Free The Moretti Heir by Katherine Garbera Page B

seemed ethereal.
    But he didn’t want to trust the vulnerability he saw in her. She’d lied to him.
    “It’s all tied to the curse.”
    “Tell me more about this.”
    “Well, I think that when my nonna cursed your nonno Lorenzo, she cursed herself. It was as if by denying Lorenzo true happiness, she eliminated it from her own life and from that of successive generations.”
    “Your mother wasn’t happy?”
    “She fell in love with my father and they were happy for about three months before he was drafted and sent to war. I was born, and three days later she received word that he had been killed. She was brokenhearted for the rest of her life.”
    “But you were born in Italy?”
    “Yes. Just after my father left, Nonna’s mother fell ill and she and my mom went back to Nonna’s village to help. When Mom discovered she was pregnant, they decided to stay for a while. After word came of my father’s death, I think Nonna hoped some nice Italian man would fall for Mom and marry her, but nothing worked out. We moved back to the States when I was one.”
    “And your nonna? ”
    “She’d had an affair with someone in her village. I don’t know who, but the scandal of her pregnancy caused her to leave the village and move to the United States, where my mother was born.”
    Marco was getting a pretty grim picture of Virginia’s family life and he could see why she’d want to find a way to lift the curse. But that didn’t explain why she wanted his child. And he was just realizing that every time he’d made love to her, he hadn’t used a condom.
    “How did you connect the tragic past of the women in your family with me?”
    “It is the only thing that makes sense. I finally pieced it together when my mother died and left me my grandmother’s journal. I learned a lot about the strega way and the curse my grandmother had put on your family. Until then, I had no idea she’d done that. I just figured we were unlucky in love.”
    “You, too?”
    She looked up at him, and he realized he was getting closer to the truth. This was a very personal mission for Virginia. He rubbed the back of his neck. He was mad at her for tricking him and lying to him, but he wanted to get past this.
    “Yes, me, too. I didn’t want to spend my entire life alone and unhappy the way my mother and my nonna did. So I started researching the strega way and curses. I knew the curse my nonna had used, because Mom had given me Nonna’s journal.
    “When I started reading the history of love curses, I realized that they had repercussions on the lives of whomever was placing the curse.”
    “How do you hope to break the curse?”
    “By having your child. The merging of Moretti and Festa blood in a new generation will bring together what was torn apart and reverse the curse. But I don’t think we can fall in love.”
    “I’m not going to fall in love with you,” Marco said, not liking the way she assumed he’d fall for her. She’d done nothing but use him for sex and lie to him. The irony of her actions wasn’t lost on him. He was well aware that for his entire adult life he’d treated women as his playthings. “And I’m not sure about you having my child.”
    She flinched and wrapped her arms around her waist. “I’m not asking you to fall in love with me.”
    “So you are really here to help me out?” he asked.
    She bit her lower lip. “Well, you and your brothers and your children.”
    “What will happen to this baby you want to have?” he asked. He’d been the victim of a fraudulent paternity suit when he was twenty-one and had vowed to never allow himself to be used like that again.
    “I will raise it. You wouldn’t be responsible for the baby at all.”
    He rubbed the back of his neck. He didn’t think he could turn his back on his own child. Family was the cornerstone of everything he did—even racing. “I’d want my child to know me.”
    “Then of course we can work something out,” she said. “I wouldn’t