The Italian's Pregnant Virgin

by Maisey Yates

  “I cannot believe this. It isn’t true. Such a thing isn’t even legal in this country.”

  “There are ways to circumvent legality, as I’m sure you know. But now I have ruined everything with Esther. And I have done so in part because I was letting you control things again.”

  “You say all of this as though you’re angry about what I did back then.”

  “I am. I damn well am. I was sixteen, I didn’t know. I didn’t know what I would feel. Every time I look across the room I see her. Every time. It is like being stabbed straight through the heart. I cannot forgive myself for the decision that I made then. I cannot forgive you for the part that you played in it.”

  His father pounded his fist down on his desk. “That feeling that you have I have for you. Magnified with an intensity that you cannot possibly imagine. Because I raised you. Because you are the heir to everything that I have worked so hard to build. My hope is placed in you, Renzo. You are everything to me in more ways than you can know. I did what I had to do to protect you, and if I have earned your anger then I accept that. But I would not change what I did.”

  His father’s words struck him hard. Along with the realization that while he could understand why the decision had been made, he still wished he could change it.

  “Do you not think it hurts me?” his father asked, his voice rough. “Because I see her, too. She is my granddaughter. And especially since your sister had Sophia, I feel that loss. The loss of my first grandchild that I cannot acknowledge.”

  “But it was not as important to you as protecting the family reputation.”

  “The greater good,” he said. “And it so happened that it also protected her mother’s marriage. That entire family. You cannot claim that I am so selfish, Renzo.”

  “Still, you wanted me to marry Esther to preserve your reputation. I imagine you want to keep the circumstances around the conception of the babies a secret, as well.”

  “Do you suggest that putting all of it out in the open is for the best? What about the reputation of the Valenti family?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, tapping the back of the chair that was placed in front of his father’s desk. “I don’t know. But I cannot protect the reputation of the Valentis. Not at the expense of my own life. Not at the expense of the people I love.”

  “And the love of your parents? Does that not figure into this at all?”

  “You can protect yourself, Father. I think you’re more than able. My children cannot. They are helpless. They are depending on me to make the right choice.”

  “And you think bringing them into the world under a cloud of scandal is the right thing to do?”

  “I am tired of lies. I am tired of living a life built on a monument to the one thing I can never acknowledge. The one person I will always love that I can never acknowledge. I am tired of living in an existence that is an unholy altar to my failures. Confirmation that I had no other choice. No other choice but to give up Samantha when I did. And perhaps then it was true. But I have choices now. And perhaps I will humiliate myself. Perhaps I will humiliate our family. But if I have to do that to win back the woman I love, if I have to stop protecting myself in every way in order to prove my vulnerability, then I will do it. If the perfect reputation of our family is a casualty, then I accept it. But I will not be a slave to it.” He let out a harsh breath, Esther, her lie, her story on his mind. “I can’t control everything. I’ll only end up breaking everything I care about.”

  “I did what I had to do,” his father said. “I counseled you the way that I had to. I am the patriarch of this family, Renzo. Protecting it is my highest calling.”

  “Perhaps that is the problem. And where we have reached an impasse. Because I am the patriarch of my family. My family, which is Esther and the children she’s carrying. I lost her. I lied to her, and I told her I could never love her. I was afraid, afraid because I could not subject myself to the kind of pain that I went through, the kind of pain I continually go through, where Samantha is concerned. But all I’ve done is made it worse. And I’m going to fix it. No matter what.”

  He turned, getting ready to walk out of the office. He stopped when his father spoke.

  “Renzo. I might not agree with the decision you’re making, but I do want you to know that I understand I can’t protect you now. Moreover, that you don’t need me to. You’re a man now, a man who has understandable anger directed at me. I only hope that someday you will forgive me.”

  Renzo let out a hard breath, and he thought of something else Esther had said. About how she’d had to let go of the past to truly move forward.

  He had one foot firmly in the past, and it had nearly ruined everything. He had to start walking forward. Forward to Esther.

  “I imagine,” he said, “that will all depend on what happens next.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ESTHER FELT DRAINED. Emotionally, physically. Going back to work at the bar was difficult now. Her stomach was bigger, her ankles were bigger, her fatigue was bigger. Plus, all she wanted to do was crawl underneath the bar and cry for the entire shift, because something inside her felt fundamentally broken since she’d walked away from Renzo.

  It was oppressively humid tonight. And hot. Clouds had rolled in, and she had a feeling there was going to be a late-evening thunderstorm, the impending rain adding to the heaviness in the atmosphere. Adding to the heaviness in her heart.

  She looked outside and saw drops begin to pound the cobbled sidewalk. Great. Walking home was going to be fun. All of her clothes would be stuck to her skin. Then she would spend the rest of the evening shivering, because the showers in the hostel never had enough hot water to get rid of a chill like this once it soaked into her bones.

