Bound By Love (Born in Blood Mafia Chronicles 6)

I put on the loose silk bathrobe that hid my bump and made my way out of the bedroom with bare feet. The house was quiet, but distantly I heard the rumble of deep voices.

I was surprised to find Luca and Matteo still at the breakfast table. Their plates were covered in crumbs, but they were done eating and caught in an argument from the look of it. Another plate was also covered in crumbs, but Gianna had already made her exit. She and Luca in a room, that didn’t last long. She was probably in the gym. Lily and Romero had left for New York yesterday morning.

Both men looked up at me. I didn’t say anything, didn’t meet either of their gazes. I was too tired to deal with my feelings. Swallowing my nausea, I reached for the thermos with fruit tea that Marianna always prepared for me, and put it in a cup. I drank a sip of the hot fruit tea, not sitting down. I couldn’t stomach anything else in the morning right now, and I didn’t want to risk sitting down lest I had to run to the bathroom.

Luca was watching me, his eyes lingering on my cheekbones, then my collarbones. I knew he could see my bones protruding sharply. The bathrobe couldn’t hide every part of me. I’d lost even more weight in the last two weeks. I was starting to get worried about the baby, but I just couldn’t keep food inside. I took another sip of the tea, one hand clutching the edge of the table to steady myself. Mornings were always the worst.

“You should sit down,” Matteo suggested, and his voice made me look up because it held worry.

Luca rose from his chair, took the basket with Danishes and held it out toward me. He wasn’t close, never close anymore. “Marianna got your favorite almond biscotti. You need to eat.”

His gray eyes were softer than I’d seen them in a long time, but I had given up hoping.

I stared down at the baked goods and felt my stomach turning over. I looked back up. His eyes were desperate. “Aria, please,” he added. He almost never said “please,” especially not in front of others, not even Matteo. A violent wave of sickness gripped me. I shook my head, fighting the nausea.

“I can’t,” I got out, then turned around and walked slowly back upstairs. Running would have made me throw up. I was glad that Luca didn’t follow me anymore. It made this easier.

I threw up what little I still had in my stomach, then I brushed my teeth in a daze and washed myself with a cloth. Dizzy like this I couldn’t risk going into the shower.

I walked back into the bedroom and undressed, then turned around to face the floor-length mirror.

“What are you doing to me?” I whispered affectionately. Fourteen weeks. I cupped my bump. Naked like this, there was no mistaking that I was pregnant. I turned, facing the mirror sideways. A baby. I stroked my bump lightly, wishing it was Luca’s hands, needing his touch and love so much it hurt.

The door to the bedroom opened. “Aria.” It was Luca.

I whirled around, away from the mirror, and rushed toward the clothes stand where I’d left my bathrobe. I ripped it off and made the whole thing topple over. I flinched as it hit the ground before my feet, then quickly clutched the bathrobe to my naked front.

Luca stood frozen in the room, his eyes moving from the clothes rack to me clutching the bathrobe like it was my salvation.

Regret flickered on his face, but I didn’t dare hope. “Aria, are you scared of me?” he asked quietly.

Was I? I regarded Luca. I had been occasionally in the days after he’d thought I’d cheated, but not anymore. He hadn’t hurt me when he’d thought I’d betrayed him in the worst way possible. He would never hurt me.

“No,” I said with conviction.

He moved toward me, movements slow and careful as not to startle me as he picked up the rack and straightened it. He looked into my eyes and the emotion in his tugged at my heartstrings. “I don’t care about pain. I can deal with torture. But when I saw you with Dante, and thought that you…” He trailed off, face twisting with agony. “I wanted to kill you, and I wanted to kill myself because I knew I was too weak to do it.”

What a logic.

“I’m sorry I made you think you couldn’t trust me. But Luca, I love you. I would never let another man touch me, never betray you like that. Never.”

“I know,” he said quietly. He still didn’t bridge the remaining distance between us. Perhaps because I was still shielding myself with the bathrobe as if I was scared of what he’d do with my nakedness.