The Real Rio D'Aquila

Isabella sat.

The room was spinning and her stomach was somewhere just slightly south of her throat. She bent forward, shut her eyes and took long, deep breaths.

Okay. She’d have to deal with this summer virus.

Because it was a summer virus. It had to be.

“Here you go.”

Anna pressed a tall glass of iced water into Isabella’s hands. She drank it slowly. Over the past few days she’d learned, the hard way, that when she felt like this, even a drink of water might trigger a gag reaction.

“Better?”

Isabella nodded. “Yes, thank you. Much better.”

“It’s a good thing I came along when I did. You’d still be out there, working in the Sahara and saving our pansies.” Anna peered at her younger sister. “You look like hell.”

“Thank you.”

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” Anna said briskly, taking the glass from Isabella. “You take a nice cool shower, I’ll give you something to wear and then we’ll have a glass of Pinot Grigio while we wait for Draco to come home. We’re having broiled halibut for supper and—Izzy?”

Isabella ran for the powder room and made it just in time to slam the door and bend over the toilet before her stomach emptied itself of the crackers and chicken soup she’d managed to get down for lunch.

She flushed the bowl. Washed out her mouth, washed her hands and face. Her reflection was not reassuring. Her cheeks were colorless, her hair was wild—and the worst was yet to come.

She had to face Anna.

A long, deep breath. Then she opened the bathroom door. Her sister was standing right outside, arms folded, expression grim, looking exactly the way Isabella felt—

As if the world as they both knew it was about to end.

“You’re pregnant,” Anna said flatly.

Isabella tried for a laugh. “You certainly have a way with words.”

“You,” Anna repeated, “are pregnant.”

“I just said—”

“I heard what you said, and it wasn’t ‘no, I’m not.’ Answer me, Izzy. Did that lying SOB get you pregnant?”

Isabella narrowed her eyes. “He didn’t ‘get’ me anything! I’m a grown woman. I’m responsible for myself.”

“Damnit, answer the question! Are you pregnant?”

“This is not a courtroom, and I am not on the witness stand!”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning …” Isabella’s shoulders slumped. “Meaning, I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“Read my lips. I mean, I—don’t—know.”

“How can you not know? Have you missed your period? Have you seen a doctor? Bought an EPT? It is not possible to answer a question like, ‘Are you pregnant?’ by saying, ‘I don’t know.’”

“It is, if you’re a coward.”

“Oh, Iz …”

“See? This is why I didn’t want to tell you. That ‘oh, Iz,’ as if you were thirteen and I were twelve and I’d just spilled your favorite nail polish all over your favorite sweater.”

“Izzy, honey—”

“And that. That look. That tone. ‘Izzy, honey,’ meaning ‘Izzy, you pathetic little incompetent, you sad underachiever, what have you done now?’”

Anna threw up her hands in defense. “I never—”

“Maybe not, but that’s how it always sounds.”

“How what always sounds? Izzy—”

“And that’s another thing. My name is Isabella.”

The sisters stared at each other.

“We need to talk,” Anna finally said.

Isabella nodded and Anna led the way to the kitchen. Isabella sat at the glass-topped table. Anna poured another glass of iced water and gave it to her, started to pour water for herself, muttered “to hell with it” and instead took an opened bottle of Pinot Grigio from the fridge and poured herself half a tumbler of it.

Then she plopped into a chair opposite Isabella’s.

“I have never,” she said softly, “not once in our entire lives, thought you were anything less than smart, capable and altogether competent. Okay? I mean, let’s get that out of the way first.”

Isabella used her damp glass to make a ring of intersecting circles on the tabletop.

“You’re my sister,” Anna continued. “My baby sister, and—”

“I’m your sister,” Isabella said, looking up. “And you’re mine. And I love you like crazy, but—”

“But,” Anna said, “you’re all grown up. And I need to remember that.”

“You do.” Isabella gave a little laugh. “Except when my stuff isn’t as grown up as I am, and I need to borrow your clothes or your car …”

Her smile faded. Anna reached for her hand.

“Which takes us,” she said gently, “back to the beginning.”

Isabella nodded. “The old square one.”

“You want to tell me about it?”

Isabella hesitated. Then she swallowed hard.

“More than anything,” she said, and the entire sad story tumbled out. It took a while, because she had not told anyone anything after Dante and Anna had brought her back to the States.

But she knew the time had come.

She told Anna how she’d gotten stuck in traffic en route to Southampton. How she’d gotten lost. The accident that had left her on foot. How she’d stumbled through the gate at Rio D’Aquila’s estate hours late.

“And D’Aquila was waiting for you,” Anna said grimly.

“I didn’t know who he was,” Isabella said. “He was just a guy.” A big, shirtless, gorgeous sexy-looking guy …

“Go on.”

Isabella cleared her throat.

“We talked. And talked. He was—”

“Rude. Insolent.”

“Actually, he was charming. He was fun. And then—”

“And then, he seduced you.”

He kissed me, Isabella thought, God, he kissed me and I melted …

“No. He didn’t. I—I left. And he came after me. It was dark by then and he said—he said he’d take me to the train station.”

“But he didn’t, the no-good, testosterone-crazed SOB.”

“He did. Trouble was, the trains weren’t running.”

Anna snorted. “How could you have bought such a lie?”

“It was true. The station was closed. So, he said I could spend the night—”

“And then he seduced you.”

“He showed me to a guest room and he gave me

something to wear. I was a mess, your suit all torn and dirty—and I’m sorry about that. I’ll pay you back—”

“Forget the suit,” Anna snapped. “I’ll just bet he gave you something to wear, something left over from some other damsel in distress who’d spent the night in his—”

“He gave me one of his sweat suits. And then we went to the kitchen—”

“Naturally. Men like him always want a woman manacled to the stove with a skillet in her free hand.”

“Anna,” Isabella said carefully, “you think you’re being just a little judgmental here? Actually, he did the cooking. But we never got around to eating much because—”

“Because he sed—”

“My God,” Isabella said, yanking her hand free of her sister’s, “will you let me talk? Because we quarreled. But you’re right. We did get around to seduction …” Isabella’s voice trembled. “And I’m not really sure who seduced who.”

Anna stared at her sister. “Please,” she said, “please, please do not tell me you think you still feel something for this man!”

“Of course not.”

“Because he has the morals of the manure you use for fertilizer.”

“I don’t feel anything for him, but he’s not—not …”

“Izzy. I mean, Isabella, how can you say that? He seduced you, and don’t waste your breath saying you were equally responsible. You don’t know a thing about sex, Iz. And he—”

“He knew everything,” Isabella whispered. “And it was—it was wonderful.”

Anna Orsini Valenti looked at her sister. Ohmygod, she thought, and grabbed her hand again.

“Isabella,” Anna said firmly. “You’re forgetting all the rest. He spirited you out of the States.”

Isabella laughed.

“Okay, so that sounds dumb. What I mean is, he took you away from everything familiar, everything that could have kept you safe—”

“He kept me safe. I’d never felt that safe in my life. When I was with him, when he held me in his arms … Can you possibly understand what I mean?”

Anna could. She had only to think of how it felt each time her husband touched her, and she understood.

In fact, she was starting to think she understood everything.

Her sister—her baby sister, though she wouldn’t make the mistake of calling her that ever again, had fallen head over heels for a rat.