Her New Year Baby Secret

by Jessica Gilmore

  She closed her eyes and wished, just for a moment, that things were different. That she and Marco really were as together as his mother assumed, that she would be joining this loud, overbearing, terrifyingly opinionated, loving, inclusive family. Not once had Sophie felt not good enough. Not when she hadn’t known how to address the maid. Not when she couldn’t follow the conversation, not when she admitted she made most of her clothes, not when Marco had realised she was worrying about money.

  She’d never once felt good enough for Harry. Which was ironic because now she could see she was far, far too good for him.

  If she weren’t pregnant, would she act any differently? Be more honest about how she felt? It was too difficult to know; she was pregnant and although that made everything infinitely more complicated she couldn’t be sorry. Besides, Marco’s mother was right: she and Marco probably would make a beautiful baby.

  Opening her eyes, Sophie jumped. Three terrifyingly elegant women had sat opposite her and were all staring at her in undisguised curiosity. She managed to raise a smile and said, ‘Weddings are tiring, aren’t they?’

  They nodded as if one. All three were wearing their glossy, expensively cut hair down in the kind of swishy style Sophie always envied and were all dressed exquisitely in labels Sophie wasn’t sure she’d ever seen outside glossy magazines.

  The woman in the middle leaned forward, her eyes bright. ‘May I ask you something?’ she asked in heavily accented but perfect English.

  ‘I suppose so,’ Sophie said warily.

  ‘How did you do it?’

  ‘Do what? Bianca’s dress? It was...’

  ‘No,’ the woman on the left interrupted her. ‘Although that is very impressive. No, how did you tie Marco down?’

  ‘How did I...? I haven’t...I mean, we’re not engaged.’

  ‘Yet.’ With a heavy emphasis. ‘I dated him for three years. Mamma was planning my dress, Papà was ready to buy us our own house, and then poof...’ the woman on the right clicked her fingers ‘...he was gone. He told me I had trapped him, that he didn’t want to be tied down.’

  Sophie’s stomach lurched. Would he feel the same way when she told him she was pregnant? Trapped?

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  ‘I was humiliated, heartbroken, and he never told me why. Just left, went to England. Left me to pick up the pieces alone. I should hate him...’ Her voice softened. ‘I tell myself I hate him...’

  ‘But you...’ one of her friends chimed in.

  ‘Everyone is talking about it...’

  ‘Living at the palazzo, friends with his sister...’

  ‘What’s your secret?’

  ‘I don’t know whether to pity or admire you.’

  ‘Or envy you.’

  Sophie swallowed. Marco had been completely up front from the very beginning. He’d told her this was temporary, fun, a one-time thing, but at some point she’d allowed herself to hope for more. There was no point deceiving herself any longer. It wouldn’t change anything. She was having his baby; he had to know. Those were the inescapable facts.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘But I really have to go. If you’ll excuse me?’

  With a deep breath she got to her feet. It was time to find Marco—whatever happened next was entirely up to him.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  MARCO SCANNED THE ROOM. One minute Sophie had been with his sister, the next she had completely disappeared. He was pretty sure she could take care of herself, but in a room that seemed to be comprised solely of his extended family and women he used to date, even the most hardened party-goer would need backup.

  Hell, he needed backup. That was why she was here, wasn’t it?

  ‘Marco.’ He jumped as she came up behind him, laying one pale hand on his sleeve.

  ‘There you are. I was thinking you must have been cornered by my great-aunt Annunciata.’

  ‘No, not yet. Look, could I have a word? In private?’

  Her hand wasn’t the only part of her that was pale. Her cheeks were almost white, her lips bloodless. Anger rose, hot and hungry. Had someone said something to hurt her? ‘Is everything okay?’

  ‘Yes, I just need to talk to you about something.’

  Marco looked around. The door to the terrace was ajar and it looked as if nobody else was braving the sharp winter air. He took her hand, her fingers sliding into his as if they belonged there, and led her outside. Trees in pots lined the walls and vines twisted around the railings. He selected a table at the far end of the terrace and pulled out a chair for Sophie, tucking one of the blankets left out for the purpose around her shoulders as she sat.

