in a house with two sisters, the mystery wasn’t all that mysterious. His sister Isabella waltzed through her monthly cycle. Anna, on the other hand, crept around clutching a heating pad to her belly.
But he’d never heard Anna or any other woman sobbing and, dammit, Alessia had been sobbing.
Female thing or not, no way was his princess going to endure any kind of pain without him doing whatever he could to help.
“I’m coming in,” he said in a tone that said he wasn’t going to tolerate any nonsense. “No, Nicolo—”
Nick swung the door open. Alessia was sitting on the edge of the marble tub, eyes red and swollen, face shiny with tears.
His heart melted. “Ah, sweetheart…”
“Nicolo,” she said brokenly, and went straight into his arms.
Nick swept her off her feet and carried her into the bedroom. He sat down in a velvet armchair, drew her head against his chest and crooned to her, rocked her gently as he held her close. Long moments went by. Her sobs eased; her tears stopped. He waited a few seconds. Then he drew back and looked at her tearstained face. This was more than pain from her period. Every instinct told him so.
“Princess.” Gently, he smoothed her hair back from her damp cheeks. “What is it?”
Alessia looked at Nicolo. His eyes were filled with concern. His arms were a bulwark against the woes of the world. He was a good, kind man. He had not signed on for this.
She could lie to him. Tell him she wept because her period was agony. Tell him almost anything. He would believe her, if she told the lie well enough.