For a second, she thought he would do that thing where he deflected and turned everything on her. Instead he said, “I have some aunts and uncles who did what they could, but they had their own families. We weren’t close because my father had traveled so much I’d rarely seen them. I kept up on my schooling with a tutor and when I was discharged, it was more convenient all around to send me back to boarding school. It was already wheelchair-accessible and there were nurses to monitor my health, physical education staff to assist with therapy and my athletic aspirations.”
“What about school holidays?”
“I usually had a competition somewhere or I just stayed and trained. It was only a year before I moved on to university and would have left home anyway.”
“It still seems—”
“Don’t call me sad.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” she mumbled against the lid of her coffee.
She caught his mouth twitch. He was a tiny bit amused.
The river walk was paved and offered lovely views of the water and abundant greenery between the buildings. She paused to take a photo of the skyline on the opposite bank.
“Did you come here with your father?”
“On this walk exactly? At least four times.” She looked at the image, decided to take one more. “To the city, probably a dozen. If we’re counting passing through airports and train stations, so many times I couldn’t tell you. I took a photo of myself on the footbridge today, to match one he took of me for one of his earliest books. Oliver and my agent have suggested I follow in his footsteps. They said I could offer some of his most popular destinations a ‘then and now’ treatment, with the contemporary twist of a woman striking out on her own. This was my first stab at it, to see if I like it or if it makes me miss him too much.”
“And?”
“Both. It’s nostalgic, but makes me melancholy, too. I’ll see what kind of hits I get on the blog, but I already know people prefer more colorful places like Marrakesh.”
“You are not going to travel alone.”
She sipped her cooling coffee. “Why not? Do you ever travel for pleasure? Or is it always business?”
One of those unreadable shields slid over his expression. “One could argue you haven’t traveled for pleasure, given it was your father’s occupation.”
She sighed at that enormously typical deflection.
He heard it. “I don’t like talking about myself, Freja.”
“Is it too personal to ask why not?” she asked snippily.
“Because I have to give up enough personal information as it is.” He gave his wheels an impatient push as they reached a slight incline. “I have to let people touch me as though I’m a dog at the vet. They take blood and write down what I’m eating and whether I’m following instructions. They’re only trying to help, I know that, but it’s still a loss of dignity, especially when they ask me to do something and I have to say I can’t. And you wouldn’t believe the things that perfect strangers have the gall to ask because I’m down here at the height of a child.”
“Am I allowed to be mad on your behalf?”
“Don’t waste your energy. But I’ll have a sip of that coffee.”
They passed it back and forth as they continued along.
“I won’t pretend I’m an easy man, Freja. I will continue to be arrogant and uncommunicative, but I will never cheat on you. I promise.”
He sounded so sincere, she had to believe him.
Giovanni was more careful over the next few days. By the time they settled into his penthouse in Paris, things between him and Freja had returned to what passed as their normal, but Everett was right. Much as Giovanni hated to admit it, this wasn’t sustainable. The mere thought of sending her back to New York had him tensing his arm around her, though, accidentally waking her.
She drew a deep breath and stretched, warm curves shifting against his side while her hand made a lazy pass across his chest.
“Did I fall asleep? I didn’t mean to,” she said in a murmur and snuggled back into him, thigh coming up to his waist and lips turning into his shoulder. Her hair tickled under his jaw and her breath warmed his skin as she said, “We have to go out tonight, don’t we?”
“We have time.” He played his fingers in her hair, bordering on addicted to this simple pleasure of having her naked in bed beside him, all sated and warm as they dozed off their sex.
Ah, the sex. That wicked, exalted act that had gotten him into this predicament.
“Freja?” He discovered his voice wasn’t nearly as steady as it should be. He cleared his throat. “When do you expect to know if you’re pregnant?”
Just like that, the equilibrium they’d found after that difficult day in Frankfurt was sucked away, leaving a silence so profound, he could hear his own heartbeat in his ears.
“I’m a day late,” she said in a small voice.
His heart lurched so hard, the sound in his ears kicked to life like a furnace bursting into action on a shot of fuel. His whole being was accosted by euphoria.
“A day,” he repeated with wonder.
“Only one. It doesn’t mean—”
“I know.” He touched her lips to silence her. “Let me have this.” He had told himself it wouldn’t matter, that it was such a long shot he shouldn’t project any anticipation into it, but he closed his eyes to savor this moment of possibility.
“You can’t want me to be pregnant,” she said against his finger.
“Why can’t I?” He opened his eyes and tucked his chin to look at her, combing her hair off her face with his hand. “Who wouldn’t want a little girl with your disarming blue eyes? Or a boy with my stubborn personality annoying the hell out of me? Or the other way around?” He closed his fist in the tails of her hair and drew it beneath her chin, tilting her mouth up close enough to set a kiss on her lips. “If nothing changes overnight, I’ll book you a doctor’s appointment in the morning. I want to know.”
“I bought a test while I was out today.”
Another thrust of shock went through him, this one edged with irritation that she was continuing to wander cities without mentioning where she was going or who she was with. Everett was the suspicious one, but Giovanni didn’t need these slivers of doubt.
“Did you take it?” he asked.
“No. It’s still early. It might give a false negative.”
“Is there such a thing as a false positive?”
“Not really.”