Did they work well together both in and out of the office? As she thought back over the last several weeks, she realized that in the beginning things had been a bit rough, but as time went by, they’d learned to complement each other. Where one was focused on the cost, the other was focused on the creative end of things. Together, they balanced each other out.
But if she was pregnant, would that balance shift? Would the alliance they’d formed shatter? Or would Franco surprise her and be eager to be her partner through this, too?
“Carla?” Gianna waved her hand in front of her face. “Where did you go?”
“Sorry. I was just distracted...wondering if everything had been taken care of for tomorrow.”
“Then I should leave you to get back to your work. I just wanted you to know that I have delivered the last of the prints.”
They’d hired Gianna to photograph not only the facelift at the flagship restaurant but also the meal in the field just as Franco had imagined it. And Gianna’s work was stunning. No wonder she was an award-winning photographer.
“Your work is awesome!” Carla stepped out from behind her desk. “Thank you. You did a wonderful job making the colors pop. It’s almost like you could step into the photos. And you really brought Franco’s image to life with the mountains in the background. He was so pleased when he saw the proofs. I’m sure he’ll tell you when you see him.”
“I kind of thought he’d be here with you.”
“He had a last-minute business meeting. It seems the word is out about our collaboration, and his company is picking up a lot of new distributors.”
“That’s great!” Gianna smiled. “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Yes. I’ll see you then. Thanks again.” They hugged.
And then Carla was once again alone in the office with her thoughts—her ominous thoughts. She closed the door before rushing back to her desk. She couldn’t bear any further interruptions right now. She felt as though the world she knew was about to explode.
She had absolutely no idea how she felt about the idea of a baby. At this stage in her life, she hadn’t even considered whether she was going to have a family or not. Instead she’d been focused on her career and taking care of her father.
She drew the day planner closer. Her gaze scanned the page again for the elusive star that appeared to be missing from page after page. Where is it?
Was it possible she’d forgotten to make the notation? Yes, that was possible. Right now, she was willing to grasp any reasonable explanation, but at the same time she knew the missing star hadn’t been a clerical error on her part, because she didn’t recall having her period in a quite some time.
She groaned. This is not good, not good at all.
She flipped through too many pages for her comfort. And then she came to the week of her wedding. She noticed now that she’d doodled on it with wedding bells. She kept going. And then two weeks before the wedding, she found the little star.
She groaned again.
This can’t be happening. Not to me. Not now.
There was only one way to tell. She grabbed her purse and headed for the door. She had a pregnancy test to pick up on her way home.
Please say it isn’t so.
* * *
The pregnancy tests were in her hand.
All four boxes.
Luckily Carla had taken her oversized purse to work that day. She stuffed the tests inside the bag. They barely fit. But there was no way she was leaving something this big up to one measly test. Whatever the outcome, she had to be sure. She had to be absolutely positive she wasn’t pregnant. Though the more she evaluated her symptoms and the amount of time since her monthly, she was more and more certain she was carrying a little Franco or a little Carla. She inwardly groaned.
All she could hope was that Franco’s dinner meeting ran late.
What was she going to do if Franco was home when she got there? She probably should have called him to see what time he expected his meeting to end, but she was worried he’d detect the worry in her voice. And then the questions would come one after the other. She just needed a little time to herself. A chance to take the test alone. Because if her instinct was right, she’d be in shock. A baby was not in her plans. Not now. Not ever with Franco.
As she pulled into a parking spot, she groaned when she saw Franco’s car. What was he doing home so soon? Usually his business meetings dragged on and on. But then she realized he might have left his car at home and gotten a ride to dinner. That thought bolstered her mood a tiny bit.
She headed inside and took the elevator to the top floor. She slipped her key in the lock and let herself inside. She paused and listened.
She didn’t hear anything. Thank goodness. She unbuttoned her coat. It was such a relief to be home alone—
“There you are.”
Carla jumped. Her heart lodged in her throat.
Franco stepped into the hallway and smiled at her. “I was surprised to beat you home.”
“You...you’re here?”
“Of course I’m here.” He arched a dark brow. “I live here. Remember?”
“I... I know.” Heat swirled in her chest and rushed to her cheeks. Act natural. Don’t let him suspect anything. “I’m just surprised.”
She slipped off her coat and flung it over the bulging purse. The last thing she needed was for it to spill open.
Because there was no way she was mentioning any of this to Franco. If she ended up not being pregnant, he’d get worked up for no reason at all. And right before the biggest day of their careers just wouldn’t be fair to him.
And if she was pregnant? Her stomach took a nervous lurch. Well, she’d deal with that hurdle when she got to it.
“Carla, are you all right?”
“Sure. Fine.” She plastered a smile on her face. “Why wouldn’t I be? Tomorrow is our big day.”
“It’s just that you look a little gray.”