  ‘I was talking to some of the other guests just now. They all knew you.’

  ‘Did they?’ He raised his eyebrows. She sounded solemn. Solemn at weddings wasn’t usually good.

  ‘One of them was an ex-girlfriend of yours. She’s a little bitter. Apparently you practically left her at the altar.’

  Understanding dawned. ‘You were talking to Celia, which I expect means she was flanked by Beatrice and Elena. They usually work as a team.’

  ‘I didn’t get their names.’

  Something was off here and he couldn’t work out what. ‘It’s a bit of an exaggeration to say I left her at the altar. We were never formally engaged.’

  ‘So what happened? I deserve to know,’ she added. ‘If looks could kill, I’d currently be laid out on the floor of the women’s bathroom and wedding guests would have to step over my corpse to get to the sinks.’

  Marco rubbed his eyes wearily. Celia was so intrinsically mixed up with the events that had led to him leaving Venice, to the row with his father, that he’d done his best to not think of her at all over the last decade. He should have known he couldn’t return home without the whole sorry business being dredged up again. ‘It sounds like a bigger deal than it was,’ he said, staring out at the Grand Canal, following a small open boat with his eyes as it cruised slowly opposite. ‘Celia and I started seeing each other after I finished university. We were together for about three years.’

  ‘She said you just disappeared.’

  ‘It wasn’t quite like that. She was pretty, a little crazy, fun, all the things a man in his early twenties finds attractive. I guess I thought I was in love, thought she loved me, not that I had any idea what love was.’ Bianca’s words floated back to him. She was right; it had been infatuation, not love. He sighed. ‘She was a welcome distraction from home. I was just starting out, collecting and reselling, developing a client list, building up a reputation, but my father thought I was wasting my time—and told me every chance he got.’

  ‘That must have been difficult.’

  ‘It was challenging,’ he admitted. ‘But I was young and driven and wanted my own path. I thought Celia agreed with me, but gradually I realised she wanted very different things. She didn’t love the Marco Santoro who was passionate about his business and happy to start from scratch if he had to. She loved the Santoro heir with all the privileges that entailed and she kept pushing me to listen to my father. To give in.’

  ‘But you didn’t.’

  ‘I didn’t. So we’d argue, she’d cry, I’d feel guilty, we’d make up. It was an exhausting cycle mirrored by the constant battles with my father. Soon I realised she spent more time at the palazzo than I did, that she was shopping with Mamma and going out with Bianca, that she was already considered part of the family. Hints were dropped, more than hints, that a proposal would be nice. Her father took me aside and made noises about buying us a house as a wedding gift. Nonna presented me with her engagement ring and told me how proud I made her.’

  Sophie put a cold hand on his. ‘That must have been difficult.’

  He’d been trapped. Each way he’d turned, an impossible choice. Give in and live a life he did
n’t want or stand firm and disappoint everyone who loved him. ‘My life was just beginning. It should have been full of possibilities. Instead everyone I knew, everyone I loved, everyone I respected was trying to narrow it down, to cage me in. The girl I thought I was falling for had been replaced with a woman I didn’t recognise, a woman who didn’t want me as I was but wanted to change me, mould me.’

  ‘But she didn’t succeed. You walked away.’

  Celia had succeeded in one way: she had changed him. All that youthful optimism and hope had been replaced with wariness; his home had become a prison.

  ‘I decided I had to leave Venice. I couldn’t carry on being scrutinised and criticised at every turn. I told Celia, gave her the option to come with me. She laughed at first, thought I was joking. When she realised I was serious...’ He shook his head. ‘The contempt in her eyes. I realised then that it was the package she wanted, not the man.’

  ‘She was a fool.’

