Chapter 5 - THE CHILD WHO WASN'T SUPPOSED TO EXIST
Valyria entered Alessandro's library the following morning.
She wore a pale silk robe.
Her hand rested on her stomach.
“Alessandro?”
He stood beside the window.
“Where were you six months ago?”
She frowned.
“What?”
“June seventeenth.”
Her expression changed.
“I don't remember.”
Alessandro turned.
“Try.”
She swallowed.
“Why?”
He placed the photograph on the desk.
Valyria stared.
Her face drained.
“Where did you get that?”
Alessandro's voice was dangerously quiet.
“Are you sleeping with Marco?”
Silence.
Then Valyria whispered:
“It isn't what you think.”
Alessandro laughed once.
A terrible sound.
“Then explain.”
She began crying.
“Marco and I were together before you and I—”
“Before?”
She looked away.
Alessandro stared at her stomach.
Then asked:
“Whose child are you carrying?”
Valyria's lips trembled.
May you like
He stepped back.
For the first time, the man who had humiliated his wife in front of twenty-four people understood that he might have destroyed his marriage for a child who wasn't his.
