by Metsy Hingle
Steven clenched his hands into fists at his sides. Acid churned in his stomach at the reminder of his sister Bianca’s abduction. Unlike Maria, who had a large brood of siblings, he had only his younger sister. When he’d first received word that both she and Derrick Barone had been kidnapped, he’d alternated between panic and fury. He’d turned over every stone and then some in his effort to locate them. And once private detective Ethan Mallory had zeroed in on Derrick Barone as a suspect in the kidnapping instead of a victim, Steven had vowed to find the bastard and slit his throat if he had harmed a single hair on Bianca’s head. Not even the FBI’s threat to charge him with obstruction had made him ease up on his search to find his sister. But when Ethan, too, had insisted he was getting in the way and hurting the investigation instead of helping, he had finally admitted that he needed to back off. It hadn’t been easy—not when he was going crazy with worry over his missing sister. Finally, he had done as Ethan requested. He’d backed off and let the detective and the FBI do their jobs. Unable to do anything more to help Bianca, he had resumed his search for Maria, which he’d abandoned upon news of the kidnapping. But even locating Maria and being here with her now hadn’t eased his worries about his sister. Nothing would until he knew that Bianca was safe.
“It’s obvious from your expression that you know I’m right.”
“What I know is that if Derrick is the one responsible for Bianca’s kidnapping and he’s harmed her in any way, he’ll have to answer to me.”
“You see?” Maria pointed out, her voice filled with despair. “It’s started already. What possible chance would we have together when there’s so much hate between our families?”
Cursing his own temper, Steven struggled to rein in his emotions and reminded himself that Mallory would find his sister. Right now, Maria and their baby had to be his primary concern. “We can make it work. I know we can.”
“Be realistic, Steven. There are simply too many things against us. A marriage between us would be a disaster.”
“You’re wrong,” he insisted. “We love each other. We can make this work. I know we can.”
Maria shook her head, and the motion sent his temper spiking again.
“I can’t believe you’re willing to throw away what we have all because of some stupid old feud that has nothing to do with us.”
“It’s not just the feud,” she countered. “Look at everything that’s happened to my family just since we started seeing each other.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about all the things that have gone wrong this past year beginning with that fiasco in February with the launch of the new passionfruit flavor for Baronessa Gelati. And then there was the fire at our plant. Then Derrick and Bianca were kidnapped. And now, now Derrick’s been accused of kidnapping your sister.”
“And your point is?” he asked, not liking at all the direction in which she was heading.
“The point is there’s more bitterness between our families now than ever.”
“Maybe there wouldn’t be if your family hadn’t accused mine of sabotage,” Steven defended. While he had never shared in his family’s dislike of the Barones or bought into what he considered a silly feud, he knew his family well enough to know that they would never resort to something that was both illegal and immoral. And the sabotage and fire at the Barone’s business were both.
“Can you blame them?” Maria countered. “Look at all the tragedies my family has suffered because of the Conti curse.”
Steven swore at the mention of the curse. “There is no curse.”
“Try telling that to your Aunt Lucia since she’s the one responsible for putting the curse on my family in the first place.”
Gritting his teeth, Steven said, “That so-called curse was nothing more than the foolish rantings of a brokenhearted and angry teenage girl nearly seventy years ago. It isn’t real. There is no curse.”
“Why? Because you say it doesn’t exist? Well, I’ve got news for you, Steven Conti. Just because you don’t believe in the curse doesn’t mean it’s not real. It is real. I know it is.”
“Maria, love, listen to yourself,” Steven reasoned. He searched to find the right words to allay her fears. He didn’t believe in the Conti curse, never had, never would. As far as he was concerned the curse was exactly what he’d claimed—the lashing out of a brokenhearted teenager who’d been jilted. Yet over the years the stories about the curse had taken on mythic proportions. Well, he’d be damned if he was going to let some crazy superstition stand in the way of his and Maria’s future. “Think, Maria. Think. You’re one of the smartest women I know. Surely you can see that all this talk about a curse is… It’s absurd.”
“Maybe to you. But not to me. And not to my family. The curse exists, Steven. We Barones have been on the receiving end of it for far too long to pretend otherwise.”
Steven realized that Maria’s heightened emotional state due to her pregnancy might allow her to buy into the idea of the curse more easily now than she might have under other circumstances. But he had enough obstacles to overcome in order to convince Maria to marry him. He simply couldn’t allow that blasted curse to be one of them. “I’m not saying your fears aren’t real. I know they are. But the Maria I know and love would never let fear dictate how she lives her life.”
“It’s not only my life I have to consider now. It’s the baby’s life, too.”
Steven moved closer, stared down into her eyes. “Don’t you know that I’d never let anything or anyone harm you or our baby?”
“I know you wouldn’t. But there are some things that are beyond even your control.”
“So you’re willing to throw away our future and our child’s future on the basis of an old wives’ tale about a curse,” he accused, frustration eating at him.
