The doctor would be dead at my feet if she hadn’t convinced me to go into this meeting with an open mind.
I understand her objective. She still wants to go through with our agreement. She even pledged to turn a blind eye to any “indiscretions” I might have throughout our marriage.
I told her I was no longer interested. That if this round of IVF was successful, both she and the baby would be taken care of for the rest of their lives, and our child would inherit his or her share of a billion-dollar fortune. But if it failed, our contract would be voided.
Now I don’t know which way is up.
Valeria is sobbing now, and her hands cover her face. A pang of guilt strikes my chest, but it’s hardly felt by the flames of my anger licking my insides. I’m itching to tear this place apart and to make someone pay, but I can’t until I have answers. If there is a Caruso descendant in the making, I deserve full disclosure on the person bringing him or her into the world.
Valeria’s composure breaks as she confronts the head doctor. “I’ll sue you for this.” Her eyes blaze with unbridled fury. “You ruined everything! I’ll make sure everyone in the clinic never works again!”
Foolishly, the doctor stands his ground with the protocol I’ll abolish the instant I burn this hellhole to the ground. “You signed a waiver, Ms. Raimondo. You knew the risks and agreed to them.”
Raimondo? Valeria’s surname is Giuffrida.
With Valeria’s anger boiling over, she shoves away the paperwork he flapped in her face, her expression contorted with despair. “It’s her, isn’t it? The one with the similar name.” Her eyes dart wildly over the paperwork scattered across his desk. “I joked that they might get us mixed up. I didn’t think it would actually happen.”
“Who are you talking about? What woman?”
Dr. Di Petro’s lips twitch, but before he can speak, Valeria strikes him hard across the face. Her slap is firm enough that I must intervene. I seize her wrist to prevent further harm, mindful that the man she’s attacking is our only source of information. More than a hand mark will mar his face once I’m done with him, but I need him coherent enough to speak at the beginning of our exchange.
“She has my baby, doesn’t she?” Valeria shouts as I carry her toward the exit, tears streaming down her face. “Thatrejectis carrying my child, isn’t she? Tell me the truth!”
When I throw open the door to deposit Valeria into the waiting room so I can conduct “business” man-to-man, I unearth the reason the hairs on my nape are standing to attention. Torturing men for information doesn’t give me any satisfaction. I do it as a means to survive. This woman, however, makes me doubt all that I know.
Valentina is standing in the hallway. Her eyes are wide, and her face is pale. For a second, I’m too stunned to speak. What is she doing here at this hour? My appointment this evening shows that this clinic operates outside business hours to conceal their mistakes from new and potential patients. They wouldn’t let a random person stalk their halls at this hour.
When I see the glimmers on Valentina’s cheeks, fury surges through my chest. She’s been crying. Tears blotch her cheeks, and her posture is rigid, as if her confidence was sideswiped by a truck.
“What happened? Did someone hurt you?”
My anger hardly diminishes when she shakes her head. Her dismissal is weak, and she is aware of that fact as much as I am.
“Then what happened? Why are you crying?”
Her wet eyes shifting between the doctor and the paperwork Valeria dumped on his desk swirls something inside me. It isn’t the carnage and brutality I’m accustomed to. It’s hope.
What the fuck?
Gradually, the situation becomes clear. The timing of our reunion, her confession that she had a procedure done that would keep her safe from pregnancy for a month, and the name the doctor used when trying to calm down Valeria. It all makes sense.
I stare at Valentina as my thoughts race away on me.
Could it be?
Is it possible?
Valeria’s distraught accusation answers my unvoiced questions. “It’s her.” The rattle of her sob reminds me that she’s still in my arms. “She’s the woman carryingourchild.”
I stumble backward, shocked. My child, a direct descendant of the Caruso legacy, is growing inside the woman I am obsessed with.
I couldn’t have planned this better if I had tried.
13
VALENTINA
The clinic’s air turns suffocating when my dazed head translates Valeria’s wildly inaccurate accusation. “She’s the woman carryingourchild.”