The Bride’s Baby Of Shame

Renzo had never been a possessive man. But Sophie had brought it out in him.

Earlier tonight he’d accused her of being a virgin as a technicality only.

He wanted to believe that, of course. A woman who was meant to be a countess might well keep her hymen intact in preparation for her marriage while involving herself in all manner of other debaucheries. He’d met women like that before—hell, he’d happily participated in the debauchery.

He’d wanted nothing more than to make Sophie pay for thinking that she could pull one over on him. Or perhaps what he had really wanted to make her pay for was the fact that she’d succeeded.

But the truth was, he realized as he stood there and stared out at a city he completely failed to see, it didn’t make sense.

Renzo knew any number of mercenary women. They were a lot like him, each and every one of them. They knew what they wanted and they proceeded to go out there and get it. They used everything they had. Status if they had it. Wiles if they did not. Whatever it took to get what they wanted.

He had learned to recognize one of his ilk from afar. Long before they made it into his bed, Renzo knew them for that steel in their gaze and their particular brand of avid keenness. He had never been wrong.

And he’d never been caught by a grifter like himself, either.

Renzo might have convinced himself otherwise since he’d received that newspaper clipping by post, but he hadn’t read that kind of sharpness in Sophie.

Not when she’d been calling herself Elizabeth, flowing like sweet honey all over his hands, and charming him within an inch of his life.

Renzo was not easily charmed.

It occurred to him then—high over the Thames in the middle of the night with nothing in his head but the only woman who had ever deceived him—that it was possible he had been hasty.

He had been so busy scoring points, making sure he got in as many digs at her as possible, that he hadn’t allowed himself to really listen to the things she said.

And more, the things she hadn’t said.

He, of all people, should have known better. After all, he’d spent his entire childhood trying to live up to the fantasy of what he’d imagined he ought to have been and what becoming it would do for him. If he was perfectly well behaved. If he transcended the poverty in which he’d been raised. If he never, ever, allowed what others thought of him or his circumstances to hold him back. If he made his own way in the world, as best he could, whatever that looked like. If he made himself a star in his chosen field and instead of throwing his money away like so many of his peers, used it to build himself a little empire.

If he did all the right things, he’d told himself for far longer than he should have, surely that would gain his father’s notice.

But it never had.

Not in the way he wanted, anyway. And when he’d decided to force the issue, it hadn’t ended well.

Renzo’s idealism, immature and pathetic by any estimation, had been fully beaten out of him in his eighteenth year, courtesy of the very wealthy, very titled prince who had left his mother pregnant with him. Literally beaten it out of him. He’d had relapses since then, it was true, but he’d always learned the same damned lesson in the end.

Meeting his father had taught Renzo that there were no better places or people, as he’d been tempted to imagine. There were no misunderstandings that explained away eighteen years of poverty and shame. There was only reality and in it, people did what suited them with little or no thought to the effect that their actions might have on others.

If it was impossible to conceive of how a person could do something heinous to someone else, a good rule of thumb was to assume that person had been thinking only and ever of themselves.

That lesson had been pounded into Renzo’s fool head again and again and again, particularly during that one vile week when he’d been eighteen and stupid and had foolishly imagined his own father would treat him well because of their blood tie. He knew better now.

Still, he’d let this woman throw him.

He knew all about women like Sophie Carmichael-Jones. They thought themselves so high-and-mighty, so far above the peasants—but at the end of the day, they were motivated by money. The same as Renzo’s mother had been, desperate to keep a roof over her head by any means possible. The same as Renzo had learned to be, making certain he excelled at whatever he did to pay her bills. The only difference was that the Carmichael-Joneses of the world believed their own scrabbling for cash was more meaningful, somehow, because it was wrapped up in estates and titles, ancient claims and other such things.

Renzo did not share this belief.

A hustler was a hustler, in his estimation.

He couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen the signs in Sophie, his sad-eyed innocent with the prettiest smile he’d ever beheld.

She’d spoken to him of consequences and he’d thought he’d give her a few—but hours later, he couldn’t seem to get that particular word out of his head.

He crossed his arms over his chest and found himself scowling down at the Thames as it wound on, unheeding, the same as it had done for centuries.

It had taken more self-control than he’d imagined it would to be near Sophie again and not take her.

His body had reacted as if they had been lovers for decades. He had been hard and ready the instant he’d seen her come out of the shadows. Even then, when he knew who she really was and had no intention whatsoever of giving her access to him again, his body had made its own wishes known.

He wanted her despite everything. Still. Now.

He hadn’t known, from one moment to the next, which one of them he was more furious at. Her, for the lies she had told him and the way she’d made him complicit in her own betrayal of her fiancé. Or him, for wanting her with an edge that bordered on desperation, even then.

Consequences, something in him whispered.

He remembered how she’d stood there before him in the close, wet dark.

Gone was the glowing, carefree woman who’d given herself to him so freely in Monaco. In England, apparently, Sophie was drawn. Agitated.

And had kept holding a hand over her belly, as if her meal had not quite agreed with her...

Consequences, he thought again.

And found himself cursing in a fluid, filthy Sicilian dialect when another possibility altogether occurred to him.

He’d believed he was furious before.

But now...

Renzo thought a far better word to describe his feelings was volcanic.

* * *

Sophie woke in a confused, hurtling rush and her first thought was that it was much too early to be awake. The light was thin and halting, creeping in between the curtains she’d neglected to close as if uncertain of its reception.

Her second thought was that today was her wedding day.

And that unpleasant reality slapped at her, waking her up even more whether she liked it or not.

“I can see you are not asleep,” came a familiar voice from much too close. “It is best to stop pretending, Sophie.”

It was voice that should not have been anywhere near her, not here.

Not in Langston House where, in a few short hours, she would become the latest in a long line of unenthused countesses.

She told herself she was dreaming even though her eyes were wide-open.