Postcards From Rome: The Italian's Pregnant Virgin / A Proposal from the Italian Count / A Ring for Vincenzo's Heir

Tonight, they were going to another dinner, though Renzo had not explained the purpose of this one. And it made her slightly nervous. He had also made her a doctor’s appointment at a private clinic, not the one that Ashley had used. But one that he had chosen himself. Based on, he claimed, the doctor’s reputation for discretion.

It seemed ridiculous to have to get dressed up for a doctor’s appointment, but Renzo had explained that they would be going out afterward, so she would have to dress appropriately for dinner beforehand.

So, here she was now, sitting in the back of a limousine, being driven out to her appointment where Renzo was supposed to meet her. She was wearing lipstick.

The limo came to a stop, and she was deposited in front of a building that seemed far too polished to be a simple medical clinic. But then, Ashley had been aiming for a different kind of discretion when they had gone to the surrogacy clinic.

The driver opened the door for her, and she realized that she had to get out. Even though she just wanted to keep sitting there. For one horrifying second she wondered if she was going to go into the clinic, lie down on the doctor’s table, and he was going to tell her the baby was gone.

For some reason, in that moment, the thought made her feel bereft. She wasn’t sure why it should. Maybe for Renzo? Because he was rearranging his life for this child?

Or maybe, it’s because you aren’t ready to let go of the baby?

No, that was unthinkable. She wasn’t attached to this. She just felt natural protectiveness. It was a hormone thing. She was sure of that. But she couldn’t remember feeling sick for the last couple of days, not even a little bit of nausea, and she wondered if that was indicative of something bad. She wondered that even while she spoke to the woman at the front desk and was ushered into a private waiting room.

She wrung her hands, jiggling her leg, barely able to enjoy the opulence of the surroundings. She tried. She really did. Because she had purposed to be on this journey. To enjoy this little window into something that would always and forever be outside her daily experiences.

She didn’t know when she had started to care. At least not in a way that extended beyond the philosophical. That extended past her feeling like she had to preserve the life inside her out of a sense of duty. She only knew that it had.

Thankfully, she didn’t have a whole lot of time to ruminate on that, because just then, Renzo entered the room. There was something wild and stormy in his gaze that she couldn’t guess at. But then, that was nothing new. She didn’t feel like she could ever guess what he was thinking.

“Where is the doctor?” He didn’t waste any time assessing the situation and deciding it was lacking.

“I don’t know. But I imagine it won’t be much longer.”

“It is a crime that you have been kept waiting at all,” he said, his tone terse.

She hugged herself just a little bit more tightly, anxiety winding itself around her stomach. “You weren’t here anyway. It didn’t matter particularly whether or not the doctor materialized before you, did it?”

“You could have been preparing for the exam.”

Esther didn’t say anything. She could only wonder if Renzo was experiencing similar feelings to hers. It seemed strange to think that he would, but then, also not so strange. It was his baby. It actually made more sense than her being nervous.

“Ms. Abbott,” a woman said, sticking her head through the door. “The doctor is ready to see you now.”

Esther took a deep breath, pushing herself into a standing position. She was aware of walking toward the door on unsteady legs, and then hyperaware of Renzo reaching out and cupping her elbow, steadying her. “I’m fine,” she said.

“You look like a very light breeze could knock you over.”

“I’m fine,” she reiterated. Even though she wasn’t certain if she was.

Renzo let the line of conversation go, but he did not let go of her arm. Instead, he held on to her all the way down the private hallway and into the exam room.

“Remove your clothing and put on this gown,” the nurse said. “The doctor will be in in just a few moments.”

Esther looked at Renzo, her gaze pointed. But he didn’t seem to take the hint.

“Can you leave?” she asked, the moment the nurse was out of sight.

“Why should I leave? You are my fiancée, after all.”

“Your fiancée in name only. You and I both know that this child was not conceived in the...in the...the usual way that children are conceived. You don’t have any right to look at me while I’m undressing. I couldn’t say that in front of the stylist the other day, but I will say it now.”

