The Surprise Conti Child

by Tara Pammi

  “A file, cara.” His tone tempered and perversely, it made her throat raw. “About you. To prove that you’re an incompetent mother.”

  Alex jerked so hard that she’d have toppled off the chair if not for Luca’s hand behind her. Her heart thumped in her chest, a loud rushing in her ears made her head spin. The nausea she’d felt this morning returned a hundredfold.

  She gripped the edge of the breakfast table, looking for an anchor in her drowning world.

  Incompetent...the word was a like a burn mark on her skin, festering and deep and painful. More so than all the pain she’d suffered in the accident.

  More so than all the years of tears and deprecation and grief she had suffered at her parents’ hands.

  With shaking hands, she opened the file. Watched pages and pages of her life distilled into hard little facts. Stripped of her insecurities and fears. Reducing her entire life into one dimension.

  Disorganized. Years of her chaotic nature, her rebellion against being compared to Adrian’s obsessively organized life.

  Poor financial straits. Years of having slaved over the store and the house and nothing to show in return. Apparently, no loans at least, thanks to Leandro.

  Panic attacks. Incomplete use of one hand.

  No career prospects.

  Doubt was a pit of thorns that she tumbled into, mocking her, scraping her.

  It was every horrible thing her mother had insinuated over the years and every fear she had made herself sick over again and again.

  Alexis bent her head to the table, and pulled in a deep breath to keep the grief rising through her at bay.

  No, she refused to be reduced, refused to let her pain, her fears, her very life, be reduced to such cold, hard facts.

  This wasn’t even about her.

  She wasn’t a failure. Not the woman who took what she wanted seven years ago. Not the woman who had a daughter and raised her against all odds. Not the woman who dared set the rules with a man as ruthless and autocratic as Leandro.

  She dashed away the tears before they could spill. Rage was a feral thing inside her and she let it roam freely. She stood up and faced Luca. “Do you know who commissioned this?”

  Please, let it not be Leandro, she prayed frantically.

  If he’d done this, she could never forgive him. There’d be nothing but ashes left.

  “Antonio.” Relief battered her. “A chartered flight leaves in three hours. It is best if you take Izzie and leave.”

  “You think Leandro will use this against me.” Horror seeped into her words.

  “I have stopped guessing the lengths to which my brother will go to ensure what he thinks is right. He’s done it for too long and knows nothing else.” The impact of Luca’s fist on the table rocked through Alexis. “Maybe I was wrong and there’s no hope for—”

  A fist to his mouth threw Luca back. Loud and vicious, his pithy curse rent the air. Heart rapping against her rib cage, Alex pushed her chair back and stood up.

  Shock buffeted her as she realized it was Leandro that had thrown the punch at Luca.

  Knuckles bruised, mouth tightened into a thin line, gray eyes blazing with fury, it was Leandro like she’d never seen before.

  When he moved toward a barely upright Luca again, Alex planted herself in front of him. “Stop it, Leandro. What the hell is wrong with you?”

  Something swept across Leandro’s face then, a black, glittering shadow that sent ripples of alarm up and down her skin. “He not only advises you but aids you to run away, with Isabella in tow, and I should forgive him?”

  “He aids me because he has lost hope for you. Because he thinks—” her chest was so tight, “—that you’re an unfeeling brute who would manipulate me into spending my life with you without earning it, without even deserving it.”

  That arrogant head of his reared back as if she had slapped him. That sensuously wicked mouth that had licked and caressed her to rapture flinched. But Alex felt no satisfaction in hurting him, in piercing that steely invulnerability of his.

  How could she when her gut was twisted into a painful knot, when her heart thudded in fear of a future that could very well be ruined?

  Luca’s harsh, pain-filled laughter surrounded them. He stepped forward now, past Alex, as if challenging, almost inviting, Leandro to take another swing at him. “Our parents have ruined him, too, cara. You are a fool to trust him.”

  The contempt in his tone left a jarring reminder even after he left.

  A bleakness touched Leandro’s gray gaze even as it swept over Alex in that hungry way of his. “Have you decided I do not deserve to know that I’m to be a father again?”

  He didn’t demand in a fury or betrayal but as if he’d already lost her. As if she’d hurt him immeasurably by not sharing it with him. “It’s not something I could hide from you long.”

  “But you did not share it with me in happiness. That is telling enough.”

  “I hated not telling you every moment. I hated depriving us of the joy of it...but God, Leandro, you manipulate everything around you, arrange everyone’s lives.” Tears she’d held back fell out of her eyes. “I trusted you, always and you...

  “Is he right, Leandro? Would you have used that file against...me?” Her voice broke, throat full of needles. “Did you consider it?”

  His strength and heat surrounded her, and Alex almost leaned into him, driven by deep need and instinct. When he spoke, he sounded as if his own throat was full of gravel. “I considered it. For all of five minutes.

  “I was desperate, bella, I could feel you slipping away from me this past week. And then you wouldn’t look me in the eyes, you hide this news from me.”

  He rubbed the heel of his hand over his eyes, the vulnerability of the gesture tugging at Alex even now.

