Bound by Love novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Yours

The study smelled of leather and old cigars.

Adriano sat behind the desk, Osvaldo stood by the window, and the family doctor waited in the middle of the room with her bag open.

She was a brisk woman in her forties with gray in her hair.

"Mrs. Corsini," she said. "Please sit."

"I'm perfectly well," I said.

"Humor me."

She took my pulse, and she asked about my appetite and my last period.

I answered in a small voice, because Adriano's eyes were on me.

She handed me a little cup and pointed at the door.

When I came back, she tested it on the desk with two men watching.

It took three minutes.

Nobody spoke.

The doctor looked at the strip, and then she looked at me, and her whole face softened.

"Congratulations," she said. "I'd say five weeks, give or take."

I will remember the silence for the rest of my life.

Osvaldo's hand tightened on the window latch.

Adriano did not move.

He sat behind the great desk with his hands flat on the blotter, and his face went blank.

"Out," he said.

"Mr. Corsini, I'd recommend..."

"Out, please. Both of you."

The doctor shut her bag.

Osvaldo stayed one beat too long, his eyes going from the strip to Adriano and back.

Then he went, and the door closed behind him with a quiet click.

I stood in the middle of the carpet.

My hands were cold.

"Adriano," I said.

"How long have you known?"

"Since yesterday morning. I tried to tell you."

"Whose is it?"

The question was so quiet that for a second I didn't understand it.

"What?"

"Whose child is it, Alessia?"

I stared at him.

"It's yours."

"That's not possible."

"It is."

"The doctor who saved my life told me it is not."

"Then he was wrong," I said. "There was nobody else."

"There has never been anybody else. You were the first man who ever touched me."

He laughed, a short ugly sound.

"Your father is a clever man. Perhaps he sent you into my bed already carrying a Roncalli, to buy himself a Corsini heir."

I flinched.

"You don't believe that."

"I don't know what I believe."

He stood up and came around the desk, and for a second I thought he would hit the wall.

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