“I will turn,” he said, his tone dry. And he did.

She took a deep breath, her eyes glued to his broad back, and she began to remove her clothing. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t see her. The feeling of undressing in the same room as a man was so shockingly intimate.

Everything had happened so quickly during her little makeover the other day. And while she had been embarrassed that he was looking at her body, she hadn’t fully processed all of her feelings. Right now, she could process them all a bit too well.

From the dull thud of her heart, to the fluttering of her pulse at the base of her throat. The way that her fingers felt clumsy, numb, but everything else on her body felt hypersensitive and so very warm, tingly.

She could sense him. More than just seeing him standing in front of her, he felt all around her. As though he took up every corner of the room, even though she knew such a thing wasn’t possible.

Finally, she got all of her clothes off, and stood there for a moment. Just a moment. Long enough to process the fact that she was standing naked in a room with this powerful man, who was dressed in a perfectly tailored suit.

It was such a strange contrast. She had never felt more vulnerable, more exposed or...stronger, than she did in that moment. And she could not understand all of those contrasting things coming together to create one feeling.

She picked up the hospital gown and slipped it onto her shoulders, then got up onto the plush table that was so very different from the other table she had been on just a few months ago. “This is different,” she said. “From the clinic in Santa Firenze.”

He turned then, not asking if he could. But she had a feeling that Renzo was not a man accustomed to asking for much. “In what way?”

“Well, I get the feeling that Ashley was doing her best to keep all of this from getting back to you. So, she opted for discreet. But not like this. It was...rustic?”

His lip curled. “Excellent. She took you to a bargain fertility clinic.” His hands curled into fists. “If I ever get my hands on her...”

“Don’t. The fact that she is who she is is punishment enough, isn’t it?”

He laughed. “I suppose it is.”

There was a firm knock on the door, followed by the door opening quickly. Then, the doctor—a small woman with her hair pulled back into a tight bun—walked into the room. “Ms. Abbott, Mr. Valenti, it’s very nice to meet you. I’m very pleased to be helping you along with your pregnancy.”

After introductions were made, and Esther’s vitals were taken, the woman had Esther lie down on the table, then she placed a towel over Esther’s lap and pushed the hospital gown up to the bottom of her rib cage.

“We’re going to do an ultrasound. To establish viability, listen to the heartbeat and get a look at the baby.”

Anxiety gripped her. This was the moment of truth, she supposed. The moment where she found out if those prickling fears she’d had in the waiting room were in any way factual. Or if they were just vague waves of anxiety, connected to nothing more but her general distrust of the situation.

She really hoped it was the second.

The doctor squirted some warm gel onto her stomach, then placed the Doppler on her skin. She moved the wand around until Esther caught sight of a vague fluttering on the monitor next to her. Her breath left her body in a great gust, relief washing over her. “That’s the heart,” she asked, “isn’t it?”

“Yes,” the doctor said, flipping a switch and letting a steady thumping sound fill the room. “There it is.”

It was strange, like a rhythmic swishing, combined with a watery sound in the back. The Doppler moved, and the sound faded slightly.

“I’m just trying to get a good look.” She kept on moving the Doppler around, and new images flashed onto the screen, new angles of the baby that she carried. But Esther couldn’t make heads or tails of any of it. She had no experience with ultrasounds.

“Do either of you have a history of twins in your family?”

The question hit Esther square in the chest, and she struggled to come up with any response that wasn’t simply why.

She didn’t. But she knew that the question didn’t actually pertain to her, since the child she was carrying wasn’t hers. “I...”

“No,” Renzo said, his tone definitive. “However... The baby was conceived elsewhere through artificial means. If that has any impact on what you’re about to say.”

“Well, that does increase the odds of such things,” the doctor said. “And that is in fact what it looks like here. Twins.”

All of the relief that had just washed through Esther was gone now, replaced by wave after wave of thundering terror. Twins? There was no way she could be carrying twins. That was absurd.

