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Georgia pulled a face.
“I know. Easier said than done.” Portia turned back to the pasta, picking up a bowl and handing it to Georgia. “Well, on the upside, everyone in his family will love you, and that might even drive him crazy, so we can sit back and enjoy that, can’t we?”
Georgia laughed, relief making her almost giddy.
CHAPTER NINE
“WE NEED TO TALK.”
Dante glanced up from his screen, midway through reading an email from his Asia Pacific Regional MD.
“What is it?”
Portia strode into his office, an expression on his face he hadn’t seen before.
“I met her.”
Dante’s brow furrowed. “Who?”
Portia expelled an angry sigh. This was new. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Portia angry, even when he’d gotten involved in her relationship with Marco and almost ruined the whole thing. “Georgia.” She crossed her arms over her chest, and it took Dante a moment to catch up. How would Portia have met Georgia?
“I went to your house,” she continued. “Yesterday. She didn’t mention it?”
Dante was silent. Georgia hadn’t said anything, but then again, when might she have done so? He had made a habit of arriving home late in the night, usually after having eaten dinner at some restaurant or other. He presumed she was in bed. Sometimes he glimpsed her around the house, but not often, and he was glad for that, even when there was something inside of him that seemed to make him want to look for her. Ludicrous.
“Of course she didn’t mention it. You don’t speak to her.”
Dante kept his emotion blanked of expression with difficulty. “Did she complain to you?”
“Complain? Dante, wake up. I’ve never met anyone with a sunnier outlook on life. She’s quite remarkable. Surely you’ve noticed at least that?”
Something like shame flashed in the pit of his gut and he resented this. Not that Portia had met Georgia, but that she was evidently completely in her thrall. “She is reckless and foolhardy, stubborn and infuriating.”
“You’re an idiot.”
It was the most un-Portia-like thing he’d ever heard. “I beg your pardon?”
“No need to beg my pardon, it’s Georgia you should be doing that to.”
“I don’t know what you think this is,” he said, reaching for his water glass and taking a sip, wishing it would cool his temper. He had to take a breath to remind himself that not only was Portia a friend and very loyal and capable employee, she happened to be married to his brother. “But my situation with Georgia,”—he couldn’t even bring himself to call it a relationship— “is none of your business.”
“She’s pregnant with my nephew,” Portia responded with narrowed eyes. “And your parents’ grandchild.”
Dante sat a little straighter. He hadn’t thought of it like that. When Livvie had died, they’d all grieved. His parents had lost their first and only grandchild, and now, Georgia was pregnant. It wasn’t just about him.
“Not only that, she’s a lovely person, who deserves better than to be kept locked up in that gilded cage just because you can’t bear the thought of anything happening to the baby. She’s more than just a bloody breeding machine, you know.”
Dante almost swore. “I never said she was.”
“You didn’t say it, but look how you’re treating her,” Portia responded, crossing her arms over her chest, clearly not letting this go anytime soon. “Do you have any idea what this pregnancy means to her?”
Dante glared at Portia, a sense of inadequacy growing in his belly, a feeling he desperately didn’t like.
“She had hopes and dreams of her own, you know, things she wanted to do and put aside to raise her brothers. Now she’s wound up pregnant to you and her whole life has changed, she’s living in a foreign country where she’s knows nobody, and you’re treating her as though…as though…like you don’t even care.”
He couldn’t care. He refused to. “I don’t.” He said it because it was like an incantation, a reflexive reminder that he was on his own in life.
Portia’s jaw dropped.
