by Virna DePaul
“Me, too,” she said. “I’ve missed you both.”
The words came out naturally, and for a moment she didn’t know why he was so silent on the other end of the line. As if she’d shocked him. As if he didn’t know how to respond. But then he said, “We’ve missed you, too. So much I think you should come prepared to spend the night. What do you say?”
She didn’t even hesitate. “I say yes. Maybe I’ll even pick up a little something at the mall to model for you after Michelle goes to bed. Would you like that?”
“I like you, Aurora. Whatever you wear.”
She sucked in a breath at his heartfelt words and had to suddenly blink back tears. Before she started sobbing, she said a hasty goodbye, hung up, then stared at the phone.
Tonight, she thought. Tonight I’m going to tell him.
And even though everything will change, nothing will change. Dante will want this baby. He’ll want me. And together with Michelle, we’ll be a family.
She was so certain of it that she practically walked on air for the next few hours. Remembering her promise to Dante, she ducked out at lunch to do some shopping. Thirty minutes later, she was in the dressing room. She already had some new lingerie picked out, and she’d decided to try on a gorgeous sky blue pencil dress, imagining the look on Dante’s face when she wore it to the meeting he had with Esposito Group tomorrow.
Aurora sighed as she worked the sky blue dress up her hips and over her arms. To her surprise, she had to tug a little harder than usual to get the thing zipped and when she looked in the mirror…
She was showing. Not definitively. Not absolutely. But in this dress, in this lighting, she was no question pregnant.
Holy crap. She quickly unzipped the dress and surveyed her stomach while it was bare. Had Dante noticed? Obviously not, since he hadn’t said anything. Maybe he’d noticed but been too polite to say anything, figuring she was just putting on a few pounds.
In just her bare skin she definitely had a small bump, but it could easily be confused for a food baby. She pulled the dress on again, zipped it right up. Once again, as far as what someone would conclude upon seeing her in this dress, there was no question. She was pregnant.
Aurora lowered herself down to the bench in the dressing room and placed her hand over her stomach. It was going to be okay. She’d decided to tell Dante anyway. And she could feel the little lima bean in there. She could feel the baby’s life. The growing, gorgeous energy of it.
Tonight, she’d place Dante’s hand on her belly. And he’d feel the baby’s energy too. She just knew it.
She bought the dress. Wore it out of the store, in fact. She wasn’t going to hide her pregnancy a second longer. She wasn’t ashamed. She was proud. And she couldn’t wait for Dante to know it.
Aurora tossed her things behind her desk when she got back to the office and stepped over to her window. Dante wasn’t far. In fact, if she craned her neck, she could almost see his office building down the street. Maybe she’d just walk over there and tell him. Why wait? Why—
“Aurora, do you have a second? I was wondering…” Gio stepped into her office but his words trailed right off as his eyes zeroed in on her belly in the blue dress. He shut her office door behind him. “Holy shit.”
Aurora smiled a little, letting her eyes drop to her belly as well. Her palm found its way to the gentle curve. “You’re telling me.”
“I—uh didn’t know.” Gio cleared his throat. “I mean, of course I didn’t know. You didn’t tell me. I–uh—”
“It’s okay, Gio.” She was charmed at how the normally smooth Giovanni Esposito was absolutely tripping over his words. “I haven’t told anybody really.”
“Wow.” Gio lowered himself down into the chair across from her desk. “You’re going to be a mom.”
“Yup,” Aurora said, bobbing her head and coming around to lean on the desk in front of him.
Gio scrubbed his hand over his chin for a second. “Do you need any help? Is the father in the picture?”
His words warmed her heart and she remembered why she’d had feelings for him for so long. But as he sat there, handsome as hell and so kind, Aurora was also amazed at how intensely she’d misidentified her feelings for him. Sure, she’d had a crush. A good strong one. But love? No. Now that she knew what love was, she was confident she’d never felt it for the man in front of her.
“Yes, he’s in the picture.” Suddenly feeling nervous, she fiddled with the end of her braid. “Gio, I don’t want to give you the wrong impression about me. But this pregnancy, it… wasn’t planned.”
“What do you mean ‘the wrong impression’?”
“Well, our relationship, and my relationship to the company is one that’s built on professionalism and I wouldn’t want my actions to reflect—”
“Oh, fuck the company, Aurora. If some client is scandalized by working with an unwed mother then fuck them back to the 1950s. You think I care about any of that? I care about you! Your happiness. And the baby’s.”
Aurora’s eyes filled. She hadn’t realized how much she’d feared her colleagues discovering she was fallible and messy and passionate. All the things she’d tried so hard not to be for so long. All the things that Dante just pulled right out of her, like thread from a spool.
“I hope the father is as understanding as you are.”
Gio rose then. “Is there a chance that he won’t be?”
Aurora brushed at her tears. “No. Yes. I mean, he’s very sweet. And even though he said he doesn’t want children—” Right then her voice broke as emotion swept over her. She was ninety-nine percent sure that Dante would want her and the baby, but suddenly there was that teeny tiny percent that had her doubting everything they’d been to each other in the last few weeks. What if? What if she was wrong?