“Gray? Boy. No wonder you don’t have a girlfriend with compliments like that.”
“Excuse me. But I can’t have a girlfriend because we’re married.” He sent her a flirtatious smile. “Remember? Or should I remind you?”
“No. No. I remember.” She ducked around him, hoping to escape to her room.
“Carla, have I done something to upset you?”
She paused and turned to him. His concern for her feelings would have normally made her heart flutter, but not tonight. Right now, all she could think about were the tests in her purse.
“Not at all,” she said, “I’m just wiped out. I’m calling it a night.” She headed for her bedroom. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“But—”
She kept going. She just couldn’t keep pretending that everything was all right. And she was scared that he was going to figure out what was going on with her. Though the logical part of her mind said there was no way that he could guess. But Franco knew her better than any other man ever had.
Finally she closed the door behind her. She didn’t have time to stop. She needed to get this over with—just like removing a bandage, it needed to be done quickly. She took one of the tests and headed for the bathroom.
And then the waiting began. She checked the timer on her phone. Barely thirty seconds had gone by. Not able to sit still, she paced back and forth in front of her king-size bed.
Her phone buzzed. She checked her messages to find a text from her assistant. It would have to wait. She couldn’t concentrate on business right now. She couldn’t think about anything but the test result. It had to be negative. It had to be—
Knock. Knock.
No. No. No. Not now.
“I’m busy,” she called out.
“Sorry. I just wanted you to know I brought home some food for you. It can be reheated.”
“Thanks. I’ll be ou
t later.”
She could hear his retreating footsteps. That was thoughtful of him. Franco was a really good guy, but she distinctly remembered him telling her he didn’t want to be a father.
She resumed her pacing.
Five minutes later, the timer on her phone dinged. The moment of truth had arrived.
She rushed into the bathroom, picked up the test and found it was negative. A big whoosh of air escaped her lips. It was over. She’d been worried about nothing.
She picked up the box to throw it away when a folded piece of paper slipped out of the box and fell to the floor. It was the instructions to the test. She probably should have read it before she took the test, but she’d been so anxious. And she had read the instructions on the back of the box. But this slip of paper had so much more information printed on it.
Her curiosity prompted her to unfold the paper. She started reading. A negative test result could not be guaranteed to be truly negative. A future test could be positive as the pregnancy progresses. But a positive test was a hundred percent accurate. Carla frowned.
She continued reading and found the test was most accurate first thing in the morning. She sighed. There was more waiting. But if this test was negative, she told herself the next one would be negative, too. She was worried about nothing.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
TODAY WAS A big deal. A great big huge deal.
This was the day they’d been working night and day toward for six very long weeks.
Franco smiled. All the worry, all the stress and all the sleepless nights crouched over his laptop had been worth it. Because he’d done something even his own grandfather hadn’t been able to accomplish—he’d gotten Marchello Spices back into the Falco restaurants.
There was no bigger restaurant chain in all of Italy. And as their chain expanded beyond the Italian border, Marchello Spices would go along for the ride, expanding their demographics into other locations. The sky was the limit as far as Franco was concerned.
A smile pulled at his lips as he buttoned the collar of his crisp white dress shirt. The only thing that could make this better was if Carla was right here next to him. And yet she’d withdrawn from him last night.
After how far they’d come from being adversaries to learning to be friends to something he wasn’t quite ready to name—now she was shutting him out. Was it because the hard work was over? Their plan was in motion. Was she afraid he was going to bail on their marriage now that they were revealing the first stage of their plan?
Nothing could be further from the truth. Because he’d signed onto this agreement for six full months and that’s exactly what he was going to do. This wasn’t the end, this was just the beginning of their successful alliance—business and personal.
Because as good as they were in the office, they were even better at home. In fact, these days he now looked forward to coming home to her. Carla made him smile and laugh. She was great company, even when they were just sitting on the couch together watching one of her romantic comedies that he’d previously avoided at all costs. Now he actually didn’t mind the lighthearted movies or the way Carla sighed at the end when the hero proclaimed his love and kissed the heroine.
Carla had shown him a marriage that was centered around a friendly companionship. She’d shown him that someone could offer a friendly gesture without expecting anything in return. And he’d found himself eager to get up in the morning to see her smiling face. Because he’d come to trust her—to know that she wasn’t going to run away when things got tough.
But he also knew he couldn’t judge what they had now like it was a real marriage. Because there was no expectation of forever. No one had laid their heart on the line. There were no entanglements to keep them trapped in this marriage.
They were both free to walk away. Just the thought of having a choice to stay or go made him feel lighter. Maybe this marriage contract hadn’t been so bad.
He stared in the full-length mirror as he straightened his blue tie. Blue for victory. Today was a victorious day.
He walked out his bedroom door and headed over to Carla’s bedroom. He rapped his knuckles on the door. “Carla?”
