Caroselli's Accidental Heir

“You should have trusted me,” he told Lucy. “You should have told me the truth, and we could have worked something out.”

“Like I said, I screwed up. I made a mistake. But I’m here now and I want to make things right.”

Did she? Or would he come home one day a year or so from now and find her gone again?

Two

Tony had so many questions, and so many things he wanted to say to Lucy, he didn’t know where to begin. It had been a shock to stop by her place all those months ago and be told by her roommate that Lucy had moved back to Florida with her mom. Lucy was such a private person, half the time he had no idea what had been going on in her head. Only now, sitting here beside her, did he appreciate how much he’d missed her, how much he had depended on their friendship. Since she’d left, he’d had no one to talk to. He’d long ago been labeled the strong silent type by his family. Serious, super-focused and private, but there was so much more to him that he didn’t let people see. With her he could let down his guard and be himself. She was the only one who really got him.

Maybe that’s why her leaving had been such a hard-hitting blow. It had been unsettling. He’d spent the better part of that last thirty years avoiding emotional entanglements.

Someone rapped on his window and Tony nearly jumped out of his skin. It was his cousin Nick. Christ. Couldn’t he have ten minutes without someone in his family accosting him. He was guessing that Christine and Elana, his younger sisters, weren’t far behind.

Tony rolled his window down. “What?”

Nick leaned down so he could see them both, resting his arms in the open window, looking first at Tony then Lucy. “Everything okay out here?”

“Lucy, you remember my cousin Nick,” Tony said.

“Hi, Lucy,” Nick said, shooting her a megawatt smile. “Let me be the first to congratulate you both.”

Tony recognized the twinkle of curiosity in Nick’s eye, and knew exactly what he was thinking. He was wondering if Tony was still going to take advantage of Nonno’s offer. Both Nick and Rob had forfeited their cut of the thirty million to save their relationships with their wives. But Tony had no marriage to save. Although to get the money he would have to marry Lucy. Nonno’s game, Nonno’s rules. But, if he could talk Lucy into marrying him, which in itself could be difficult, it wouldn’t be a real marriage. She didn’t want that.

“My wife is pregnant, too,” Nick told Lucy. “We’re due September twenty-first.”

“Early June,” Lucy said, and Tony could see Nick doing the math in his head. The slight tilt of his head and peak of his brow said he had come to the same conclusion as Tony—Lucy had known about the baby for quite some time before she left for Florida.

“I thought this was going to be a boring wedding,” Nick said with a grin. “But this was even better than my sister’s wedding, when my dad got into a fistfight with my mom’s date.”

A distinction Tony would be happy to forget.

“Is Alice all right?” he asked Nick, noting the pained look on Lucy’s face. She really did seem to feel bad for Alice.

“She’s still upstairs with your mom. Carrie is going to drive her back to the condo. She sent me out here to tell you to be gone before they leave.”

Carrie was their cousin Rob’s wife, and Alice’s best friend. She had introduced Tony to Alice, a move she was probably regretting about now.

Alice being the polar opposite of Lucy had appealed to him. At first. In the end, it only worked against them. He often found himself wishing that she was Lucy, or at least a lot more like her. Those were two months of his life he would be happy to forget. Or erase completely. If it were within his power to go back in time and change things, he would have followed Lucy to Florida and convinced her to come back where he could take care of her. Where they could be a family, even if it wasn’t in the traditional sense.

Hindsight was indeed twenty/twenty.

“Carrie also wants to know if Alice left any of her things at your place,” Nick said.

“I don’t think so, but I’ll take a look around.” Alice had only been to his town house a couple of times. Which made the fact that he was going to marry her all the crazier. Come to think of it, he wasn’t even sure how old she was. He’d asked, but he’d gotten a vague nonanswer.

Dude, what the hell were you thinking?

“Do it soon,” Nick said. “She’s already talking about going back to New York in a couple of days.”

“Permanently?”

“Far as I know.”

Tony hadn’t intended to drive her out of Illinois, but on the bright side, he wouldn’t have to see her again. He could live with that.

