A Texas-Sized Secret (Texas Cattleman's Club: Blackmail 6)

Gio Fabiani, gorgeous, lying player who’d sneaked past her defenses long enough to get her into bed. Even now Naomi felt a quick stab of regret for her own poor choices. But moaning over the past wouldn’t get her anywhere. She opened her eyes, looked across the room at the crew busily working and kept her voice low as she spoke to Gio. As much as she’d prefer to just hang up on the man, she had to do the right thing and tell him about the baby.

“I have your many messages on my phone, bella,” Gio was saying. “What is so important? Is it that you miss me?”

She rolled her eyes and ground her teeth together, silently praying for patience. Behind his voice, she heard the telltale clatter and noise of a busy restaurant. With the time difference between Texas and Italy, it was late afternoon for Gio and he was probably at his favorite trattoria, sitting at a table on the sidewalk where he could see and be seen. She frowned at the mental image and then instantly shut down everything but the urge to get the truth said and done.

“I’ve been trying to get hold of you for months, Gio,” she said softly.

“Sì, sì, I have been very busy.”

Getting other foolish women into his bed, no doubt, and oh, how it burned to know she’d been just one of a crowd.

“Yes, me too. Gio,” she said, taking a breath to say it all at once. “I’m pregnant.”

Silence on the other end of the line and then, “This is happy news for you, sì?”

She skipped right over that. None of his business how she was feeling. “You’re the father.”

A longer silence from him this time, and she heard the street sounds of Italy in the background. She could see him, lounging in a chair, legs kicked out in front of him, a glass of wine in one hand and the phone in the other. What she couldn’t see was his reaction. She didn’t have long to wait for it, though.

“I am no one’s father, bella,” he said softly enough that she had to strain to hear him. “If you carry the baby, the baby is yours, not mine.”

She hadn’t expected anything else, but still, hearing it felt like a slap. How many women, she wondered, had made this call to Gio? How many times had he heard about a child he’d made just before he walked away from all responsibility? He was a dog, but it was her own fault that she’d fallen for his practiced charm. Toby had been right about him, of course. He’d called him a user, and that described Gio to a tee.

Naomi didn’t actually want Gio in her life or her baby’s. It seemed she would get what she wanted. But she had to be sure they both understood right where things were. “You’re not interested?”

“Bella, you must see that I am not a man who wishes the encumbrance of a child.”

The tone of his voice was that of a man trying to explain something to a very stupid person. And maybe she had been stupid. Once. But she wasn’t anymore.

“That’s fine, Gio. I’m not the one who made this phone call, Gio. I don’t want anything from you,” she said, flicking a glance toward the set, making sure no one was within earshot. “You had a right to know about the baby. That’s it.”

“Ah,” he said on a long sigh of what she assumed was satisfaction. “Then we are finished together, yes?”

Big yes, she thought. In an instant, her mind drew up an image of Toby and what had happened yesterday. How he’d stood with her to face her parents. The difference between the two men was incalculable. Toby would always do the right thing. Always. Gio did the expedient thing. And Naomi herself? She would do what was best for her baby. And that was ridding them of the man who was, as he’d pointed out, no one’s father.

“Yes, Gio,” she said, her grip on the phone tightening until her fingers ached. “We’re finished.”

And she was relieved. She’d never have to see him or deal with him again. There was no worry about him coming back at some later date, wanting to be a part of her baby’s life. The minute he hung up the phone, Gio would forget all about this conversation. He would forget her. And that was best for everybody.

“Arrivederci, bella,” Gio said and, without waiting for a response from her, disconnected.

She expelled a breath, looked at her phone for a long minute, then shook her head. Naomi had been trying to reach Gio for weeks, and when she finally did manage a conversation with him, it had lasted about three minutes. It felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders. “It’s over.”

Of course it had been over for months. Heck, it had never even started with Gio, really. You couldn’t count one night as anything other than a blip on the radar that appeared and disappeared in the blink of an eye. If she hadn’t gotten pregnant, would she even have given Gio a single thought? “No, I wouldn’t have,” she said out loud.

Really, she’d have done everything possible to never think about one night of bad judgment. She looked down at the phone in her hand as a wave of relief swept over her. Gio was well and truly out of her life. Naomi knew Toby would be pleased to hear it.

Toby.

The familiar noises of the crew working registered in one part of her mind as her thoughts swirled as if caught in a tornado. What did it say, she asked herself, that the first person she wanted to tell about the call from Gio was Toby? That he was her best friend. That he was the one person in her life she always turned to first.

Maybe marrying him would be all right, she told herself now. Maybe it would be good for all of t

hem. She trusted him, she loved him—as a friend—and she knew she’d always be able to count on him. So what was she so worried about? No sex? Not that big a deal, she assured herself silently. Heck, it wasn’t as if pregnant women had red-hot sex lives anyway.

Was it fair to Toby? Wasn’t that up to him? she reasoned. If he wanted to marry her, why shouldn’t she? Yes, she could be a single mother. She was perfectly capable of raising a child on her own. But as Toby had pointed out, why deliberately take the hard route when there was another answer? And knowing that Toby would be with her, sharing it all, seemed to make the niggling fears of impending motherhood easier to conquer. But what to do with the fears she had of losing her best friend because of a convenient lie?

“We’re ready, Naomi,” Tammy shouted from across the room.