Page 87 of Freed
The tone of his voice sends a chill over my skin. He comes closer and I back up.
“Tell me something, Elizabeth.” His gaze drops, just briefly, to my stomach before lifting to my face again. “How much of Russo’s urgency is about you…”
My whole body goes rigid.
“…and how much,” he says, each word quieter than the last, “is about what you’re carrying?”
My lips part, but no sound comes out. And the worst part is written all over his face.
Rage.
Because Lorenzo Conti has decided my secret exists. And he has also decided it belongs to Dante.
17
Birdie
He comes closer, slow enough to make it worse.
“Say it,” he says.
I shake my head once. “No.”
“Is. It. Russo’s?”
The question lands like a slap. My lungs seize. My hands curl into fists at my sides. For one wild second I think about laughing in his face. But my silence is already too loud, and it’s better that he thinks the baby is Dante’s than knowing it’s his.
His jaw hardens. “I knew it.”
“No, you didn’t,” I snap, finally finding my voice. “You made an assumption like you always do, and now you’re standing there acting like it’s fact.”
His eyes burn. “Then tell me I’m wrong.”
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
His laugh is low and furious and utterly without humor. “Christ.”
“Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’ve betrayed you.”
That stills him for half a second.
Then something even darker moves over his face. “You were going to marry him.”
My temper flares hot enough to burn through the fear. “And whose fault is that?”
He flinches. It’s small. Almost nothing. But I see it.
I press on, shaking now with fury as much as panic. “You don’t get to drag me out of my new life, interrogate me in your office, and then act wounded because you don’t like what you’ve found. You’re fucking married, Lorenzo, or did you forget? So, please, tell me what else you want.”
He takes another step, close enough now that I can feel the heat coming off him. “I want the truth.”
“You can’t handle the truth.”
His mouth twists. “Show me, Elizabeth. Let me see your stomach.”
