LITMIR.BIZ

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is holding a baby that I think is his niece?” He drew an audible breath. “Only he hands the baby to you. And now you tell me she’s mine?”

      Her chin went up in confusion. “It isn’t like it was easy. You left, and you had no intention of coming back, isn’t that right?”

      “Yes.”

      “And didn’t you insist more than once that you didn’t want children?”

      That had him sitting back in his chair, his eyes going to Anna. “I did, but that was—”

      “I didn’t think you’d even want to know.”

      “You didn’t think I’d... Mio Dio. Well, you were wrong. And my statement about kids, if I remember right, included the phrase ‘not right now.’ The word ‘never’ was not mentioned. Ever.”

      How was she supposed to know that? There were men who would be just as happy to never father a child and who wouldn’t want to know even if they did.

      But as she’d taken that choice away from him, he had every right to be angry with her.

      “I’m sorry. Things were tenuous at the time.” She didn’t go into the particulars of the precarious pregnancy or the fact that she would never give birth to another child. Anna might be his concern, but the other stuff? Not so much, since they were no longer a couple.

      And that fact hurt more than it should have, especially after all this time.

      “Tenuous.” His brows drew together. “Tenuous? You let a colleague of mine hold my child before I get a chance to, and that’s all you can say?”

      Yep, she was right. He was mad. Livid, even, and she couldn’t blame him. She held Anna close against the tirade.

      He noticed it, and his eyes closed. “Dammit, I’m sorry.”

      The sudden ache in her chest made her reach out and touch the edge of his desk with fingers that trembled.

      “No, I’m sorry, Luca. It just never seemed like the right time and I couldn’t... I didn’t want to tell you over the phone.” She didn’t want to admit how afraid she’d been to hear his voice. And after Annalisa’s birth she’d had a recovery period that most new mothers didn’t have to worry about. It had delayed any travel plans she might have made. So here they were. In the present.

      “When?”

      She withdrew her hand. What was he asking? When Anna was born? When she was conceived? That was the kicker. They’d had sex in the aftermath of the announced downsizing, when there had been anger on both sides. Their coming together had been volatile and passionate. But the erotic coupling had solved nothing and only after her missed periods had she remembered that they hadn’t used protection.

      In the end, the layoffs that she’d hoped would save their relationship—by removing the work dynamics that had bothered her so much—had done the opposite. She hadn’t wanted anyone to think she played favorites, and Luca had never asked for special treatment.

      But memories of a former boyfriend’s behavior had loitered in the background, ready to pounce, warning her of what had happened in the past. Of what could happen again if she weren’t careful. Kyle had also been a colleague. He had asked—and expected—her to make allowances for things at work, most of them small and unimportant. But with each instance she’d gotten more and more uncomfortable with the relationship. Just as she’d been ready to break things off, he’d asked her to overlook a mistake he’d made with a patient. She hadn’t, and he’d been fired.

      She told herself she’d never put herself in that position ever again. Except then Luca had come along and all those warnings had been in vain.

      Remembering his question, she decided on the simplest answer possible. If he wanted to do the math, he could. “Anna is four months old.”

      “Four months.” He placed his hands flat on the desk. “I want to spend time with her. Did you come by yourself?”

      He didn’t ask if she was sure Anna was his. A lump formed in her throat.

      “And I want you to spend time with her. That’s part of why I came. No, I didn’t come alone. Peggy came with me. You remember my aunt?” If her mom had been well enough, Elyse would have asked her to come, but since she couldn’t, this was the next best thing. She’d needed the moral support or she might have backed out entirely.

      As many times as Luca had asked her out, she might have held firm to her resolve that there would be no more work relationships after Kyle. Until the day Luca had come out of one of the surgical suites after monitoring a patient’s brain waves, white-faced, a grim look of defeat on his face. It had done her in. She’d walked over to him, laid a hand on his arm and asked him out.

      He’d said yes. The rest was history. A history peppered with moments of beauty and the sting of pain.

      But the way he made love...

      The realization that her eyes were tracking over his broad shoulders made her bite her lip and force herself to look away.

      God! The attraction was still there—still very real. Even if the fairy tale had crashed to dust around her feet.

      But from that rubble had come her baby girl. She would go through every bit of that pain all over again if she was the end result.

      “After all this time, why come at all? You could have let things be. Never told me at all,” Luca pressed.

      The very things she’d told herself as she’d booked her flight.

      “It was the right thing to do.” Her hand went to Anna’s head, rocking her subconsciously, still shielding her.

      He looked at the baby for a second and walked over to the window, staring out, hands thrust in his pockets, shoulders hunched. “La cosa giusta? The right thing would have been to tell me long before she was born.”

      “Would it have changed things?”

      He swung back around to face her. “I don’t know. I wasn’t given that choice, was I?”

      “No.” Maybe she needed to tell him at least a little of the circumstances. “When I said things were tenuous, I meant it. The doctors weren’t sure Anna was going to make it for a while. And I didn’t see any reason to say anything if...”

      All the color drained out of his face, and he walked back to the desk. “Dio. What happened? Is she okay?”

      She rushed to put his mind at ease. “She’s fine. Now. I had placenta previa. It didn’t resolve and there were a couple of incidents of bleeding, heavy enough to cause worry.” And in the end it had been life-threatening to both of them when it had ruptured. “I wasn’t going to do anything that might put her at even more risk.”

      “And telling me would have done that?” He dragged a hand through his hair.

      “I was talking more about physical stress but, yes. Inside I think I was afraid of jinxing the pregnancy. As if telling you might cause everything to fall apart, and I’d lose her. I didn’t see any reason for us both to grieve if she didn’t survive.”

      Not that she’d been sure he would. Because she’d convinced herself that he’d be horrified to have fathered a child in the first place.

      “And after she was born? Why wait four months?”

      She wasn’t quite ready to share more than she already had.

      “Does it really matter? I’m here now.”

      He crouched in front of her and touched the baby’s arm with his index finger. “I can hardly believe she’s mine.”

      “She is.” She wasn’t sure if he was questioning Anna’s parentage, but either way she understood. Here came a woman who shows up over a year after they break up, claiming he’d fathered her child. “We can do a paternity

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