The front door of Nonno’s house opened and people started to file out onto the porch. Thankfully Alice wasn’t among them. Nor were his sisters.

Tony turned to Lucy. “Why don’t we go back to my place?”

She nodded, looking anxiously toward the front door.

“I’ll talk to you later,” he told Nick, who straightened up and made a “call me” gesture with his thumb and pinkie. The Carosellis were known for two things: chocolate and a propensity for gossip. To be honest, Tony’d had enough of both. He wanted out from under the microscope. He wanted the freedom to live his life however he wanted, both personally and professionally. To be who he wanted to be. Not what was best for the family, but what was best for him. It was what he’d wanted for a long time now. That thirty million dollars had been his ticket out. He could start over, build his own business. Be his own man.

But at what cost?

Tony started the engine and pulled away from the curb.

“That was...weird,” Lucy said and he glanced over at her. He had to fight the urge to reach over and take her hand. He just wanted to touch her. But now didn’t seem the time.

“What was weird?”

“After what I did, I figured your entire family would hate me.”

It was much more likely that they would be planning to throw her a parade. His family hadn’t exactly warmed to Alice. As in, none of them. He was pretty sure Rob liked her only because she was his wife’s best friend. Just last night he overheard his sister Alana tell his mom that she thought Alice was a bloodsucking she-devil. “Let’s not worry about my family,” he told Lucy. “This has nothing to do with them. We need to talk about the baby. And about us.”

“You’re right.”

He was glad she thought so, since he was winging it. He had never been in a situation like this. Nor did he know anyone who had. The true scope of how his life was about to change hadn’t really sunk in yet, so he was still in a minor state of shock. Over what was to come, but also over what he had almost done today. Thankfully Lucy had been here to save him from himself.

“How has your pregnancy been going? You and the baby are both healthy?”

“I feel great, the baby is active and kicking just like he should be.”

His heart skipped a beat. “He?”

She flattened her palms against her belly and the ghost of a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Or she. I just have this strong feeling it’s a boy.”

That would be awfully convenient. “Where is your suitcase?”

“I didn’t bring one. I wasn’t planning on staying long. In fact...” She pulled her cell phone out of her jacket pocket and checked the display. “I have to get back to the airport soon. So we don’t have a huge amount of time.”

At first he thought she was joking. Did she honestly believe he was just going to let her leave again? While she was pregnant with his baby? He thought she knew him better than that. Of course, if she did, she wouldn’t have left in the first place.

They may not have planned this, but as long as she was carrying his child, she was his responsibility, so for the time being, she was more or less stuck with him. And if the baby really was a boy, he would make his daddy a very wealthy man. If Lucy would marry him, that is.

It sounded simple enough; the only problem was that Lucy was as relationship-phobic as him. Probably even more so. She had been the one to set the boundaries of their relationship, to insist that they keep it casual. Now he had to figure out a way to convince her that getting married was best for the baby.

“You have your ticket?” he asked, and she nodded. “Can I see it?”

Looking puzzled, she pulled a folded sheet of white paper from her fanny pack, which was almost hidden under the swell of her belly. In all the time he’d known her she’d kept her belongings in either a beat-up backpack that she’d picked up in the lost and found at work, or a fanny pack. He’d never seen her carry a conventional purse. There was very little about Lucy that he would call conventional. She marched to the beat of her own drum.

Lucy handed him the sheet of paper and he promptly ripped it in half.

“Oooookay,” she said. “That was very dramatic and all. But you do realize that I can just print another one.”

He crumpled the paper and tossed it into the backseat. “Call it a symbolic gesture.”

“I got that part. I’m just not sure what it symbolizes.”

“You’re not going back to Florida.”

She blinked in surprise. “I’m not?”

“You’re going to stay here in Chicago.”

“Where? My roommate moved to Ohio. Not to mention that I don’t have a job.”

“You’re going to live with me. And as soon as we have time to arrange it, you’re going to marry me.”

* * *

If that was Tony’s idea of a marriage proposal, no wonder he was still single.