“I told you. It’s not just the curse that’s the problem. It’s our families. They’re enemies. And with the exception of my cousin Karen, no one has any idea that we’ve been seeing each other, let alone that I’m pregnant. Can you imagine how my family is going to feel when I tell them that you’re the baby’s father?”
They’d be as shocked as his family would be, he admitted in silence. “So, it will come as a surprise. But once they realize how we feel about each other, they’ll come around.”
“They’ll think I betrayed them.”
Her words cut through him like a knife. Worse, he had a sick feeling in his stomach that it wasn’t just her family Maria was talking about. “Is that what you think, too? Do you think you’ve betrayed your family by being with me?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“No, you claimed you won’t marry me because of our families and because of the curse. But maybe the real reason you’re putting up such a fuss is because you’ve had second thoughts about being involved with me. After all, I am a Conti.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.
“It means that maybe you’re wondering if your family was right about us evil Contis. That maybe you too think we’re behind all the problems your family’s had this year.” Gritting his teeth, he accused, “Maybe you think that I had something to do with the sabotage and the fire.”
“I don’t believe any such thing.”
“Are you sure?” Steven pressed, temper and hurt driving him.
“I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer.”
When she started to move past him, Steven stepped in front of her, blocking her path. “Prove it. Prove you don’t believe I’m the enemy, that you don’t regret what we’ve shared.”
Maria narrowed her eyes. “How?”
“Marry me. Right now,” he said, not wanting to give her any more time to think about all the reasons they shouldn’t be together.
“Now? You expect me to marry you right this minute?”
“Yes.”
“That’s crazy. We couldn’t get married today, even if we wanted to.”
“Sure we could,
” he insisted. “All we have to do is find a justice of the peace. I’m sure there’s at least one somewhere in Silver Valley.”
“But what about our families?”
“We’ll go back to Boston and tell them together. After we’re married,” he informed her.
“No. No, we can’t do that,” she said with a shake of her head. “We couldn’t spring this on them like that. I can’t even imagine how they’d react.”
“Hopefully, they’ll offer us their congratulations.”
She shot him a reproachful look. “You know they won’t.”
“They might surprise you, Maria. Your family loves you, and my family loves me. They’ll want us to be happy. Besides, my mother’s been making noises about wanting grandchildren. She’s been on me to get married for years.”
“I doubt she had me in mind.”
“Maybe not. But she’ll get used to the idea,” Steven assured her. “They all will.”
“Including your aunt Lucia?”
“She’ll come around,” Steven told her and hoped he was right.
“She hates anyone named Barone. You can’t honestly believe that she’ll ever accept me as your wife.”
“If she wants to remain a part of my life and our baby’s life, she’ll accept you,” Steven told her. But he knew Maria was probably right. His aunt Lucia wasn’t likely to accept their union. As much as he loved the older woman, he wasn’t blind to her faults—the biggest of which was her all-consuming hatred of the Barones. Unfortunately, Lucia Conti had spent nearly seventy years nurturing that hatred. He’d come to the conclusion long ago that his aunt had chosen to close herself off to any chance of ever loving again and had opted instead to make him and his sister her surrogate children. Sad as it was to admit, he suspected that he and Bianca had filled the void of a husband and children in his aunt’s life. Aside from them and the restaurant, her only passion in life was her hatred of the Barones. As much as he would hate to lose his beloved aunt in his life, he would hate even more to live his life without Maria and their baby.
“Does the same hold true for your parents and sister?” Maria asked. “If they refuse to accept me as your wife, are you going to shut them out of your life, too?”
“If that’s what it takes for us to be together, then yes, I will,” he told her without hesitation. And he meant it. While he hoped it would never come down to having to choose between his family and Maria, he would do so if necessary.
And it would be Maria that he’d choose. Maria and their baby. “So what do you say? Will you marry me?”
Three
“All you have to do is say yes,” Steven urged her. He squeezed her fingers, implored her with those piercing blue eyes. “Say yes and we’ll go right now and find ourselves a justice of the peace to marry us. Then we’ll go back to Boston and break the news to our families. Maybe they’ll be happy about it, and maybe they won’t. However they decide to handle things will be up to them. The important thing is that you and I will be together—together with our baby.”
Maria stared at Steven. He made it all sound so simple, so easy. She loved him and wanted desperately to say yes and become his wife. But even if by some miracle she could persuade her family to accept a marriage between herself and Steven, she didn’t believe the Contis would ever condone such a union. And what about the curse? Perhaps Steven was right and it was nothing more than a foolish superstition fueled by overactive imaginations. But what if it wasn’t?
No matter how much she might want to be with Steven, she couldn’t ignore the curse. It was the main reason she’d retreated to Montana in the first place. While she had fretted over how to tell her family and Steven about the baby, she hadn’t feared them. What she had feared was the Conti curse. And she still feared it.
