Читать книгу Bound By Their Nine-Month Scandal - Dani Collins - Страница 13

“WOULD YOU EXCUSE me a moment?” Pia said to her mother and Sebastián.

She didn’t wait for her mother’s permission or even glance to read what was likely an expression of disapproval. Her mother probably thought she was giving in to nerves, but Pia didn’t care. She rose abruptly from the table and hurried to the toilet, where she lost every bite of the lunch she’d just eaten.

What on earth?

She wrung out a cloth and dabbed the perspiration from her wan face, shocked at the violence of her sudden illness. She’d been feeling odd all week, thinking she might be coming down with something, but she wasn’t running a fever. She wouldn’t dare accuse her mother’s chef of anything less than using the freshest ingredients.

That left one obvious explanation before she went down the road of blood panels for exotic diseases.

But it was impossible. Her cycle had arrived the day after the masquerade ball. That ought to mean she wasn’t pregnant. However, she realized with another roll of her tender stomach, she hadn’t had a period since.

She couldn’t be pregnant. Couldn’t. Her mother’s top tier, preferred choice for Pia’s husband was in the dining room right now.

Think, she commanded her rattled brain, but she was too shaken and confused to even recall the dates and count the weeks properly.

She would put off reacting until she’d had it confirmed, she resolved. And she would take a test immediately.

She fought her composure back into place and returned to the dining room, but didn’t retake her seat.

“I’m very sorry, Mother. I’m not feeling well and have to go home. May I call you later in the week to try this again, Sebastián?”

“Let me drive you home.” He rose and set aside his napkin.

“I wouldn’t want to impose. Mother’s driver collected me. I’ll have him run me back.”

“Not at all. Thank you for lunch, La Reina. I look forward to seeing you again soon.”

Pia’s mother offered a meaningless smile and tilted her cheek for his air-kiss, but her glance toward Pia warned that a lecture would be forthcoming.

Moments later, Pia was beside Sebastián in his sports car.

Through lunch they had established that they both enjoyed scuba diving and beachcombing. He mostly worked out of Madrid, but had holidayed as a child in Valencia and would love to settle in this area once he was raising a family. His mother bred show dogs and he had taken a runt out of pity. He admitted to shamelessly spoiling it, which had made her mother smile stiffly while Pia had experienced a weak ray of optimism. Perhaps they could have a successful marriage after all.

“I’m very sorry,” she apologized again. “I’ve been fighting something all week and should have canceled.”

“In sickness and in health, right?” His bold calling out of today’s less than subtle agenda made her stomach roil all over again. She couldn’t lead him on if she was carrying another man’s child.

“Sebastián, I think we should slow down.”

He took his foot off the accelerator, instantly alert. “Oh, you mean—” He glanced at her, then made an abrupt turn into the parking lot of a mechanic’s garage. “Did I say something to offend you?”

“Not at all. But something has come up that makes me think it’s best if we put off discussions until the new year.”

She tried for a polite smile and a poker face, but the longer he searched her expression, the more culpable she felt. She had to look away.

He cleared his throat, then spoke carefully. “It may surprise you to hear there are very few circumstances that would put me off what we’re contemplating.”

She licked her numb lips. “You don’t realize how serious this circumstance might be.”

“I think I do.” He sounded so grave, so sure, she closed her eyes in dread.

Was it obvious? Would rumors circulate before she’d had a chance to confirm it? To discover the identity of the father and tell him?

For the first time since she was a child, her eyes grew hot and her throat swelled with the urge to cry.

“My family wants this alliance quite badly, Pia. I’m not without a checkered past that you would have to accept. Offering solutions and protection to one another is the point of this sort of partnership. Please talk to me about anything you view as an impediment to our moving forward. I’m quite sure I can accommodate you.”

She wanted to goggle at him, unable to believe he would be willing to take on another man’s child, but he reached across and squeezed her hand with reassurance.

She swallowed and found a faint smile. “Let me call you later in the week, after I’ve had time to think some things through.”

“Of course.”

He took her home, but she only stayed long enough to double-check her dates and call her sister-in-law.

An hour later, she was halfway up the coast. She stopped at a village market and bought an off-the-shelf pregnancy test, took it into a service station restroom and sat in her car a long time afterward, absorbing the fact that she was carrying a baby.

The baby of a man she didn’t know. At all.

She was a smart, responsible woman. How could she have been so careless?

She didn’t let herself dwell on the fact that both her brothers had been through this. That maybe some dark and desperate part of her had sabotaged herself into this position, hoping to find a version of the happiness Cesar and Rico had both found.

That sort of thinking was beyond illogical. It was self-destructive.

And genuinely impossible when she didn’t even know her lover’s name.

But that was why she wanted to see Poppy.

She put her car in Drive and returned to the scene of the crime.

