Get a fucking grip man!
I walk back up the shell path in the morning heat and the saffron in my blood is doing what it has been doing since I stepped off the boat yesterday, which is refuse to behave the way it behaved for the three months before that.
I press my palm flat against the study door and stand there in the corridor and breathe out.
I go to my room, close the door, and stand at the window with the island spread out below me, the yellow flowers banking the path and the kitchen roof just visible around the base of the hill and the water beyond it, blue and entirely indifferent.
I need a cold shower, I couldn’t keep my hard-on down even if I wanted to.
Cazzo.
I turn away from the window and head to the shower. I’ll be ready to confess to Matteo and Tomas what transpired this moment, the moment I can get my fucking cock under control.
15
JENNIFER
Santos Ferretti held the knife wrong on purpose, probably. No man who can negotiate billion dollar business deals, or whatever it is billionaires do before nine in the morning, is incapable of holding a kitchen knife. That was a performance.
I held his hands for four seconds and my strawberry scent spiked, and my omega wasn't much better. It's as if my body is betraying me by remembering the weekend in Vegas and forgetting how they treated me after that night. I don't know what frustrates me more right now, my scent, my omega, or my mind?
I hopped in the shower, wanting to wash away my feelings for him, but it doesn't help.
By the time I've dried off and changed into a pair of navy shorts and an oversized shirt, I call Anna.
I sit on the bed cross-legged, pull my knees to my chest, and stare at Anna's name on the screen.
Here goes nothing.
I take a breath, close my eyes, and hit call.
It rings twice.
"Jennifer." Anna's voice comes through warm and immediate, and behind her something small and extremely loud is happening. "One second."
"Take three," I say, because I need all of them.
The chaos resolves. A door closes. "Okay," Anna says. "Talk."
I open my mouth.
Nothing comes out.
There is something sitting in my throat that is not going to move without a fight, so I swallow hard, try again, and just say it.
"I'm pregnant."
"Jennifer Marie Sullivan," Anna says, breaking the silence, as if she's had a few seconds to take it all in, even if it feels like minutes have passed.
"Yep."
"How far along?"
She's not going to like the answer, but I'm going to be straight with her. "Fourteen weeks."
Another pause. "And you're telling me now because."
"Dunno," I say, because she's right. There was no real need to wait to tell her, even if there felt as if there were at the time. I know now it was all in my head.