How many times had she fantasized about him asking her to marry him? This particular scenario was not at all what she’d had in mind. Technically, he hadn’t even asked. He’d issued an order.

Could anything be less romantic?

“Why would I do that?” she asked, giving him the perfect opportunity to redeem himself.

“I know how against marriage you are,” he said, “and I understand how you feel, but I really believe this is what’s best for the baby.”

Wrong answer, dude.

Not only did he drop the ball, he smashed it flat. He didn’t even try to sugarcoat it. He would only be marrying her for the baby’s sake. So much for those sentiments of love she’d been hoping for. Why didn’t he just reach into her chest and rip out her still-beating heart?

Her mom would have jumped at the opportunity to have a rich and handsome guy take care of her, which is exactly why Lucy couldn’t allow it. Though she couldn’t deny it would be wildly entertaining to see her mom’s expression when she heard the news.

“That sounds like a really bad idea,” she told him, and the deep furrow between his brows said he disagreed.

“It’s not,” he said, as if he expected her to just take his word for it.

“If I marry you, it will confirm what everyone in that house was already thinking. That I got pregnant on purpose to trap you. That I’m looking for a meal ticket.” Just the way her mom had with Lucy’s father. What he had neglected to mention during their brief affair was that he was already married with a family. He had no interest in being a parent to his illegitimate daughter. He’d sent the obligatory monthly check, but when he died three years later, the gravy train—and any hope that he and Lucy might someday meet—died with him.

Lucy had three siblings she had never even spoken to, and whose lack of contact over the years said they had no interest in meeting their illegitimate half sister. She could only imagine what they must have thought of her. And her mother.

“I’ll make sure everyone knows that isn’t the case,” Tony said.

If only it were that simple. “That never works. People are going to believe what they want to believe, regardless of what you tell them.”

His deepening frown said he was getting frustrated with her. “Why does it even matter what my family thinks?”

It mattered to her. She loved Tony, and she wanted to be his wife, even knowing the rest of his family would probably never accept her. But not like this. Not because it was convenient. Or good for the baby. She wouldn’t be anyone’s consolation prize. “I can’t marry you.”

“Sure you can.”

“No. I really can’t.

“I want to take care of you.” He took her hand and held it tight. “You and the baby.”

She pulled her hand free. “Thanks, but I can take care of myself.”

“If you won’t marry me, would you agree to stay with me? At least until the baby is born?”

“I can’t.”

She could tell by his expression that he thought she was being stubborn, and maybe she was a little. But who could blame her? The dynamic was simple. She loved Tony, and he felt obligated. Living together would be painful enough. Marrying him would be downright torture. She could fool herself into believing that his feelings might change, but the reality was if he hadn’t fallen in love with her by now, odds were good he never would. To marry him, even if it was for the baby’s benefit, seemed sad and pathetic. She refused to play the victim.

Been there, done that, burned the T-shirt.

Maybe when they were alone at his place he would pull her into his arms and hold her tight, and tell her he was miserable and lonely after she left. Of course he would have a very logical, not to mention romantic, reason for not coming after her.

And maybe the Pope would convert.

Tony pulled down his street and found a spot close to his building. She’d been a little shocked the first time he brought her there. Everything about Tony screamed rich and classy. He drove a luxury import, drank the best scotch, owned a closet full of designer brand clothes, yet he lived in a nondescript apartment in an equally nondescript building, in what seemed to her to be one of the most boring streets in the entire city of Chicago. But as he had logically put it, why spend a lot of money on a place when he was hardly ever there?

Normally he would have held her hand as they walked into the building and got in the elevator. Often he even got frisky during the ride up, but this time he didn’t touch her. She was both relieved and disappointed.

After a history of nomadic tendencies, Lucy had learned to never attach deep personal feelings to places, but when Tony unlocked the door and she stepped inside his apartment, she got a lump in her throat. She had so many good memories of the time they’d spent here together. At some point in their relationship his place had begun to feel like a second home to her, and she had fooled herself into thinking he might actually want her there with him.