  ‘She was ambitious. Oh, don’t think I spent the next ten years weeping over my lost love. I was relieved more than heartbroken. Besides, it just confirmed what I already knew. That what I was mattered more than who I was and I was tired of it, tired of Venice, tired of all their expectations. So I went to see my father and told him I was done.’

  ‘How did he take it?’

  ‘Not well. He got so angry he collapsed with a suspected heart attack.’

  ‘Oh, Marco.’

  ‘And I went anyway. He was in the hospital and I packed my bags and left. I knew if I stayed the guilt would suck me in and I would never be free, so as soon as the doctors said he should make a full recovery I was out of Venice and starting again. I barely saw him after that, a couple of times a year of guarded pleasantries and then it was too late. For both of us.’

  ‘I’m sure he knew you loved him. I’m sure he was proud of you.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Suddenly he was tired of it all. Of the guilt, of the uncertainty. ‘All I knew was that I wasn’t good enough. Not as a son, as an heir, as a partner. It’s been easier—safer—not to get involved. Not to allow anyone to let me down. Allow anyone to look at me and tell me I’m not enough as I am.’ Safer but ultimately unsatisfying. Short-term relationships, friendships based on business not deep-rooted companionship, family kept at arm’s length. No wonder he’d worked eighteen hours a day, seven days a week. He’d had very little else.

  He looked at Sophie as she stared out onto the Grand Canal, her profile sad and thoughtful, and for a moment he wondered what would happen if she told him he did matter, he mattered to her. Would he be able to believe her—or would he brush her off, turn away?

  Time stood still, the air shimmering over the water while he waited an eternity for her to speak. She swallowed, a convulsive shudder, and her hand pressed on his, icy now in the winter chill.

  ‘I don’t believe you’re not enough, Marco, at least I hope you are, more than enough. Not for me, I know that’s not what you want, but for your child. I’m pregnant, Marco. I’m having a baby, your baby.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  SHE COULDN’T LOOK him straight in the eye. Instead Sophie stared at her hand, still covering his, gleaming pale white in the moonlight, and waited. Marco had stilled under her touch, turning to marble the second the words left her mouth.

  ‘Pregnant?’

  ‘Yes.’ She waited for him to ask the obvious questions. Are you sure? How do I know it’s mine? But they didn’t come. Relief flooded over her as he nodded slowly.

  Only to recede as he looked straight over at her, eyes hooded. ‘Then we had better get married.’

  It wasn’t a question.

  It was an assumption. Sophie’s heart sped up.

  ‘Married?’

  ‘London would be best. Three weeks from now. We’ll tell everyone we wanted to keep it quiet. We don’t want this kind of fuss.’ He shrugged in a way that encompassed all of Bianca’s wedding.

  No, Sophie didn’t need three hundred guests, had no desire to book out an exclusive old palazzo, say her vows in a world-famous church. But when—if—she got married she would want her friends, her family there. She would want it to be a celebration of love, just as Bianca was so clearly celebrating her love for Antonio today. Not a clandestine affair hidden from the world as if she were ashamed.

  And if—when—she got married she wanted to be asked. She didn’t need an extravagant proposal, but she would hope that any future husband wouldn’t just assume...

  ‘Marco, I...’

  ‘Then we’ll return here. You can live at the palazzo. You’ll need family around you and you don’t want to go back to Manchester. Besides, I need to be either here or London, so it has to be Venice. I can sell the London house, get a flat for when I’m there. I will have to travel a great deal, another reason why you’ll need my family close by.’

  That was how he saw her future, was it? Here in Venice, safely tucked away with his family, the family he’d spent over ten years avoiding as much as possible, while he stayed in London.

  She opened her mouth, but he ploughed on. ‘I don’t think we should tell anyone anything yet. You can go back to London as planned tomorrow. I’ll be back in a week. I’ll arrange for somebody to move your things into my house this week.’

