He paused for a moment, taking a deep breath. Perhaps he was being overly cautious. But given his history, he felt he had to be. He had lost one child, and he would not lose another one.
ESTHER ABBOTT TOOK a deep breath as she cleared off the last table of her shift. Hopefully, she would have a decent amount of money in tips when she counted everything up, then, she would finally be able to rest easy. Her feet hurt. And she imagined that as early on as she was in the pregnancy, she couldn’t exactly blame it on that.
It was just the fact that she had been working for ten hours. But what other choice did she have? Renzo Valenti had sent her away. Ashley Bettencourt wanted nothing to do with her or the baby. And if Esther had any sense in her head she would probably have complied with the other woman’s wishes and pursued a termination. But she just couldn’t do it.
Apparently, she had no sense in her head. She had a lot of feelings inside her chest, though. Feelings that made all of this seem impossible, and painful, and just a bit too much.
She had come to Europe to pursue independence. To see something of the world. To try to gain perspective on life away from the iron fist of her father. That brick wall that she could no more reason with than she could break apart.
In her father’s world, a woman didn’t need an education that extended beyond homemaking. In her father’s world, a woman didn’t need to drive, not when her husband should accompany her everywhere at all times. In her father’s world a woman could have no free thought or independence. Esther had always longed for both.
And it was that longing that had gotten her into trouble. That had caused her father to kick her out of the commune. Oh, she’d had options, she supposed. To give up the “sinful” items she’d been collecting. Books, music. But she’d refused.
It had been so hard. To make that choice to leave. In many ways it had been her choice, even if it was an ultimatum. But the commune had been home, even if it had been oppressive.
A place filled with like-minded people who clung to their version of old ways and traditions they had twisted to suit them. If she had stayed any longer, her family would have married her off. Actually, they would have done it a long time ago if she hadn’t been such a problem. The kind of daughter nobody wanted their son to marry.
The kind of daughter her father eventually had to excommunicate to set an example to the others. His version of love. Which was really just control.
She huffed out a laugh. If they could see her now. Pregnant, alone, working in a den of sin and wearing a tank top that exposed a slim stretch of midriff whenever she bent over. All of those things would be deeply frowned upon.
She wasn’t sure if she approved of her situation either. But it was what it was.
Why had she ever listened to Ashley? Well, she knew why. Because she had been tempted by the money. Because she wanted to go to college. Because she wanted to extend her time in Europe, and because she found that waiting tables really was kind of awful.
There was nothing all that romantic about backpacking. About staying in grimy hostels.
It was more than that, though. Ashley had seemed so vulnerable when they’d met. And she had painted a picture of a desperate couple in a rocky place in their marriage, who needed a child to ease the pain that was slowly breaking them apart.
The child would be so loved. Ashley had been adamant about that. She had told Esther about all her plans for the baby. Esther hadn’t been loved like that. Not a day in her life.
She had wanted to be part of that. Even in just a small way.
Finding out that was a lie—the happy-family picture Ashley had painted—was the most wrenching part of it all.
She laughed and shook her head. Her father would say this was her punishment for being greedy. For being disobedient and headstrong.
Of course, he would probably also expect this would send her running back home. She wouldn’t do that. Not ever.
She looked up, looked at the view in front of her. Looked around her at the incredible clash of chaos that was Rome. How could she be regretful? It might be difficult to carry the baby to term with no help. But she would. And then after that she would make sure that the child found a suitable home.
Not one with her. But then, it wasn’t her baby, after all. It was Renzo’s. Renzo and Ashley’s. Her responsibilities did not extend beyond gestation. She felt pretty strongly about that.
The hair on the back of her neck seemed to stand on end, a rush of prickles moving down her spine. She straightened, then slowly turned. And through the crowd, across the bar that was teeming with people, tables crammed together, the dark lighting providing a sense of anonymity, he seemed to stand out like a beacon.
Tall, his dark hair combed back off his forehead, custom suit tailored perfectly to his physique. His hands were shoved in his pockets, his dark eyes searching. Renzo Valenti.
The father of this baby. The man who had so callously sent her away three days earlier. She hadn’t expected to see him again. Not when he had been so adamant about the fact that he would have nothing to do with the child. That he didn’t even believe her story.
But here he was.
A surge of hope went through her. Hope for the child. And—she had to confess internally, with no small amount of guilt—hope for her. Hope that she would be compensated for the surrogacy, as she had been promised.
She wiped her hands on her apron, stuffing a bar towel in the front pocket and striding across the room. She waved a hand, and the quick movement must have caught his attention, because just then, his gaze locked on to hers.
And everything slowed.
Something happened to her. A rush of heat flowed down through her body, pooling in her stomach, and slightly lower. Suddenly, her breasts felt heavy, her breath coming in short, harsh bursts. She was immobilized by that stare. By the fathomless, black depths that seemed to pin her there, like a butterfly in one of the collections her brothers had had.
She was trembling. And she had no idea why. Very few things intimidated her. Since she had stood there in front of her father—in front of the whole commune, like a bad movie or something—refusing to recant the “evil” things she had brought in from the outside, there wasn’t much that bothered her. She had clung to what she wanted, defying everything she had been taught, defying her father, leading to her expulsion from the only home she’d ever known. That moment made everything else seem mundane in many ways.
Perhaps, she had imagined, the world would turn out to be every bit as scary and dangerous as her mother and father had promised her it would be. But once she had purposed in herself that she was willing to take that chance to discover herself, to discover her freedom, she had made peace with it. With whatever might happen.
But she was shaking now. Was intimidated. Was maybe even a little bit afraid.
And then he began to close the space between them. And it felt as though there was a connection between the two of them. As though there was a string tied around her waist, one he was holding in his hands. And even though he was the one drawing nearer to her, she felt the pull to him.
It was loud in the bar, but when he spoke it cut through like a knife. Effortless, sharp and exceedingly clear. “I think you and I need to have a little chat.”
“We tried that,” she said, shocked at how foreign her voice sounded. How breathless. “It didn’t exactly go like I planned on it going.”
“Well, you walked into my home and dropped a bombshell on me. So, I’m not entirely