Shame on her for forgetting who she really was.

Tony shut the door behind them and when he touched her shoulder her heart stopped. But then she realized that he was only helping her with her jacket, which he tossed over the back of the sofa. His suit jacket landed on top of it, and his tie on top of that. “Would you like something to drink? I have juice and diet soda. Or I could make tea.”

“Just water,” she said. There were newspapers strewn across the coffee table and a blue silk tie draped over the back of the leather chair. Guy furniture. The apartment was full of it. Leather, metal and glass. Bare wood floors. She would have thought that something might have changed in the four months she’d been gone, but everything looked exactly the same. And she saw no evidence of a woman staying there.

“Sit down,” he said, gesturing to the sofa, more an order than a suggestion. He was working up to something, she could feel it. For every second he didn’t speak, her nerves wound tighter as her hopes for a civilized solution faded. Responding to her tension, the baby was doing circus acrobatics deep in her womb.

The galley-style kitchen was separated from the living space by a wall, but she could hear him rattling around in the fridge. He reappeared a second later with a bottled water for her and a beer for himself, and though she’d assumed he would sit in the chair opposite her, he sat down beside her on the sofa instead.

The urge to touch him, to scoot closer and lean into him—to knock him onto his back and climb all over him—was as strong as ever. She longed for him to take her into his arms and hold her, promise her that everything would be okay. Make love to her until the last four months no longer mattered.

All he said was, “I can’t let you leave again.”

She should have known he wouldn’t give up. He was the kind of man who was used to getting his way.

He would just have get unused to it.

“It’s not your decision to make.”

“The hell it isn’t,” he said, and his sharp tone startled her. He’d never so much as raised his voice in her presence, though at times she may have deserved it.

“Fatherhood doesn’t start after the baby is born,” he told her. “You robbed me of the opportunity to share the experience of your pregnancy with you.”

Just when she thought she couldn’t feel like a bigger jerk, he had to go and say that. And he was absolutely right. She had robbed him of all sorts of things. And robbed herself of sharing the experience with someone who actually gave a damn. Unlike her mom, who spent the first month and a half trying to convince her to “get rid of the problem.”

Lucy had also robbed herself of the most basic creature comforts. Her mom’s couch, where she had been sleeping the past four months, was miserably uncomfortable. She woke most mornings with either intense lower back pain or a severely kinked neck. Sometimes both. The idea of sleeping in a bed again, getting a peaceful night’s rest, was alluring. But what would it do to her heart?

She reminded herself yet again that this was not about what she wanted. Or couldn’t have. She needed to do what was best for the baby, and for now that meant taking care of herself. Tony could help her with that.

“Hypothetically, suppose I do agree to live here with you,” she said. “I would have to have my own room.”

“Or you could share mine.” His hand came to rest on her thigh. She didn’t have to see his face to know the expression he wore, and that it had the ability to melt her in seconds flat. Hadn’t she promised herself that she was through making irresponsible decisions?

Tempting as it might have been, for the sake of her own pride, she couldn’t go back to the way things used to be. At least in the past there had been some hope that someday things would change, that he could fall in love with her, but now she knew that would never happen. If she was going to stay here, in his apartment, they would have to establish some boundaries. Like, no fooling around.

She took his hand and set it on his own leg. “I think for the baby’s sake we should keep our relationship platonic. So things don’t get confusing.”

“You can’t blame a guy for trying,” he said, and this time she did look at him, which was monumentally stupid. Curse him and his captivating smile. His deep-set, bedroom eyes.

“You can have my room,” he told her. “I’ll sleep on the fold-out in my office.”

Before she could object, his cell phone started to ring. He pulled it out of his pants pocket and checked the screen, cursing under his breath. “It’s Nonno,” he said, rising from the sofa and heading toward the kitchen. “I have to take this.”

Lucy had never actually met Tony’s grandfather, but she’d heard so many stories about him, in a way she felt as if she already knew him. It occurred to her that she hadn’t seen him at the wedding. According to Tony, his grandfather—and before she passed away, his grandmother—had been present for every significant event in his life.