Half an hour of mutual admiration with her two-year-old niece restored a little of Pia’s equilibrium.

Despite the circumstances, she looked forward to motherhood, she realized with a small bubble of optimism. She wouldn’t be a distant, coldly practical woman like her mother, even though she already knew La Reina would judge her harshly for showing affection toward her child. She scolded Sorcha and Poppy for it often and Pia could still hear her mother rebuking her own nanny for hugging her.

Don’t spoil her. She’ll become dependent.

Yes, it must have been the early hugs, not the lack of them thereafter that had turned Pia into the withdrawn, insecure, social-phobic person that she was.

“Will you go with Nanny while I talk to your mamà?” Pia asked Lily.

Lily gave Pia’s neck a fierce hug and said, “I yuv you,” in English, bringing tears to Pia’s eyes as the small girl waved bye-bye on her way out the door.

She would have that soon—someone who would say those words and mean it, every day.

“I think I got some good ones,” Poppy said, setting aside her camera as they entered the lounge. “Thank you. I’m making an album for Rico for Christmas. I don’t know what else to get the man who has everything.”

Pia’s brother Rico had been in a bad place after his brief first marriage had ended in tragedy. Then he had discovered that Poppy had had his daughter in secret. Since locating them, he’d become more like the brother Pia recollected from her earliest years, before he left for school; the one who was patient and protective, willing to sit with an arm around her so she felt safe as she watched an evil witch in a children’s movie.

“Coffee? Wine?” Poppy offered.

Pia faltered as she realized she was off alcohol and likely coffee, as well. Good thing she had barely touched what her mother had served.

“I came from lunch at Mother’s. Nothing for now, thank you.”

“Did she say something about the auction? Is that why you’re here?” Poppy winced as she sat. “When you said you wanted to ask me about it, I thought you wanted the auctioneer’s card.” She picked it up from a side table. “Am I in trouble?”

“No. But I would like that, if you don’t mind.” Pia pocketed the card. “No, Mother is quite pleased you broke records on the fund-raising, even if she doesn’t agree with your methods.”

“Because of the painting,” Poppy said heavily, shoulders slumping.

“I meant the costumes. Mother thinks that sort of thing is a gimmick. What are you talking about? Which painting?”

“The one from the attic. The young woman. She’s the reason I raised so much. The bidder paid a ridiculous sum.”

“I remember it. Who bought it?” She held her breath.

“That’s the trouble. I don’t know.”

“The auctioneer didn’t tell you?”

“Wouldn’t,” Poppy said flatly. “I tried. The previous owners were upset and wanted to know.”

“Baron Gomez?”

“And his brother, yes. Do you know them?”

“Only vaguely by reputation.” Not a good one. The family had fallen on hard times after the previous baron’s death. One brother was a womanizer, the other a gambler. Neither was particularly adept at business. Both were too old to be her mystery man and too young to have fathered him. “Why were they upset?”

“Good question! They sold us the property as is, with all sorts of furniture and other items left behind. When I found the painting in the attic, I thought it was rather good so I called the family as a courtesy, to be sure they wouldn’t mind my auctioning it for the fund-raiser.”

“Did they say who she was?”

“Their stepsister, the daughter of their father’s second wife. She lived in a cottage at the corner of the property. It burned down after she died. She must have passed at a young age. She looks about fifteen in the portrait and it was painted thirty years ago. In any case, the new baron struck me as rather callous when he laughed and said, ‘Sure, see what you can get for her.’”

“Was he at the ball?”

“They declined the invitation. But he asked me to note that he had donated the painting.”

Pia wanted to roll her eyes at the man’s “generosity,” but was too well-bred.

“I should have told Rico that something felt off, but I thought I was being sensitive.”

“Why? What happened?”

“The painting went for a hundred thousand euros! Someone quadrupled the final bid to ensure they would get it.”

Pia hadn’t known it had gone for that much. “What was the painting assessed at?”

“Five hundred euros.”

“I see.” She didn’t. At all. But it was nice to know her baby’s father had a generous streak.

“I know. I wanted to thank him personally, but the auctioneer said the purchaser specifically requested I send my thank-you to the Gomez family for donating it and that I should tell them how much I got for it. Your mother said it was crass to mention the figure, but that since it was such a substantial donation I should honor his wishes.” Poppy’s eyes went wide again. “Huge mistake.”

“Why?”

“For starters, I don’t think the Gomez family would have let me sell it if they’d realized I would get that sort of money for it. First the younger one, Darius, called me and went crazy. He was swearing and making threats, trying to get me to tell him who bought the painting. He wouldn’t believe I didn’t know. I was upset and told Rico. He called the older one and tore such a strip off him. My Spanish vocabulary was deeply enriched, let me tell you.” Poppy was making light of it, but Pia could tell she was still unsettled.