Here she had been worried that she had lost one baby, that they would look inside her womb and see nothing, when they had actually found an extra baby.

“I don’t understand,” Esther said. “I don’t understand at all. I don’t understand how it could be twins. I’ve been to the doctor before to have the pregnancy checked on...”

“These things are easy to miss early on. Especially if they were just looking at heartbeats with the Doppler.”

She felt heat rush through her face. “Yes,” she confirmed.

“I understand that it’s a bit of a shock.”

“It’s fine,” Renzo said, his tone hard, belying that calm statement. “I have more than enough means to handle such things. I’m not at all concerned. Of course we are able to care for twins.”

“Everything looks good,” the doctor said, pulling the Doppler off Esther’s stomach and wiping her skin free of gel. “Of course, we will want to monitor you closely as twins are considered a more high-risk pregnancy. You’re young. And all of your vitals look good. I don’t see why you shouldn’t have a very successful pregnancy.”

Esther was vaguely aware of nodding, while Renzo simply stood there. Like a statue straight from a Roman temple.

Seeing that neither of them had anything to say, the doctor nodded. “I’ll leave you two to discuss.”

As soon as the doctor left, Esther sagged back onto the table, flattening herself entirely, going utterly limp. “I can’t believe it.”

“You can’t believe it? You’re the one who intends to leave. Why would it concern you?”

“I’m the one who has to carry a litter,” she shot back.

“Twins are hardly a litter.”

“Well, that’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one gestating them.”

He looked stunned. Pale beneath his burnished skin. “Indeed not.” He turned away from her. “Get dressed. We have reservations.”

“I know I do. I have several reservations!”

“For dinner.”

“You’re not seriously suggesting that we just go out to dinner as though nothing’s happened?”

“I am suggesting exactly that,” he said through gritted teeth. “Get dressed. We are leaving to go to dinner.”

She growled and got off the table, moving back over to her clothes on unsteady legs. She picked up the lacy underwear that had been provided by Renzo’s stylist and slipped them up her legs, not even bothering to enjoy the lush feel of the fabric as she had been doing every other time before.

There was no pausing for lushness when you’d just found out you were carrying not one, but two babies.

She made quick work of the rest of her clothes. At least, as quick work as she could possibly make of them with her trembling fingers. “I’m ready,” she snapped.

“Very good. Now, let us cease with the dramatics and go to dinner.”

He all but hauled her out of the office, taking her to his sports car, where he yanked open the passenger-side door and held it for her.

She looked up at him, at his inscrutable face that was very much like a cloudy sky. She could tell a storm was gathering there, but she couldn’t quite make out why. Then, she jerked her focus away from him and got into the car, clasping her hands tightly in her lap and staring straight ahead.

He closed the door, then got in on his side, bringing the engine to life with an angry roar and tearing out of the parking lot like the hounds of hell were on his heels.

“You dare call me dramatic?” she asked. “If this isn’t dramatic, I don’t know what is.”

“I only just found out that I’m having two children, not one. If any of us is entitled to a bit of drama...”

“You seem to discount my role in this,” she fired back. “At every turn, in fact, you treat me as nothing more than a vessel. Not understanding at all that there is a bit of work that goes into this. Some labor, if you will.”

“Modern medicine makes it all quite simple.”

“That is...well and truly spoken only like a man. What about what this is going to do to my body? It’s going to leave me with stretch marks and then some.” She didn’t actually care about that, but she felt like poking him. Goading him. She wanted to make him feel something. Because for whatever reason this revelation had rocked her entire world, made her feel as though she herself had been tilted on her very axis. She didn’t think he had a right to be more upset than she was. And maybe that wasn’t fair. Maybe it was hormones. But she didn’t particularly care.

“I will get you whatever surgery you want in order to return your body to its former glory. If you’re concerned about what lovers will be able to get afterward, don’t be.”

That statement was almost laughable.