  “Because you made me doubt everything. You bought my parents’ store and didn’t say a word to me. You talked of marriage and duty and family but not of us. Not once.

  “I couldn’t live like that again. Not when I discovered how...

  “Not for Izzie, not for this baby. I couldn’t settle for something less again. Not from you, of all the people in the world. I deserve to spend my life with someone who loves me, Leandro.”

  “Are you leaving me then, Alexis?”

  The stiffness in her spine relented, the rigidness of her muscles melted and Alex struggled to regulate her long exhale.

  For in that tiny question, she discovered a universe of meaning.

  The old Leandro wouldn’t have asked such a desperate question. As if it was all beyond him now. He would have never accepted defeat when he could move mountains and rearrange landscapes for his purpose.

  His pain in those words and the relief it provoked was a tiny, threadbare bridge between the chasm that had opened up between them over the past week.

  Hope flickered in her chest.

  Heart in throat, every inch of her skin hyper-aware of him, Alex stared back at him. Refused to even betray her heart by the flicker of an eyelid. “If I do take Luca’s help and leave, it’s your own fault.

  “If you lose the right to be Izzie’s father, if you lose this joy that we could’ve had...” she swallowed away the words that rose to her lips, “then it is all your fault.

  “It is your own refusal to open up your heart to me, your own stubborn, arrogant belief in thinking you know best, your bloody incapability to feel anything, that would ruin the best thing that’s come into your life.”

  The silence clattered with the beat of some bird’s wings across the blue sky, with the soft hum of a lawn mower somewhere, the world puttering on its humdrum way while her heart stuttered in her chest.

  “You think me unfeeling, mia cara? To attack my own brother like an animal, you think I’m not weak? You think it doesn’t terrify me at
this moment that there is nothing I can do to stop my very life from falling apart? You think it didn’t disgust me that I considered even letting you see that file?

  “My heart is not mine anymore.

  “My fate is not mine anymore.

  “I have been rendered into nothing at your hands, tesoro. I’m nothing without your love.”

  And just like that, the man she loved with every fiber of her being went on his knees.

  That stunning, honorable man raised his head toward her and spoke the words she’d been dying to hear with every breath in her. “All my life, I have tried to control and master every emotion. I lived only to make sure no one ever hurt me and Luca and Valentina, without ever risking anything... I didn’t even realize what I missed until I met you.

  “You...you make me risk everything, bella. To place my happiness in your hands, to trust myself into your hands, it terrifies me.

  “But I love you so much, mia cara. If you give me one chance, I will change. And I will love. And I will risk everything I have again and again to prove I’m worthy of the woman I love more than anything else.”

  The woman I love more than anything else...

  Tears filled and overflowed from Alex’s eyes at the pure supplication in Leandro’s words.

  Her trust in him soared on wings, her entire being felt as if she could float away on a cloud of happiness.

  She fell to her knees in front of him and took his mouth with hers. He tasted of passion and thirst and hunger that could never be sated, and of love.

  Of unconditional love, of utter acceptance, of deep, abiding trust.

  Frantic words in Italian caressed her skin as he pressed kisses to every inch of her face, as he wrapped his strong arms around her and held her tight. His anxiety spoke in his shaking fingers, in his tight grip.

  In the shudder that went through him when he said roughly, “Per piacere, bella, tell me you’re not leaving me. Tell me you’ll stay and love me. Tell me you’ll let me be a part of your life, cara.

  “I would take nothing that you do not want to give, Alexis. Never again.”

  “I love you, Leandro, so much.” Alex buried her mouth in his neck, breathed in the taste and scent of him. “I would have killed you if you had used that against me. I’d have—”

  “Shh...mia cara. They are all lies, you know that, don’t you? If anything, I’m the one incompetent to love you. I’m the one who’s not worthy of you and Izzie and this baby.” He pulled her to him right there until she sat in the cradle of his thighs, and his hand found her stomach.

  “I hate him, Leandro,” she said snuggling into his warmth. “I’ll never forgive him for putting such idea in your head.”

  With gentle fingers, he clasped her chin, understanding her. “He’s old and set in his ways, cara.”

  Fear made her words sharp, harsh. “What if you had lost me because of his horrible advice? What if we had lost all this?”

  “You know what I see when I look at him, Alexis?

  “Myself, if you hadn’t come along. He has been through grief and loss and such pain to be hardened by it all, bella. He tried to do right by Luca and me in his own way.

  “If nothing else, I have to keep him around the family as a reminder of what I could become if—”

  “You’re generous and kind and honorable, Leandro.” Alex turned around in his arms and pressed her forehead to his. “You’re the man I love. You would never become like that. You could never hurt anyone you love like that.”

  Her belief in him unmanned Leandro, her love for him shook him. “But I already have, Alexis.” A shiver ran through him and Alex turned and embraced him again.

  “What do you mean?”

  Leandro hid his face in her shoulder, fear fisting his gut. How foolish he had been in thinking he could arrange and assure everyone’s happiness around him. When his own wasn’t in his hands. “Luca hates me. And Tina... Dio, Tina’s entire happiness hinges on the fact that the bet I made is right.”