  A flash of lightning split the sky, and she jumped a little bit. “Esther?”

  She turned and saw her boss, who was gesturing madly at the tables outside. She knew that he wanted her to bring in the seat covers. “Okay,” she said.

  She hurried outside, not bothering to put on a sweater or anything. The air was still warm, but the drops falling from the sky were big and aggressively cold. She hunched over, taking hold of the cushions, collecting them beneath her arm.

  Suddenly, the back of her neck prickled and she straightened slowly. Another flash of lightning washed out the scene around her, and that was when she saw him. Renzo, standing there in a suit just as he had done that first night he had come to the bar.

  He was standing in a suit, in the rain, water pouring down over him, his hands in his pockets, his dark eyes trained on her.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, the cushions suddenly tumbling from her arms. She hadn’t even realized she had released her hold on them.

  It was the same as it had always been. From the beginning. Those dark eyes rooting her to the spot, her entire world shifting around her, shifting around him.

  Everything changed, even the air. If he had brought the thunderstorm with him, she wouldn’t be surprised.

  “I came to see you. You told me to come and find you when I was ready. When I was ready to prove this to you. To prove my love. And I am. Trust me, I was tempted to hold a press conference before I came to see you, but I did feel like I should talk to you first. Not for me. But for you.”

  “A press conference? What kind of press conference?”

  “To explain. Everything. The surrogacy... Everything. Because, I thought maybe if I didn’t have a reputation to protect anymore you wouldn’t be able to accuse me of being motivated by it.”

  “I... I suppose it’s easy for me to say when nobody is interested in me or my life. At least, not apart from you.”

  “Don’t excuse yourself,” he said, “not now. You were right about me. It was all about doing something that suited me, and I want to make sure that this no longer does. I want to make sure that I’m no longer doing everything with a view of creating a smooth facade over my life. All of that... It is the reason that I am the way I am now. And my dedicat
ion to it was to justify my earlier actions. But no more. I am prepared to go public with our story. To let everyone know that you are a surrogate, and that I was fooled by my ex-wife.”

  “But what about all the legality?”

  He took a deep breath. “That’s why I didn’t have the press conference. I was afraid that you would be concerned I was using it to lessen your claim on the babies. That I was using it to try to make sure you didn’t have a place in their life. So you see, even with the desire to enact a grand gesture, I’m somewhat hampered by the fact that I have an unequal amount of power here.” He shook his head. “But only on the outside. Inside... Inside I’m trembling. Because I don’t know how to make you believe me. Because I haven’t earned the right to have you do it.”

  He moved closer to her, and she watched him come. The rain pelted her skin, her clothes completely plastered to her body. She didn’t care. “My father told me that I had to make sure everything went right this time. That I had to keep the family together or he was going to take my inheritance from me. I understand that only puts another nail in the coffin of my sincerity, but please understand that in part I was motivated by the desire to keep all of the inheritance for my children.”

  “So, your father told you to marry me.”

  He nodded. “Yes, and it was the thing that pushed me to make it real. And then that first night we were together, I saw Samantha. And I knew... Whatever I had to do I would do it. Including lie to you. And that’s the hardest thing, Esther. It is the hardest thing to come back from, because you know me. You know that I would do anything for my children. And I have proved to you that I’m willing to lie. But I thought for certain that I had already experienced the lowest moments life had to offer. How could I not? I watched my child grow up a stranger to me. But I was wrong. There is lower.”

  She hurt for him. Physically hurt. But she found that she needed to hear it. Needed to hear about the pain he’d been through, because he had hurt her so profoundly. “What was it?”

  “Telling you that I loved you, knowing that it was true this time, and knowing there was nothing I could do to convince you. Knowing that I had destroyed that chance already. That I had taken something beautiful, wonderful—love and the ability to feel it—and turned it into a farce. That I had finally found that feeling and myself again, and that I wanted it, and that I had destroyed any chance of getting it in return.”

  She couldn’t take it anymore. She couldn’t hold back. She moved to him, wrapping her arms around him, letting the rain pelt them both, washing away all of the hurt that was between them. “I believe you,” she said. “I do. And you haven’t squandered anything. I love you. And I knew that you could love me. I did. Because the way that you rearranged your life so that you could be a father to these children, the way that you spoke about the pain you felt over Samantha, the way you continue to feel pain because you won’t do anything to disturb her, that’s love, Renzo. That’s real love. Sacrificial love, not controlling love.”

  “I wanted to pretend that it wasn’t there, because it was easier. Admitting that you love someone when you know you can never be with them in the way that you want to be is a terrible fate. I experienced that with Samantha. And then with you.”

  “I love you. I’m here. You don’t have to prove anything to me. I’m so touched that you were willing to do that, but I think it’s probably for the best if we don’t make our children a headline.”