Before she knew what was happening, Gio cursed and drew her into his arms, her cheek pressed into his shoulder. Just months ago, she would have killed to hold Gio like this. Now, wrapped up in his arms, even as much as she appreciated his kindness, she wished he was Dante.
Dante. The father of her child. The man she loved.
* * *
Dante closed the door of Aurora’s office as silently as he’d opened it. He allowed himself one second of leaning back against the wall. One second of searing pain in his chest. He had no breath and he was sure that his heart was skipping beats.
Hearing a noise from inside her office, he sprang forward, striding to the elevator and jamming the button. There was no way in hell he was going to let one of them come out of her office and catch him here in the lobby like the absolute tool he apparently was.
When the elevator didn’t move fast enough, Dante slammed through the door for the stairwell, taking them four at a time on his way down. The image of Aurora’s face as she’d clung to Gio was burned into his brain. He’d heard the sound of voices as he’d approached her door and opened it to find…that.
What the hell were they doing embracing in the middle of her office in the middle of the day?
Dante stopped walking and pressed a hand to her chest. Honestly, it didn’t even matter what they’d been doing. It was how they’d been doing it that was so incriminating.
Aurora had her arms all the way around Gio. Her cheek pressed to his shoulder.
An expression of love on her face.
FUCK.
God. How could he have been such a fool? He’d truly thought things had changed between them. That even if she wasn’t completely over Gio, she had equally strong feelings for Dante. Now he could see that had been all in his head. There was no way a woman could hold a man with that look on her face and not be in love.
Dante slammed out the back entrance of the building and immediately slid into the driver’s seat of his car. He pulled his buzzing phone out of his pocket and read the text from Aurora with a mirthless laugh.
Are you free right now? There’s something important I want to tell you and I don’t want to wait.
Yeah, he just be
t there was something she wanted to tell him. And god, it made him sick to his fucking stomach just to think about it. He could tell when a break up text was forthcoming. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to sit there quietly while she explained about her feelings for another man. He was strong, but he had his limits.
Dante ignored the text, tossed his phone into the passenger seat and drove home.
Chapter Fifteen
Aurora frowned down at her phone. A small worm of worry had started to work its way through her brain. She’d texted Dante twice but hadn’t heard back from him. Now the workday was over and she was supposed to meet him and Michelle at his place in about an hour. But damn it, she wanted to talk to him now. This time, however, she tried calling his office phone.
“Callaghan.”
Her breath caught in her throat at the sound of his voice. Both because she loved him and his voice did stuff to her. But also because it appeared she’d been right to worry that he’d been ignoring her texts.
“Dante.”
Several seconds ticked by before he clipped out, “Aurora.”
She cleared her throat, suddenly grappling with the very strange sensation that she was speaking with a stranger. “Is everything alright? I tried reaching out a few times earlier today.”
“Everything’s fine. Same as it always was. Apparently.”
What? She had no idea what that was supposed to mean. “Listen, do you have time to meet me now? I know we’re supposed to meet at your place in a while but—”
“I know what you have to tell me. And I don’t have time for it.”
“I—what?” Aurora’s heart stuttered in her chest. Her breath came out in a strangled puff. She couldn’t have heard him correctly.
He knew she was pregnant? How?
“I came to your office earlier, Aurora. I saw you. I know.”
Aurora’s breath left her in a heavy rush and at the cold tone in his voice, she doubled over as if she’d been gut punched. One of her hands instinctively curled around her belly. “You saw?”
* * *
“You saw?”
At Aurora’s guilty tone, Dante gritted his teeth. The image of her holding Gio so closely, so intensely, seared through Dante’s brain for the five hundredth time. He’d trade five years off his life to have that memory scrubbed from his brain.
She was silent on the other end of the line now, obviously searching for something to say. He felt a sick sense of satisfaction over having stolen the words from her. He knew how calm and collected she was. How much thought she’d probably put into preparing what she was going to say to him. He was sure her little speech would have been gentle and respectful. And he wanted to hear it like he’d wanted a hole in his head.
He couldn’t do it. Couldn’t listen to her confess that she still loved Gio and they’d decided to be together. Couldn’t do it and stay the same man that he was.
All that mattered was getting out of this shit ass situation alive. With his soul intact. And that meant severing things quickly and efficiently. It meant walking away from her before she could walk away from him. It meant being cruel.
Something clenched in Dante’s gut. As mad as he was at her, as hurt as he was, he didn’t want to treat her poorly. He loved her, goddamn it. Even now, with the image of her wrapped around another man, the man who truly had her heart, he still loved her. But he needed a clean break.
“Yes. I saw, and I can’t do this with you. It’s over. You know it. I know it.”
* * *
Dante’s words were poison in Aurora’s ears but somehow she still managed to gasp out, “That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”
“I’m not sure what more you want me to say.”
“You don’t want us in your life at all?”
“I don’t see how I could.”
The silence between them stretched on. The idea of hanging up the phone and finalizing their separation was terrifying for Aurora, but what else could she do? Finally, she managed to take a deep breath and channel her inner strength.