Why not his wedding?

The call barely lasted a minute before Tony hung up. “It was my mom,” he said, shoving the phone back into his pocket. “She’s at Nonno’s cleaning up. She wanted to make sure everything was okay. They want us to come by their house tomorrow to talk.”

The idea of facing his parents, especially so soon, left her weak with terror. It must have shown on her face because Tony said, “Don’t worry. I told her we had things to work through first, and I would let her know when it would be a good time for us to meet.”

How about never? Could they meet then?

If she’d had a crystal ball, and could have seen the way events would unfold, she never would have left Chicago in the first place. She would have handled the situation like an adult instead of a lovesick adolescent. So why delay the inevitable? All she could do is apologize and hope they would take pity on her.

“I’d like to get this over with sooner rather than later,” she told Tony.

“There’s no rush.”

“I’m responsible for this mess. I need to own up to it.”

“Don’t you think you’re being a little hard on yourself?”

Was she? “Imagine how you would feel if your son was getting married and some woman you’d never even met showed up claiming she was pregnant with his baby. Wouldn’t you want to know who she is? What she’s up to?”

“You’re talking like you’re in this alone. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase ‘It takes two to tango.’ I’m just as responsible.”

She doubted his family would see it that way. “We shouldn’t put this off.”

He shrugged and said, “If that’s what you want.”

It wasn’t about what she wanted. It was the right thing to do. “Is your grandfather okay?”

The question seemed to puzzle him. “Why do you ask?”

“I didn’t see him at the service today. I thought he might not be well.”

“He’s fine. Just stubborn.”

She wasn’t sure what that had to do with it, but before she could ask, Tony’s phone rang again. He pulled it out and checked the screen, muttered a curse, and rejected the call. He didn’t even have time to slide the phone back into his pocket before it began to ring again. Once again he rejected the call, and this time he switched his phone to silent, muttering under his breath as he turned to Lucy. “So, are you staying?”

“I should probably tell my mom that I won’t be needing a ride home from the airport, or the use of her couch,” Lucy said.

Tony frowned. “She made you sleep on the couch?”

“It was that or the floor.” Which frankly could not have been any less comfortable, though she shuddered to imagine the horrors residing in the fibers of the ancient, threadbare carpet. Her mom’s friends—if you could call them that—were a motley crew of drug addicts and alcoholics.

“She couldn’t take the couch and let her pregnant daughter use the bed?” Tony asked.

If he knew the kind of lifestyle her mom lead, he wouldn’t blame Lucy for not wanting to get anywhere near her mattress. Lord only knew what she might catch.

But he didn’t know much about her family, and she preferred to keep it that way. Tony knew that she and her mom hadn’t had much, but he had no idea how rotten Lucy’s childhood had been. The constant moving from one dumpy, cockroach-infested place to another. Sometimes going hungry for days because there was no money for food. The endless flow of men through her mom’s revolving bedroom door.

But that was all in the past. It had happened, now it was over, and Lucy had moved on.

When she and Tony talked, it was usually about him and his work, or his family. Everything she had ever told him about her life, from birth to the present, wouldn’t take more than a ten-minute conversation. He knew she didn’t see her father, but he didn’t know why. And all he knew of her mom was that she and Lucy had never gotten along.

He didn’t know that starting when Lucy was eight, her mom would leave her alone while she went out, and often wouldn’t return till morning. He didn’t know how many of her mom’s male “friends” had watched Lucy with a lascivious smile, said lewd and inappropriate things. Her mom used to say that it was Lucy’s own fault. That she was inviting the attention by putting out “signals.” And at the time, being a naive and gullible preteen, Lucy had believed her. She still wasn’t sure if on some fundamental, primitive level, she was destined to be like her mom. Maybe she was hardwired that way, and it was inevitable. Only time would tell.

She wondered what Tony would think of her if he knew the truth. If he knew the kind of background she came from, and the questionable origin of the baby’s genetics. What would his family think?