  “You set up Kairos with her, didn’t you?” Alex asked, her perceptive gaze settling on him.

  “I did. I couldn’t risk Antonio threatening to tell her that she’s not a Conti. If she was married, if she wasn’t one anymore, I thought she would not care. Luca thinks, rightly, that I have gambled with her happiness.

  “If she discovers it, she will never forgive me. And I will lose her.”

  Alex caressed the clenched muscles in his back, clasped her arms around Leandro tight. She understood Luca’s anger now, and the underlying fear. But she couldn’t let the man she loved suffer. Pressing her mouth to his temple, she lifted his chin. “You did it with the right intentions. You did it because you love her so much.

  “She’ll understand one day, Leandro. Because she loves you. Just as I understood what you did with me.”

  The trust in her eyes, the fierceness of her embrace, Leandro realized for the first time in his life that he wasn’t alone anymore. That he didn’t have to bear the burden by himself. That Alexis would seek to protect him just as he would do with her.

  The depth of her love filled him with a quiet strength. He brushed his lips against hers, sensing a hole he hadn’t even known inside fill. “Promise me that you will spend eternity with me.”

  With a kiss, Alex agreed.

  EPILOGUE

  Ten Years Later

  LEANDRO STOOD LEANING against the wall by the entrance to the small bookstore while cold November rain and sleet pounded the streets of Seattle.

  A fire burned brightly in the stone hearth on the far corner, its hissing sparks and flames adding to his wife’s spooky storytelling abilities.

  His mouth curved as she reached the part where the magical squirrel reached the dark cave she had to venture into.

  High and low, deep and bass, she modulated her voice to match the ferocious tiger and the shaking squirrel while the group of children surrounding her wore matching reactions of wonder and shock and anticipation. Some smiled with a knowing look for they knew what came next, some shuddered for they were hearing the story for the first time.

  His ten-year-old Violetta and six-year-old Chiara watched Alexis with wide eyes and wider mouths as if they couldn’t believe that their mamma could be this entertainer extraordinaire who authored such magical, elaborate stories.

  It had taken him eighteen torturous, agonizing months to win Alexis’s trust, to receive the last piece of her heart, to see the stories she had written and drawn pictures around for so long.

  The innocence hidden in the stories despite the treacherous adventures, her particular gift of transforming the average, the downtrodden, the underdog into tremendous heroes meant her success after being published had been meteoric.

  And Leandro had cherished every moment of this journey with her, was humbled every day that this brilliant woman was his in every way that mattered.

  He wasn’t sure Chiara even understood that Alexis was such a famous children’s books author.

  To her and his other girls, she was just their loving, adorable and, in Izzie’s case recently, a little strict mamma.

  Remembering his teenage troublemaker, Leandro turned. At sixteen, his eldest was already giving him minor heart attacks with her rebellious streak. She hid in one of the back aisles chatting with a boy and throwing him warning glances to not even acknowledge her.

  Turning around, Leandro smiled widely.

  He wouldn’t admit it to her even at the pain of death but he loved Izzie for exactly what she was, even as she drove him up the wall every other day with her tricks. He loved all his girls as different as they were for they were all pieces of his heart.

  Something Antonio still couldn’t grasp after all these years. Just remembering Antonio’s crushing disappointment when Chiara had been born made Leandro chortle even no
w.

  That the Conti male heir he so desperately wanted, that he wanted to groom, was Luca’s son was a bitter pill he still couldn’t seem to swallow.

  He straightened from the door to the sound of thunderous applause from a bunch of tiny hands. Alex stood up from the stool but waited patiently as some kids asked her to sign their books and some just asked about the magical squirrel’s next adventure.

  Violetta ran toward Izzie and Chiara followed while his wife made her way toward him.

  The moment she reached him, Leandro took her mouth in a fast, hard kiss. Cheeks staining pink, Alex pushed at him. “Bookstore, Leandro, and children, remember?”

  His hands on her hips, Leandro dragged her to his side and locked her there. It had been three months of Alexis’s book tour with his entire family. Of Chiara crashing into their bed because she didn’t like her bed, of Isabella hating her life and Violetta following her little sister.

  “I can’t help it, mia cara. It’s going to be hell once we get to the hotel again.”

  Alex elbowed him in the ribs. “You’re the one who wanted a big family, remember?”

  “Yes, but I thought they would all be saints like me. But they are like you—”

  This time, it was she that pressed her mouth to his.

  Dio, his hunger for this woman would never abate and he liked it just like that. “Take me home then, won’t you, Leandro? To our big bed and endless privacy and to those long nights.” Wicked laughter made her eyes shine. “Maybe we can fob them off on their Zia and have a fourth honeymoon.” She swiped her tongue over his lips in a languid invitation and then drew back. “That is, if you’re up to it.”

  Leandro pressed her hips until she could feel the rigid length of him. “I’m always up for you, bella,” he said nuzzling her hair.

  Pink stained his wife’s cheeks, a soft gasp fluttered out and he fell in love just a little more. Every day, he fell a little more, the magic of it filling his every breath.

  “I love you, Leandro.” She never let him forget it. Through day and night, joy and sorrow, Alexis never let him forget that he was loved.