“I’m sorry, Steven,” she said and pulled her hands free. She stepped back, needing some space from him, needing to be strong and walk away from him when she wanted to lose herself in his embrace. “I can’t marry you.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
She heard the frustration in his voice, read it on his face and empathized with him. She was experiencing some frustration of her own. But it couldn’t be helped. “Does it really matter? Either way, the answer has to be no. I’m sorry.”
“Maria—”
“Please. This isn’t easy for me. Don’t make things any harder than they already are.”
“Is that what I’m doing, Maria? Making things hard for you? Making you miserable? Funny, I thought suggesting that we get married and plan a future together with our baby would have had just the opposite effect. I thought telling you how much I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you would make you happy.”
“It did. It does,” Maria told him.
“Then we—”
“No,” Maria said, refusing to let him continue. She sighed. “I’m not going to play word games with you. My decision’s made and I’m not changing my mind. Please accept it. I don’t want to argue with you about this anymore.”
“It certainly sounds like you know what you don’t want. You don’t want to play word games. You don’t want to argue and you don’t want to marry me,” he repeated, ticking off the items on his fingertips. “Tell me, Maria. Do you know what it is you do want?”
“Yes. I want you to leave. I want you to go back to Boston and forget about me. Forget about us.”
His mouth tightened. “What about the baby? Am I supposed to forget that the child you’re carrying is mine, too?” he asked, his voice deathly soft, his eyes wintry.
Maria swallowed. “It would be better for everyone concerned if you did. I told you, no one except my cousin Karen knows about our involvement. So no one has to know that you’re the baby’s father.”
“I know,” he all but growled the words. “That’s my child you’re carrying and I’ll be damned if I’ll pretend it isn’t. I can’t believe that you’d ask me to.”
“Steven, please. What I meant—”
“I know exactly what you meant. You’d just as soon no one knew that you were ever involved with me, let alone that you’re pregnant with my baby.”
“Not for the reasons you think.” Realizing how deeply she’d hurt him, she reached out to touch him.
“Don’t,” he said, staying her hand. He whipped around, giving her his back. But not before Maria had seen the rage and the pain washing across his features. Tension emanated from him—in the stiff line of his spine as he strode to the end of the hearth and put more distance between them. It was there in the way he clenched his fists at his sides.
Maria didn’t know what to say, how to ease the hurt her poor attempt to reason with him had caused. “I’m sorry,” she finally said. “I’m not trying to be cruel. The last thing I want to do is hurt you.”
“Sure could have fooled me.”
“Steven, will you at least look at me,” she pleaded, hoping she could make him understand.
But when he turned around, the bitterness she’d heard in his voice was no match for the bitterness in his expression. In all the time she’d known Steven, in all the hours she’d spent in his company, she couldn’t ever recall seeing him look so cold, so forbidding. Not even when she’d refused to go public with their relationship had he looked at her with such disdain. Having him look at her that way now cut her to the quick. But then, she’d just tossed his offer of marriage back in his face. Not only that, she’d asked him to forget that he was the father of the baby she was carrying. That her reasons for doing so had been to protect their baby didn’t make her asking him to deny his rights as a father any more palatable. She could hardly blame him for being angry. He had every right to be, she reasoned. But what choice did she have? “I’m sorry,” she told him again and wished that the words didn’t sound quite so empty.
“So am I,” he replied.
“I realize I’m expecting a lot by asking you to walk away from the baby.”
“You’re damn right about that.”
Ignor
ing his sarcasm, she continued, “But I’m asking you anyway. I truly believe it’s what’s best for everyone concerned—even if it doesn’t seem that way to you right now.” When he remained silent and simply continued to look at her with those cold eyes, she pressed on, “You have my word that I’ll take good care of our baby and I’ll be the very best mother I can. And I promise you that someday I’ll tell our child the truth about you. He or she will know how much you wanted them. I’ll understand if you hate me for asking you to do this. But I’m asking you anyway. No, I’m begging you. Please just walk out that door and forget about me. Forget about the baby. Forget everything that’s happened between us this past year.”
“It might be easier to cut out my heart,” he said with disdain.
Maria’s heart ached at his words because they described her own feelings. Forgetting him would be like forgetting a part of herself. But she had to remain strong—for all their sakes. “If you feel anything at all for me…if you ever felt anything for me, you’ll do this for me.”
His expression grew even more forbidding. “I love you—more than I ever imagined I could love another human being. But not even for you will I turn my back on my child.”
“Steven—”
“That’s my child you’re carrying, Maria. My child. No way do I intend to ignore that fact. And there is no way I’m going back to Boston without you.”
While in her heart she knew he had every right to feel as he did, she had to think of her baby. Steven was a formidable man. She had to be equally formidable. “You don’t have a choice,” she challenged, knowing even as she made the statement that it was a lie. “You can’t force me to go back to Boston with you. And you certainly can’t force me to marry you.”
“You’re right. I can’t force you to come with me and I certainly can’t force you to marry me. But it works both ways, angel face. You can’t force me to leave Montana. And whether we’re married or not, I’ve got parental rights where that baby you’re carrying is concerned—rights that I have no intention of giving up.”