“I am not concerned about lovers,” she said. “My life is not dependent on what other people think. Been there, done that, got rid of the overly starched ankle-length dresses. But what about what I think?”

“You are impossible. And a contradiction.”

He drove on with a bit too much fervor through the narrow streets, practically careening around every corner, forcing her to grip the door handle as they made their way through town.

They stopped in front of a small café, and he got out, handing the keys to a valet in front of the door. It took her a moment to realize that he was not coming around to open the door for her. She huffed, doing it herself and getting out, gathering the fabric of her skirt and getting herself in order once she was fully straightened.

“That was not very gentlemanly,” she said, rounding the front of the car and taking as big a step as her skirt would allow.

“I am very sorry. It has been said that I am perhaps not very gentlemanly. In fact, I believe it was said recently by you.”

“Perhaps you should listen to the feedback.”

He wrapped his arm around her waist, the heat from his hand shocking. His fingertips rested just beneath the curve of her breast, making her heart beat faster, stronger.

“I’m very sorry,” he said, his voice husky. “Please say you’ll forgive me. At least in time for the paparazzi to catch up with us. I would not want pictures of our dinner to go into the paper with you looking stormy.”

“Oh, perish the thought. We cannot have anything damaging your precious reputation.”

“Our association is entirely for my reputation. You will not ruin this. If you do, I promise I will make you pay. I will take money out of our agreement so quickly it will make your head spin. You do not want to play games with me, Esther.”

He whispered those words in her ear, and for all the world he would look like a lover telling secrets. They would never guess that it was a man on the brink issuing threats.

It galled her that they worked.

He walked them inside, without being stopped by anyone, and went to a table that he had undoubtedly sat at many times before. He did pull her chair out for her, making a gentlemanly show there as he had failed to do at the car.

“Sparkling water,” he said to the waiter when he came by.

“What if I wanted something else?” she asked, just to continue prodding at him.

“Your options are limited, as you cannot drink alcohol.”

“Still. Maybe I wanted juice.”

“Did you want juice?” he asked, his tone inflexible.

“No,” she said, feeling defeated by that.

“Then behave yourself.”

He took control like that with the rest of the dinner, proceeding to order her food—because he knew what the best dishes were at the restaurant—and not listening to any of her protestations.

She didn’t know why she should find that particularly surprising. He had done that from the beginning. She had tried to come to him, had tried to do things on her own terms, but he had taken the reins at almost every turn.

Suddenly, sitting there in this restaurant that was so far outside her experience—would have been outside her scope for imagination only a few weeks earlier—she had the sensation that she was being pulled down beneath the surface. That she was out in the middle of the sea, unable to grab hold of anything that might anchor her.

She was afraid she might drown.

She took a deep breath, tried to disguise the fact that it was just short of a gasp.

Finally, their dessert plates were cleared, and Esther felt like she might be able to approach breathing normally again. Soon, they would be back at the villa. And while she still found his palatial home overwhelming, it was at least a familiar sort of overwhelming. Or rather, it had become so over the past few days.

Then, she looked up at him, and that brief moment of sanity melted into nothing. There was a strange look in his eye, one of purpose and determination. And if there was one thing she knew about Renzo it was that he was immovable at the best of times. Infused with an extra sense of purpose and he would be all-consuming.

She didn’t want to be consumed by him. Not in any capacity. Looking into his dark eyes now, an answering twist low in her stomach, she wasn’t certain she could avoid it.

He reached into the interior pocket of his jacket then, his dark eyes never wavering from hers, and then he got out of his chair, kneeling in front of her. She couldn’t breathe. If she had had the sensation of drowning before, it had become something even more profound now. Like being swept up in a tide that she couldn’t swim against. The effect those eyes always had on her.

The effect he seemed to have on her.

She was supposed to be stronger than this. Smarter than this. Immune to the charms of men. Especially men like him. Men who sought to control the world around them, from the people who populated their surroundings, to the homes they lived in, all the way down to the elements. She imagined that if a weather report disagreed with Renzo, he would rail at that until it changed its mind.

