Innocent Secretary...Accidentally Pregnant

It was six p.m. and Emma had spent the last two hours with Luca’s travel team, working out the logistics of his impossible schedule for the upcoming fortnight, only to see her name appear on the flight list for Palermo and the transfer helicopter to his village. Worse than that, she’d had to suffer the thinly veiled smirk on the travel team manager’s face when she’d asked why the hotel hadn’t yet been booked.

There were no hotels in the village!

‘Oh!’ Luca had at least the grace to wince. ‘I’ve been meaning to tell you…’ Luca could read women as easily as a newspaper and as her eyes widened at his choice of words, he quickly corrected himself. ‘I mean, ask you.’

‘Ask me what?’ she asked through gritted teeth.

‘You know my sister is getting married soon.’

‘Is she really?’ Emma feigned surprise. After all, she was the one co-ordinating the lavish wedding gift—a pool, and not just any pool, an infinity pool cut into the edge of the volcanic rock no less. And she was the one who had been dealing with the Sicilian foreman and the architect and the insurance company, the tie selection people, the sister and the mother, not to mention Luca’s appalling mood! Oh, yes, she knew his sister was getting married!

‘Please,’ Luca said. ‘Sarcasm doesn’t suit you.’ He frowned for a moment, then added, ‘Actually, it does— but not now. I need some help over the weekend. It’s a bit hard to explain…’

She gave a tiny shake of her head. Luca never found things hard to explain—the Luca she knew always just came out and said what he meant.

‘Well, I can’t help. I actually have plans that weekend,’ Emma said, her voice still even and calm. She didn’t actually—even though it was her birthday, she’d made no plans other than visiting her father, but she certainly wasn’t going to let Luca know that. ‘And I know my job is varied, but playing the part of wedding planner is really out of my league.’

‘The wedding is all taken care of.’

‘So what do you need me for?’

‘It would make things easier, to have someone there with me,’ he admitted.

‘You mean with you?’ She was really shaking her head now. ‘No, Luca, absolutely not. You could ask anyone…’

‘But you’re not going to go and get any stupid ideas,’ Luca said. ‘Emma, you understand me. The last woman I brought home…’ He gave a small swallow before he named her. ‘Martha. I explained to her not to get swept away, that my family would assume we were serious, that they would think that there was a wedding imminent. She assured me she understood, except when we got there…’

‘Things changed?’

Luca nodded. ‘I can’t face going; I can’t stand the thought of being in the same house for two, maybe three nights on my own.’ He looked at her then, at her dark curls bobbing, at the mouth that could always somehow make him laugh, at the body he thought of at night now. This was the one way he could do it—with the one woman who could make hell bearable right now beside him.

Even if it meant he would soon have to say goodbye to her…

‘I thought that with you there…’

‘Did you really think I’d say yes?’ Emma demanded. ‘Well, obviously you did if the travel team already know about it.’

‘I was going to speak to you later this afternoon. I didn’t realise the meeting had been brought forward.’

‘Well, the answer would have been the same—no!’

‘You’re making this a bigger deal than it is!’ he protested.

‘It’s a very big deal to me! Anyway, there are any number of women who would be more than happy to accommodate you. Ask one of them.’

‘My father’s ill!’ He played the sympathy card, but Emma just gave him a wide-eyed look.

‘So is mine—but I’m not asking you to share a bed with me,’ she retorted.

‘He has just a couple of months to live,’ Luca revealed.