Page 144 of Freed
We stand there in the bright kitchen glaring at each other like we could kill with it.
I swallow the lump in my throat and soften my voice by force. “Lorenzo, please. Let me go back to Dante.”
The words seem to hit him harder than all the shouting. His face changes but not with pain. With rage.
“No.”
I shut my eyes for one second. “I’m not asking.”
“Clearly.”
“This is the best option for all of us.”
His laugh is sharp enough to cut. “All of us?”
“Yes.”
“You mean for you.”
“For the baby too.”
That wipes the mockery from his face.
He takes one slow step toward me. “Do not usemychild to argue for another man.”
A chill runs through me, but I hold my ground.
“I’m using reality,” I say. “Dante knows the truth. He agreed to help me. He gave me a way out when I didn’t have one.”
“And now you don’t need that way out.”
I stare at him. “Can you stand here and tell me you really believe that?”
He doesn’t answer.
My laugh comes out hollow. “You find out the baby is yours and suddenly everything’s fixed? That all the damage just disappears because now you’ve got some biological claim?”
His expression hardens further. “That is not what I said.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s what you mean.”
“It means,” he says, voice dropping, “that you are not leaving this house with my child to go play wife to another man.”
“There would be no playing involved,” I shoot back. “Dante and I made an arrangement. He respected me enough to give me a choice.”
That does it. Lorenzo’s temper breaks clean across his face.
“Respect?” he bites out. “You want to stand there and talk to me about Russo respecting you?”
“Yes.”
“He used your fear.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“He put himself in my place before I even knew there was a child.”
“Because you got Francesca pregnant and then tampered with my birth control!” I shout. “I had no choice in this!”
