Page 28 of Banished and Pregnant by Her Sicilian Billionaire Husband

“I was the one who gave your husband the folder,” Curzio says painfully. “I never had the courage to tell you that, but now...now...I’m sorry, Chisa. I’m very, very sorry. Forgive me.”

And then, because he’s a man of his generation, this old soldier bends down and kisses my hand, and I have to bite my lip hard to keep from sobbing out loud.

“Two hours,” he tells me from the doorway. “Three, if the traffic’s bad. Don’t say a word to anyone until I’m back, signora. Not to the signore, not to Signora Ana. Not to anyone at all.”

I listen to him go all the way down the corridor, his bad knee making that sound it makes on the stairs, and then the front door, and then a car on the gravel.

After that, the house is very quiet.

I stay on the floor of the nursery for a while with all my papers around me, and when I finally make myself get up, I don’t know what to do with myself at all. So I do what I always do when I can’t think. I go and look for my daughter.

I’m halfway down the back stairs, still numb with shock, when Rica finds me with a question.

“Mama? What’s ‘not before the fourth’?”

I hastily wipe my tears away before mustering a smile for her. “Where did you hear that, baby?”

“Uncle Vico.” She’s got her nose in the phone, thumbing at a game. “In the gun room. I was under the desk feeding Chichi. He came in and he didn’t see me, then he got a phone out of his sock, which is gross.”

“Rica—”

“And he was cross, but he was being cross in a whisper. Like you in the supermarket.”

My daughter puts on a deep, scratchy, grumpy voice, and the hair goes up all over my arms. Because it’s Vico. It’s exactly Vico.

“Not before the fourth, I told you. When the gates open. You’ll get it after, Nuñez. I swear on my mother.”

I’m not sure how I managed, but somehow...

Somehow I was able to smile and tell Rica we’ll talk about it next time.

Somehow I manage to pretend everything’s alright while I wait for a chance to speak to Marcello.

But when I finally make it to his study...

“Marcello?”

He looks at me, and I just...

No no no no no no.

I’m too late.

Marcello

MARCELLO WASN’T SURE what to expect when Vico came to his study and asked to have a private word with him.

“You look like death,” his cousin told him cheerfully as he walked in. “Did you sleep?”

But those words, though...

Those were typical of Vico, and Marcello only shook his head. “What do you want to talk about?”

Vico sat down sideways in the chair, legs over the arm, the way he’d sprawled in it as a boy. “I’ve decided, being the one who always ends up saying what’s awkward but true...”

Marcello frowned.

“Everyone wants you to be careful.”