Proof of Their Sin

“Well, you haven’t had a vasectomy, have you?” she blurted.

The car jostled slightly as he reacted, sending her a sharp look. “What are you saying? Ryan wouldn’t have done that.”

Any remorse she felt over revealing her husband’s duplicitous nature was quickly overshadowed by her tremendous bitterness over the secret he had kept from her. The many secrets.

“He did exactly that,” she said, scraping the words from the bottom of her trusting heart. “Before we married. And never told me.”

“Then what makes you believe he did it? Why would he even consider it before having children?” he argued.

“I don’t know.” She scowled, still capable of a shred of empathy for the man who’d had an even worse relationship with his father than she had with her mother, times a million. “You know how difficult his father was,” she charged begrudgingly. “I can’t help thinking that had something to do with it.”#p#????#e#

Paolo shook his head, unable to comprehend this piece of information. He wanted to dismiss it completely, but when he glanced from the road ahead, he saw Lauren struggling with myriad emotions, fighting to hold on to her pride. Her bottom lip trembled with injured dignity before she firmed it, causing a strange tremor to hit deep in his chest.

This baby is a miracle.

He pulled his attention back to the road, uncomfortable with what she was saying because it supported a profile of Ryan that Paolo had long been trying to put from his mind. He grew even more uncomfortable in front of Lauren, given a certain conversation they’d almost had at Ryan’s birthday a couple years ago.

“Are you sure, Lauren?” he blurted, willing her to be mistaken. “How did you find out if he didn’t tell you?”

“Their family doctor came to see Elenore a few days after the funeral. She was a wreck and I said that I wished we’d at least been able to give her grandchildren and he said, ‘Well, I tried to talk Ryan out of that vasectomy, but he insisted.’ He said it like he thought I knew. I pretended I did while I finished my coffee, then I went upstairs, packed my things and flew home to Quebec.”

Lauren was still ashamed of that abrupt departure, but she’d hit the end of her rope in playing the mourning widow. She had already been months into accepting Ryan’s philandering, but it had been a fresh blow to count up all those years of anguish at what she had believed was her inability to conceive. She was just grateful Ryan had apparently used protection against disease while he’d been sleeping around because she had tested clean.

Tell him, she thought, glancing at Paolo. Tell him that Ryan was probably also ensuring none of his many affairs turned up with the sort of complication Paolo was currently facing.

She couldn’t do it, though. Paolo’s face was a wall of stubborn refutation, not unlike the way he’d looked the other time she’d brought up Ryan’s peccadilloes. Paolo didn’t want to hear anything against his friend and she wasn’t in the mood to be called a liar.

Deflated by his stubbornness and the long flight, she asked, “How far to my hotel?”

“You’re not going to a hotel. I told you, you’ve put me in a difficult position. The last thing I’ll allow you to do is run around Milan attracting attention.”

“Like whose?” she exclaimed. “I’m not even traveling under my married name. I’m back to being Lauren Green, complete nobody.”

“Don’t be naive, cara. After the stir you created last night, our photos are everywhere, all tagged to raise the same speculations as three months ago. Your new hair is a red flag. The paparazzi would love to spot you, especially going into a doctor’s clinic. Did you have plans to do such a thing?”

“Such a scandalous thing as having my blood pressure checked? Yes, I made arrangements. It’s a sensible precaution. But what stir? I was at your party for ten minutes and hardly spoke to anyone.”

“Exactly. Everyone was asking about the mystery woman who stole the host.” He muttered a few base curses in Italian. “Even Isabella was fielding questions. It was very awkward.”

“Well, I’m sorry for Isabella,” Lauren said sarcastically. “Maybe for your fiancée’s sake, the next time you have a one-night stand, call after a few weeks to see if there’s anything you need to know.”

Dead silence, then a dangerous, “Did you really just say that to me?”

“Is my naïveté showing? Because the not calling is what makes it a one-night stand, is that right? I’ll work on getting that right while I’m here.