She refused to permanently slam the door on her child’s father. Her child deserved to have some hope of a future where he or she could know Dante. If she said something terrible, out of pain or anger, then she might close off that future forever. She wouldn’t do that.
“If you change your mind, Dante, I’ll never cut you out of our lives.”
“Goodbye, Aurora.”
She didn’t say goodbye. She simply hung up the phone and stared, dimly, unseeing, into a future much more lonely than she had ever imagined for herself.
Chapter Sixteen
Two months later
Dante reclined in the lounger and watched Michelle splash around in the turquoise blue salt water pool on the deck of the resort. He wasn’t drunk, because he was on vacation with Michelle, but he wished like hell that he could be.
He hadn’t had a drink in two months and in some ways, it sucked to not have the dulled edges that alcohol provided. In other ways, he was glad to be seeing things so clearly. It kept him on his toes. Made him realize that he hadn’t been wrong in the way he’d left things with Aurora.
The vacation he’d booked seconds after hanging up the phone with Aurora had turned into an extended sabbatical. He and Michelle had lit out for Spain and thank god it was summer break for her because he hadn’t even been tempted to go back. Which didn’t mean he hadn’t replayed his last conversation with Aurora over and over again in his head. Looking for any way he could have done it differently. But if he’d given her more time, heard her out, it would simply have been a long, messy conversation, at the end of which he’d been wrecked. No way. He’d done the right thing in the long term. Quick and painful was better than long and painful.
“You coming in, Coco?” Michelle called, her feet dangling over the edge of an enormous floaty in the shape of a palm tree. The plus side of this forced vacation was that Dante and Michelle were closer than ever. He’d stopped correcting people who referred to her as his daughter. And Michelle either didn’t notice or didn’t mind.
He just hoped for once, Michelle wouldn’t bring up Aurora anytime soon.
He’d made the mistake of being honest with her about the way they’d broken up. Michelle had been astonished and outraged.
“You left it just like that?!” she’d hollered at him, her hands on her hips, her hair a messy tumble. “There’s so many ways you could have the wrong idea, Dante! You should have been more clear!”
But he wasn’t budging. He wasn’t letting Michelle change his mind about this. He knew what he’d seen.
He just wished he was getting over it a little faster. There were days, wandering through old Spanish villages with Michelle, or looking out at the ocean after she’d gone to sleep, that Dante thought he might finally be getting over Aurora. But then he’d find himself subconsciously reaching for her in the night and all of it would hit him like a hurricane.
He wasn’t getting over her. He wished he could hate her for that. But no matter what he did, his stupid heart just kept loving her. It would be so much easier if he could be bitter and angry. But he couldn’t stop himself from wishing her well.
Dante set his water bottle aside and did a running cannonball into the pool just to delight Michelle.
That night, they decided to wander into town, see if they could rustle up some seafood. Michelle walked next to him in a pair of jean shorts and shirt she’d picked out in Barcelona. It was surprisingly girly. Not her usual style. Red and flowy, the top had little dots and stars in a pinwheeling pattern.
Dante watched her walk for a second and realized, with a start, that she’d brushed her hair before they’d left the hotel. She was pushing eleven. Her birthday was in a month.
Soon she was going to be a teenager. Interested in dating and makeup and god knows what. The thought tightened his stomach. Dante had the impression that he was going to be spending a lot of time googling parenting techniques.
He thought of how natural Auror
a had been with Michelle. How she’d helped Michelle pack her bags for the sleepover. How she’d stood beside them in the ER, comforting them both, lending her strength.
The thought was like a poisoned arrow in his heart. Aurora was never going to be that person for Michelle again. She was never going to be Dante’s partner in raising her.
“Dante?” Michelle asked, dragging a fingertip from brick to brick of the old buildings they wove through.
“Yeah?”
“Would it be alright if I called Aurora?”
He came up short. It was almost like she’d read his mind. Why was she thinking about Aurora now?
Michelle glanced at him and quickly said, “I just didn’t get to say goodbye. And I really liked her. And I just wanted to say goodbye.”
Dante felt like the worst kind of jerk. Why hadn’t he thought of that before? Michelle and Aurora had been close. Really close. Of course Michelle would want to talk to her again.
“I didn’t mean to keep her from you. If you want to call her, you totally can. I’m sorry. I should have thought of that.”
“It’s okay,” Michelle said as she craned her neck to watch some kids running down toward the beach. Then she glanced nervously up toward Dante. “That’s, uh, not the only reason I want to talk to her again.”
He raised an eyebrow at her and gestured for her to continue talking.
Michelle took a deep breath. “I want to tell her that I love her. That she felt more like family than just a friend.”
Dante was quiet as they walked.
“Say something,” she urged him.
“I’m not sure what to say, Michelle. I don’t want to tell you no, but I’m worried that you think it’ll change something between Aurora and me. It won’t. Things are really complicated and we can’t be together. You know that.”
“I know,” Michelle said, reaching up for Dante’s hand. “I don’t want to tell her because I think it will change anything. I want to tell her because it’s true. And not telling her feels like lying. And it feels bad. In here.” She patted her chest and looked up at him. “You know what I mean?”