She knew all about men like that. Knew all about the importance of staying away from them.

Her mother had been normal once. That was something Esther wasn’t supposed to know. But she had found the pictures. Had seen photographs of her mother as a young girl, dressed in the trends of the day, looking very much like any average girl might have.

She had never been able to reconcile those photographs of the past with the woman she had grown up with. Quiet. Dowdy. So firmly under the command of her husband that she never dared to oppose him in any way at all.

It had been a mystery both to her father and her mother that Esther had possessed any bit of rebelliousness at all. But she had. She did. And if there was one thing Esther feared at all in the world, it was losing that. Becoming that drawn, colorless woman who had raised her.

Love had done it to her. Or more truthfully, control carefully disguised as love.

It was so easy to confuse the two, she knew. She knew because she’d done it. Because she’d imagined her father had been overbearing out of a sense of protectiveness.

Those thoughts flashed through her mind like a strobe light. Fast, confusing, blinding, obscuring what was happening in front of her.

She blinked, trying to get a grip on herself. Trying to get a grip on the moment. It wouldn’t benefit her at all to lose it now.

“Esther,” he said, his voice transforming itself into something velvet, softening the command that had been in it only moments before. Brushing itself against her skin, a lush seduction rather than a hard demand.

He was dangerous. Looking at him now, she was reminded of that. She told herself over and over again as he opened the box he had taken out of his coat pocket and held it out to her. As he revealed the diamond ring inside.

He was dangerous. This wasn’t real. This was something else. A window into a life she would never have. This was experience. Experience without consequence. She was pregnant. She was having twins. And she was playing at being rich and fancy with the father of those twins. But they weren’t her babies. Not really. And he wasn’t her fiancé. Wasn’t her man at all.

That was a good thing. A very good thing. She didn’t want anything else. Not from him. Not from anyone. She couldn’t sustain this.

But she had to go along with this. And she had to remember exactly what it was, all the while smiling and doing nothing to disrupt the facade. Which, he had reminded her, was the most important thing. She could understand it. On a surface level, she could understand. But right now, she felt jumbled up. And she hated it.

Still, when he took the ring out of the box and then took her hand in his, sliding the piece of jewelry onto her fourth finger, she felt breathless. Felt like it was something more than a show, which proved all the weakness inside her. All the weakness she had long been afraid was there.

“Will you marry me?” he finished finally, those last words the darkest, the softest of all.

This was a moment she had never even fantasized about. Ever. She had never seen marriage or relationships as anything to aspire to. But this felt... This felt like nothing she had ever known before. And the question Renzo was asking seemed to be completely different from the one her father had undoubtedly asked her mother more than twenty years ago.

Of course it was. Because it was a ruse. But more than that, this whole world might as well exist on another planet entirely.

But that doesn’t make him less dangerous. It doesn’t make him a different creature. He’s still controlling. Still hard.

And he doesn’t love you.

Her heart slammed hard against her rib cage. “Yes,” she said, both to him and to the voice inside her.

She knew Renzo didn’t love her. She didn’t want Renzo to love her. Not like that. Love like that wasn’t freedom. It was oppression.

She was confused. All messed up because of the doctor’s appointment today. Because of the revelations that had resulted. Because of her hormones and because she was—frankly—in over her head.

That was the truth of it. She, Esther Abbott, long-cloistered weirdo who knew very little about the outside world and a very definite virgin, had no business being here with a man like Renzo. She had absolutely no business being pregnant at all, and she really shouldn’t be on the receiving end of a proposal.

It was no great mystery that she felt like a jumble of feelings and pain while her head logically knew exactly what was happening. Her brain wasn’t confused at all. Not at all.

But there was something weighty about the diamond on her finger. Something substantial about her yes that she couldn’t quite quantify, and didn’t especially want to.

It was the confusion inside her, tumbling around like clothes in that rickety old dryer at the hostel, that kept her from preparing herself for what happened next. At least, that was what she told herself later.