Free Her Shameful Secret by Susanna Carr Page A

pulled her close. “I wanted you and only you.”
    She believed him. But she also believed the feeling had been temporary. “And how does your fiancée feel about that?” Isabella asked as she pulled from his grasp.
    “So that is where all this is coming from?” Antonio exhaled sharply and rubbed his hand over his face. “Let me assure you, Bella, I do not have a fiancée.”
    “Isn’t that just a technicality?” she asked as she rubbed her wrist, hating how her pulse skipped and her skin tingled from his touch. “You haven’t put a ring on her finger yet, but there is an agreement.”
    “I was engaged, but that was before I met you.”
    He had been engaged? Maybe he did know how to commit, but just not to her. “To the woman they mentioned in the news? Aida?”
    Antonio nodded. “Her parents were good friends with mine. It was to be an arranged marriage.”
    Isabella’s mouth parted in surprise. “Why would youdo something like that?” Antonio was the most sexual man she knew. Passionate. He would have suffered in a paper marriage.
    “We came from the same world, had the same interests, and the marriage would have been advantageous for both families. Aida would have made a good wife.”
    Aida clearly offered everything she could not. Isabella tried not to think about that. “If it was such a good match, why aren’t you married?”
    He rubbed the back of his neck and looked away. “Before we announced our engagement Aida decided she couldn’t bear the idea of getting married to me when she had fallen in love with Gio.”
    “Oh.” Isabella’s eyes widened. “Is that why you and your brother were estranged?”
    Antonio shook his head. “Gio never knew, thank God. He had no interest in Aida. She might as well have been invisible to him.”
    Isabella wondered if this was why Antonio was so quick to assume she’d used him to get to Giovanni. His own fiancée had rejected him for his brother. It would have been hard to get over that, arranged marriage or not. “I’m sorry.”
    “Why? I wasn’t in love with Aida, but I would have taken my wedding vows seriously. I know how to make a commitment and how to honor it.” He took a step back and glanced at his watch. “That’s all you need to know.”
    “No, it’s not,” she said with exasperation. Typical of Antonio. If he felt he’d revealed too much, or if it veered into uncomfortable territory, he shut the conversation down immediately.
    “Then let me be clear,” he said in a clipped tone. “It doesn’t matter whether you accept your inheritanceor let me buy you out. This is still Gio’s baby and I’m still going to be part of this child’s life. Get used to it.”
    He was in hell.
    The white walls of the doctor’s office were closing in on him. His hands were cold, his chest clenched and he wanted to walk away. Instead he stood by the door, arms folded, as the amplified sounds of an infant’s heartbeat filled the examination room.
    He watched Isabella as she listened. Her face softened and she pressed her lips together as she listened to her baby. The child might have been unplanned, but Isabella had already bonded with this child and wanted it fiercely.
    The ultrasound technician invited him to come closer. Antonio declined with a shake of his head and didn’t move. He felt like he shouldn’t be there, that he was intruding on a very private moment. He’d promised to look after Isabella and her child, but that didn’t erase the fact that he was standing in for his brother. Again .
    And Isabella had made it clear she didn’t want him around. Her instincts were right on target. He was doing all this to gain control of her. She wasn’t going to give up her fortune—that had been a long shot. Which meant marriage. He could make her fall in love with him, but that wouldn’t be enough. He needed to demonstrate that he could accept the baby as his own.
    “Everything looks fine and your baby has a strong heartbeat,” the lab tech said