Rising Stars

In a swirl of purple-and-pink skirts, Lilley turned away.

Alessandro grabbed her shoulder. “You can’t leave,” he ground out. “Not without a paternity test.”

She looked at him, and he could have drowned in the deep grief of her brown eyes. “I’m done trying to make you love me,” she whispered. “Done.”

Alessandro couldn’t show weakness. Couldn’t let her know how close she’d come to breaking him entirely. “You’ll stay in Rome,” he said harshly. “Until I allow you to leave.”

Her eyes glittered.

“No,” she said. “I won’t.”

Her face looked strange, her eyes half-wild as she took a deep breath.

“I slept with a different man, just like you said.” Blinking back tears as she looked up at him, she choked out with a sob, “And I loved him.”

Her words were like a serrated blade across Alessandro’s heart. He staggered back, stricken. “And the baby,” he breathed, searching her eyes. “What about the baby?”

Lilley’s brown eyes were dark as a winter storm. Tears streamed down her face like rain. For answer, she pulled her canary-yellow diamond ring off her left hand and wordlessly held it out to him.

Numbly, he reached for it. Lilley turned away, pushing through the crowds, not looking back.

And this time, he didn’t try to stop her. Gripping the ten-carat diamond ring tightly against his palm, Alessandro closed his eyes, leaning his head against his fist as he felt the first spasms of grief course through his body.