  “Probably so,” he said, sliding his hand down her back. “I love you, Esther. And what love has always meant to me has been something distant. From my father it was control. And with my daughter it was a required separation. You asked me what love was, and when it comes to loving someone and being with them, I’m not sure I know. But I want to learn. That is what I can offer you. My willingness to change. To be changed by this thing between us, in more ways than I already have been.”

  “I suppose that’s fair,” she said, sniffling. “I don’t really know what it is either. All of my life it meant control, too. And I left home looking for something. Freedom. I thought that it would come with travel, with education, with no one to hold me back or tie me down. And that is a kind of freedom. But it’s incomplete. I met you, I started to have feelings for you, and it made me ache. It made me want. It wasn’t easy. Deciding to be a mother to twins when I had been planning on something else entirely isn’t easy. But what I’ve learned spending these last couple of years alone is that things are easier when you don’t care. The more you care the more it costs. We both know that. I would rather care. And I would rather have all of the painful things that go with that so that I can have the real, joyous things that go along with it, too. I would rather do that than drift along easily. And I would rather do it with you.”

  He cupped her chin, tilting her face up and kissing her, water drops rolling over their skin as he continued to taste her, as he sipped the moisture from her mouth.

  “I’m going to get fired,” she said.

  “Well, it’s a good thing you’re going to marry a billionaire.”

  “Arrogant. I didn’t say I would marry you. I just said that I loved you.”

  “I am arrogant. That is part of loving me, you will find.”

  “Well, I’ll probably still eat cereal on the floor. That is part of loving me.”

  A smile curved his lips. “I want all the parts of loving you. From the flat shoes to the cereal, to the pain in my chest when I think of what it would mean to lose you. I want to teach you about the world, and I want you to teach me how to be a better man. How to be the man you need.”

  Thunder rolled through the air, through her chest, the bass note that seemed to match the intensity of the love inside her. “Renzo, don’t be silly. You’re already the man I need. You were, from that first moment I saw you. You’re not the man I would have chosen, but you are the one I love. You are the one I needed. I wanted freedom, I wanted to see everything of the world, but believe me when I tell you I have never felt so free than when you’re holding me. The world that we create between us is the most beautiful one I could have ever imagined.”

  “Even when I am overbearing? And impossible?”

  She nodded, unable to hold back the smile that stretched her lips wide. “Even then. Because, you see, Mr. Valenti, the thing is I love you. And if you love me then everything else is just window dressing.”

  “I do love you, Esther. We may have had a strange beginning, but I think we’re going to have the happiest ending.”

  “So do I, Renzo. So do I.”

  EPILOGUE

  IT WAS AN interesting thing, to go from a family where love had been oppressive, to one where it was the very air Esther breathed.

  But after five years with Renzo, their twins and two other children, plus nieces and nephews and her in-laws, Esther felt freer than she ever had. Surrounded, and yet liberated.

  Renzo’s parents were not the easiest people, but they loved him and their grandchildren with a very real ferocity that was irresistible to Esther.

  She had become very good friends with her sister-in-law, Allegra, and her husband, Cristian. They had spent many long dinners laughing together while the children played.

  The only thing that ever bothered Esther was the fact that she couldn’t heal Renzo’s every wound. He loved her, he loved their children. And he did it with absolutely no reservation. But still, Esther knew that he wondered about his oldest child, the one he had never gotten to know.

  Until, one day a letter came in the mail. From Samantha. Somehow, she had found out about her origins and had decided to contact Renzo. Because she wanted to know her father, the man who had given her up quietly so that her family wouldn’t be disturbed.

  For Esther, it hadn’t been a difficult thing to allow Samantha into their family. It had never even occurred to her to close the door on the daughter who meant so much to her husband. Still, one night after a visit from Samantha, Renzo pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

  “Thank
you,” he said, “thank you so much for accepting her like you have. What we have here is so complete, and I know that adding more to it can be difficult...”

  “No,” she said, pressing her fingers to his lips. “It isn’t difficult. Nothing about loving you has ever been difficult, and seeing you with all the pieces of your heart back in place is the most beautiful gift I could have ever been given.”

  Her husband’s eyes were suspiciously bright when he went to kiss her again. And then he said in a husky voice, “The most beautiful gift I have ever been given was you. Without you, I would have none of this. Without you I would still be a debauched playboy who had absolutely everything except the one thing he needed.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Love, Esther. Without you, I would have no love. And with you my life is full of it.”

  Then he carried her upstairs and proceeded to show her just how little control he had where she was concerned, and just how much he loved her. And Esther never doubted—not once—that Renzo’s love was the absolute truth.

  * * * * *

  EXCLUSIVE EXTRACT

  Even unsentimental Alessandro Di Sione can’t deny his grandfather’s dream of retrieving a scandalous painting. Yet its return depends on outspoken Princess Gabriella. Travelling together to locate the painting, Gabby is drawn to this guilt-ridden man. Could their passion be his salvation?