No response.
He knocked again. “Carla, are you ready?”
Still no response.
Maybe she was in the shower. He headed for the kitchen for his cup of coffee, not that he needed the jolt of caffeine today. Adrenaline pumped through his veins. He’d been dreaming about this day for a long, long time.
When he stepped in the kitchen, he found Carla standing in front of the sink. “Good morning.”
“Morning.” Her voice lacked enthusiasm.
“It’s going to be a great day. Are you ready?” It was then that he noticed she was still in her pale pink robe that gave a teasing glimpse of her toned thighs. His gaze lowered down the length of her long legs to her bare feet.
She turned a worried gaze his way. “Are you sure your grandfather won’t be at the party?”
“Positive. He said he wouldn’t celebrate anything that involved your father—”
“Because if they ran into each other—” her voice wavered with emotion “—it wouldn’t be good. It’d be very bad. And with my father’s health condition—”
“Shh...” Franco pulled her into his embrace. As her head came to rest on his shoulder, he said, “I know you’re exhausted. You worked so hard for this moment, but trust me when I say this evening will be amazing. The hard work is done. Now it’s time to enjoy our accomplishment. Tomorrow we’ll worry about what comes next.”
Her arms snaked around his sides, pulling him close. The weight of her body leaned into him. And in that moment, everything felt right in his world. Maybe they didn’t have to rush out the door quite so soon—
Before he could put his plan in motion, Carla untangled herself from his arms. She smiled up at him. “You’re right. Everything is going to be fine.”
“You know, we don’t have to rush off to the office right now—”
“Yes, we do. We’ve worked too hard not to see to every last detail. I’m running a bit late, but you go ahead.”
Disappointed that he was being chased away, he said, “It’s no problem. I can wait.”
She shook her head again. “You should go ahead without me. I’ll be a while. I need my hair and makeup to be just right.”
He approached her. “Carla, what’s the matter?”
She turned to him and flashed him a big smile, but he noticed how it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Why would anything be wrong? This is the day we’ve been working toward.”
He also noticed that she was a bit pale. “Are you feeling all right?”
She glanced away. “I didn’t realize I looked so bad.”
“No. It’s not that. You’re always beautiful.” It was the truth. With her long hair clipped up with some loose curls framing her face that lacked any makeup, he thought she was striking. But it was the lack of color in her cheeks that had him worried. “It’s just that you look a little pale.”
She shrugged off his concern. “It’s no big deal. I didn’t sleep well last night. A little makeup and I’ll be good as new.”
He glanced down at her hands. He’d expected to find her drinking coffee to give herself a boost of energy after a night of tossing and turning, but instead he found her drinking milk. “Are you sure you’re feeling all right? Because if not we’ll have to figure out somehow to explain your absence from today’s events—”
“I’m fine. Stop worrying. Now if you’ll get going, I’ll be able to get ready in peace.”
He hesitated. He had this feeling there was something she wasn’t telling him, but maybe that was just a bit of his old insecurities surfacing, because over the process of putting together this large and complex project, he’d learned that he could trust what Carla told him. Why should today be any differen
t?
“Okay. Do you need anything before I go?”
She shook her head. “I’m good. I’ll see you soon.”
And with that he walked away. The door clicked shut behind him. Though there was a part of him saying that he should have stayed just to make sure everything was fine with her, the other part of him said to trust her.
* * *
He was right.
Everything was going to be all right.
Carla had taken comfort in his words. She really needed to believe that everything would be all right. She wanted to believe all the worry over her father’s health and then taking part in this fake marriage was what had her body all out of sorts.
And now that she thought it over in the light of day, it sounded quite plausible. After all, last night’s pregnancy test was negative. Today’s test would be negative as well. She was all worked up for nothing.
She dumped out the remainder of her glass and placed it in the sink to deal with later. Right now, she had other matters on her mind—matters that had kept her awake most of the night. She had to know for certain one way or the other.
She rushed to her room and once again went through the process. This time she took three tests at once. She wanted an actual reliable result—something she could count on.
Carla lined the three tests up on the countertop and then set the timer on her phone. She’d never known that five minutes could last so long.
She had a lot of things she needed to do that morning. She didn’t have time to waste. She should be choosing her wardrobe from her work attire to her little black dress for the big cocktail party, but instead she paced back and forth just as she’d done the night before.
Her phone rang. She let it go to voice mail.
Her phone chimed with a new text message. She ignored it.
A minute or so later, her phone rang again. She also let it go directly to voice mail. Work could wait. This could not. She felt as though life as she knew it was on the line. And once she got the results, positive or negative, life would not go back to the carefree way that it had once been with Franco. She felt as though their relationship had been altered, even if he didn’t know it. This marriage was more than business—much more. But what did she want from it?
Harlequin Romance September 2021 Box Set Page 27