“I wonder if the purchaser knew what kind of hornet’s nest he was stirring up,” Pia said, even though she instinctively knew he must have. The man she’d met had seemed extremely sure of himself.

“I’m quite sure I was pushed into the middle of a battlefield. When Rico hung up, he asked if someone named Angelo Navarro had been on the guest list. I guess that was the name of the person the Gomez brothers suspected was behind the purchase. I checked and he wasn’t on it, but anyone could have placed that bid on his behalf.”

I was never here.

A cold prickle left all the hairs on Pia’s body standing on end.

“Angelo Navarro,” she murmured. “Do you know who he is?”

“Rico did some research. He’s a tech billionaire who came up very recently. Quite predatory. He’s targeting the Gomez interests... ‘Picking off the low-hanging fruit,’ Rico said. Rico told your mother’s assistant to bar all of them from any future events. I didn’t realize there was a central registry for offenders.” Poppy chuckled dryly.

“Sorcha set it up when she was Cesar’s PA,” Pia recalled, trying to hide her shock and alarm. “It’s the kiss of death.” A firmly closed door by the Monteros was a firmly closed door against the social and financial advantages that came from circulating in Spain’s wealthiest circles.

Pia had presumed that her baby’s father had been an invited guest to the ball and therefore had been vetted for casual association. Given his willingness to pay so much for the painting, he had to be wealthy. That meant he might not be her mother’s first choice, but he was of suitable rank and standing that he would be accepted despite the unconventional circumstances.

Instead, he was an outsider who’d just been blacklisted.

“So what are you auctioning?” Poppy asked.

“Pardon? Oh.” Pia wasn’t one to lie. She rarely got herself into a situation where it was necessary, only the occasional prevarication over whether a meal had been enjoyed or a dress suited. “I have a few art pieces I want to place in their next catalog,” she hedged. “My life will change as my academic career ends.”

As she sat with her upturned hands stacked in her lap, cupping the air where her belly would swell in a few months, she debated whether to confide fully in Poppy. Poppy had been in nearly this exact position when she’d been pregnant with Lily.

But Pia had learned a long time ago that whining about a problem didn’t solve it. Obstacles weren’t to be mentioned until she had formulated a plan to overcome them—at which point her solution would be critiqued for merit and edited as necessary.

She wanted to cry, but rose instead.

“It’s growing late. I’d rather not drive in the dark. Would you mind not mentioning to Mother that I came out today? I cut our lunch short, said I wasn’t feeling well.”

“The lunch with...?” Poppy gave a little sigh as she rose. “Pia, I don’t want to speak out of turn, but are you sure an arranged marriage is right for you? Look at your brothers.”

Pia couldn’t help her small snort of irony.

“Please don’t take offense, Poppy, but yes. Look at them. When Cesar married Sorcha, he threw over a long-standing agreement that would have paid a family debt.” That relationship was in tatters and so was the one from Rico’s first marriage, not that she had the poor taste to mention it, but everything Rico should have gained from that marriage had since been lost when it was discovered he had had Lily with Poppy.

Poppy paled anyway, forcing Pia to do something completely uncharacteristic and reach out to squeeze Poppy’s arm.

“I consider both of you dear friends. Your children are a gift,” Pia told her sincerely. “I’m pleased my brothers are in fulfilling relationships, but you’ve seen enough of our family’s inner workings to understand the expectations placed upon all of us. On me to be the last bastion of rational behavior. I have to make a good marriage or brand the Monteros as impulsive and inconstant forever.”

“You’re expected to pay the price for our happiness?” Poppy asked. “That’s not fair. Or rational.”

“Perhaps not.” But she wasn’t supposed to bring further detriments to the table, either. “I’m not like my brothers, Poppy. I’m not built to go against the grain.” One wild night notwithstanding.

“Women never are,” Poppy said with a spark of defiance. “I didn’t tell Rico about Lily for a lot of reasons, but deep down I know fear was the biggest thing that held me back. This...?” She waved at the mansion she had restored with impeccable taste. “Fitting into your world has been hard and terrifying and I know I’m making mistakes every single day. But it’s worth pushing myself to be more than I ever imagined I could be to have what I have with Rico. My only regret is that I didn’t tell him sooner, so we could have been happier sooner.”

Pia forced a careless laugh. “Happiness is fleeting, Poppy.” Where had she heard that before?

“I mean that we could have been together sooner. In love sooner. Which makes us happy.” Poppy frowned with concern. “I know you weren’t raised to expect a marriage based on love, but it is possible to find it, Pia. Do you want to be married to someone else when you do?”

“Food for thought,” Pia said to end a discussion that was a lot more complex than Poppy realized. “I’ll see you at Christmas.”

But she drove home with white knuckles, mind churning over words that had struck particularly deep.

My only regret is that I didn’t tell him sooner.