Michelle Celmer - Caroselli's Accidental Heir

The instant Alice was out of sight the silence dissolved into whispers and murmurs. Lucy couldn’t hear what any one person was saying, but she had a pretty good imagination.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

A man she recognized as Tony’s father stepped over to speak to him, taking Tony by the arm. Physically, two men couldn’t have looked more different. Tony was long and lean and fit, while his dad was shorter and stocky. Other than their noses—which most of the Caroselli family seemed to share—they didn’t look a thing alike.

After a few brief, but sharply spoken words, the elder Caroselli left in the direction his wife had gone, but not before he shot Lucy a look that seemed to say, I’ll deal with you later.

Lucy felt so horrible already, nothing he could say or do could make matters worse than they already were.

Tony walked over to where she stood, his expression unreadable. But he looked so good her heart ached. She longed to wrap her arms around him and hold on for dear life.

You can’t have him.

There was a point early in the relationship when his emotional unavailability had been his most appealing quality. She had stupidly believed that because she had never let herself fall in love, she was immune to the experience. And by the time she had figured out what was happening to her, it was too late. She loved him.

But on the very slim chance that he planned to pull her into his arms and profess his undying love for her, now would be the time.

He curled his fingers around her arm instead, and said in a tight voice, “Let’s go.”

She hesitated. “Go where?”

“Anywhere but here,” he mumbled, glancing over at the guests who were now huddled in small groups and watching the action with brazen curiosity. Hadn’t he told her a million times how nosy his family were, how he wished everyone would mind their own business? Could she have picked a worse place to do this?

Tony’s grip was so firm, all Lucy could do was try to keep up with his much longer stride as he half walked/half dragged her to his car out front. But he was touching her, so she didn’t even care. How pathetic was that?

He opened the passenger door for her, then he got in the driver’s seat, but instead of starting the engine, he just sat there. She waited for the explosion. For Tony to accuse her of ruining his life. Then out of the blue, for no reason at all, he started to laugh.

* * *

Lucy was looking at him like he was nuts and she was probably right. Like some divine intervention, she had appeared just as he was about to make the absolute worst mistake of his entire life. And all he could think when he turned and saw her standing there was Thank God I don’t have to do this.

“Are you all right?” Lucy asked him, looking as if she was seriously concerned for his mental health. And he couldn’t blame her. Since she left he’d made nothing but misguided—and at times irrational—decisions. Like offering Alice a deal after only a month of dating. They didn’t love each other, but she wanted a baby, and he needed a male heir. With a thirty-million-dollar inheritance riding on it, who could blame him for compromising? But he could see now what a mistake it would have been. Hell, he’d known it thirty seconds after he proposed.

All along, he’d kept reminding himself that the marriage need last only long enough to produce a male child. Then he and Alice would go their separate ways. But as the Wedding March had started to play, and he saw Alice walking toward him, he realized that not only did he not love her, he didn’t really like her all that much, and even if they had to tolerate each other for only a year, that was a year too long. And if they did have a child, divorced or not, he would be shackled to her for the rest of his life.

Crisis averted thanks to Lucy. How was it that she always showed up when he needed her? She just seemed to know. And damn, had he needed her today. She was his voice of reason when he acted like a dumbass. And lately, especially since she had left, he’d risen to the level of king of the dumbasses.

Marry a stranger? What the hell had he been thinking?

He nodded toward her stomach. “Is this the reason you left?”

She bit her lip and nodded.

“I don’t get it. Why didn’t you just talk to me?”

She avoided his gaze, wringing her hands in her lap. “I’ll be the first to admit that I handled this whole situation badly. I have no excuse for my behavior. And I’m not here because I want or need anything from you. And I definitely didn’t come here to break up your wedding. That was just bad timing.”

He thought it was pretty good timing, actually. “So why are you here? Why come back now?”

“I heard that you were getting married and I thought you should know about the baby before you did. But I had no idea you were getting married today. I was told it was an engagement party.”

Which would explain her look of horrified shock when she realized what she had walked into. “Told by whom?”

“Does it really matter? I swear I didn’t mean to cause any trouble. I just wanted to talk to you.”

Lucy never went looking for trouble—hell, she didn’t have a hurtful or vindictive bone in her body—yet somehow trouble always managed to find her. And though he had every right to be angry with her, furious even, she looked so remorseful, so beside herself, he just couldn’t work up the steam. In fact, his first instinct when he’d seen her standing there, her jaw hanging open in surprise, had been to pull her into his arms and hold her. “So, talk to me. Why didn’t you tell me about this sooner?”

“I know I should have,” Lucy said, idly fiddling with the zipper on her jacket, avoiding his gaze. “I just...I didn’t want to be that girl.”

“What girl?”

“I didn’t want you to think that I’d gotten myself knocked up on purpose, so you would feel obligated to take care of me. I’m not even sure how this happened. We were always so careful. At least, I thought we were.”

Tony had learned a long time ago that in life there were no guarantees. All they could do now was make the best of a complicated situation. Getting rid of Alice was a decent start.

“First off, let’s get one thing straight,” he told her. “I do not, nor would I ever suspect you of doing anything so deceitful. I know you better than that. You just don’t have it in you. And I’m sure you believed you were doing the right thing by leaving, but it was wrong to keep this from me.”

“I know. I didn’t think it through. I don’t blame you for being angry.”

“I’m not angry. I’m...disappointed.”

She bit her lip and tears welled in her eyes, but she held them back. “I know. I screwed up. And I’m so sorry. I feel so bad for your fiancée.”

“Alice will be okay.” Tony had tried to convince himself that everyone was wrong about her, when deep down his gut was telling him that she would be a terrible wife, and an even worse parent. She was materialistic and demanding, and far too self-absorbed. She had a single favorite topic: Alice. She would go on for hours about the fashion industry and her fame as a runway model, and though he’d tried to feign interest, he often found himself tuning her out.

She had good qualities, too. She was attractive, if not a bit exotic-looking, had a decent sense of humor, and the sex had been okay, but they never really connected. Not the way he and Lucy had. From the first kiss, he knew Lucy was special. And she was adamant that she wasn’t looking to settle down.

He was sure the right man for Alice was out there. It just wasn’t him. They had a total lack of common interests. She liked the theater while he preferred a good shoot-’em-up action flick—the more action the better. She was a cat person and he was allergic. She was a vegan, he was a meat-and-potatoes man. She listened to New Age hippie music and he jammed on Classic Rock. The louder the better.