  It was obviously all decided. All taken care of in less than a minute’s decision-making. It didn’t matter what she thought, what she wanted. She was a problem to be taken care of. A problem he had solved in record time.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t love Venice, that she couldn’t imagine living here, although she wasn’t sure she would ever feel at home in the huge, ancient palazzo. It wasn’t that she didn’t adore Marco’s family, overbearing as they were, because she did. But it had taken Sophie far too long to get to the point where she made the decisions about her life. She wasn’t about to hand over control to someone else. Just go along meekly with his plans like an obedient little wife.

  ‘Marco, stop. We don’t need to decide all this now.’ She couldn’t help the slight emphasis on the ‘we’. ‘Let’s take a few days to think about it and talk about it then, when you’ve had time to digest everything.’

  He got to his feet, body half turned away, the message clear; this conversation was over. ‘There’s nothing to decide. Look, Sophie, you might not like it. You don’t have to like it. This doesn’t fit my plans either.’ Hurt lanced through her at his cold tones, at each distinct word. ‘But what’s done is done and we need to act like adults, put our own preferences aside.’ He smiled then, a wintry half-smile that left her colder than his earlier bleakness. ‘We get on well enough. We have chemistry. There are worse foundations for marriage.’

  ‘Yes, but there are better foundations too.’ She looked up at him, putting every ounce of conviction she had into her voice. ‘Marco, it’s the twenty-first century. We can both be involved, be good parents without needing to be married. We don’t need to live together, or even be together. We just need to respect each other and work together. I need you to listen to me, to consult me, not to make pronouncements that affect my entire life and expect me to jump to.’ Sophie could hear the quiver in her voice and swallowed, holding back the threatened tears. ‘I know you don’t want to get married and so thank you for suggesting it. But I don’t think a reluctant marriage is the best thing for me or for the baby.’

  She stood up, the blanket slipping off her shoulders as she did so. ‘I am heading back to the palazzo. Please make my apologies to Bianca. I’m going to get my plane tomorrow and I’m asking you to give me some space. Please don’t come to my room tonight or offer to drop me off in the morning—I think we both need some time to think. Think about what’s best for all of us.’

  Head held high, she touched him lightly on the cheek before turning and walking away. She’d been expecting anger or denial. Not this cold acceptance. But secretly, bu
ried so deep down she’d hardly been aware of it, she’d been hoping for more. Maybe not love, she wasn’t that much of a fool, but liking. An indication he wanted to be with her. Not cold, hard duty.

  But it looked as if cold, hard duty was all he had to offer—and it wasn’t enough. She deserved more—even if her heart was breaking as she turned and walked away. But better a cracked heart now than a lifetime with someone who didn’t want or respect her. Better a cracked heart than allowing someone to dictate her life. Because she’d allowed that to happen twice, and she’d had to fight to be free twice. Last time she’d vowed never again and she’d meant it. She meant it now. No matter how much it hurt.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ‘I CAN’T BELIEVE there are so many photos of you. It’s like Marco and his family are famous!’ Ashleigh was once again searching through Italian gossip sites on Sophie’s laptop.

  ‘Not famous exactly, it’s just they’re a really old family. A really old rich family. A bit like minor royalty.’ Sophie turned her head, not wanting to catch a glimpse of Marco, even on screen. He hadn’t texted, hadn’t called. A week of radio silence. She’d asked for time, asked for space, but this was beginning to feel a lot like punishment. ‘Marco and Bianca are gossip-column staples. Her wedding was a big deal. Not that I knew that when I offered to fix her dress. I’d have been far too terrified.’

  ‘So that makes you the mother-to-be of minor royalty,’ Grace said.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re pregnant.’ Emma was staring at Sophie’s stomach. ‘You haven’t put on an ounce.’

  ‘I have, many ounces, but half of it is Italian food,’ Sophie pointed out, but Emma’s words brought her situation home. It was too easy, back in the safety of her flat, of her routine, to hide from her future. But that future was growing rapidly and she couldn’t hide it for much longer. ‘And I can’t believe it either. There are moments when I’m thrilled—and then I start panicking again. I don’t know how to be a mother. It’s not like I have the best relationship with mine.’