The Don's Widow Carries His Heir novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: Heartbeat

I never told Marisa I couldn't have children.

I'd never thought it.

In July I'd had a cold and a bad week at the bakery, and she'd stayed over and drunk all my wine.

"That's not true," I said.

My father pulled out a chair and sat down at Antonia's table.

"Lia. Enough." He rubbed his face. "A man is dead. Have some respect."

"I'm his wife."

"You were his wife." He nodded at the lawyer's folder. "You want to stay in this family, you do the decent thing. You sign it over to his mother and you go home and you keep your head down."

"Sign what?"

"Whatever it takes. The trust. The seat." He waved his hand at it all. "You make pastries, Lia. You don't run a family."

Marisa came and stood behind his chair.

She put her hand on his shoulder.

It was the same hand. The same slow little circle.

"Daddy's just worried about you," she said. "We all are. You're not thinking straight."

I looked at that hand for a long time.

Then I looked at my father.

"No," I said.

He blinked.

"No, I won't sign anything. No, I won't go home. And no, I won't keep my head down."

I picked up my coffee cup and put it in the sink.

"Massimo left it to his child. I'm the one carrying it. That's the end of the discussion."

"There is no child," my mother said.

"Then come see."

They all stared at me.

I turned to Antonia.

"The clinic opens at eight. I'll call them now. You come with me. You sit in the room. You watch the screen."

Antonia looked at me for a long moment.

"And them?"

"They can wait in the car," I said.

My father's face went red.

"Your mother is not waiting in any car."

"Then she can wait on the sidewalk."

Nick picked up his keys off the counter.

He didn't say anything.

He just jingled them once, loud.

The clinic was on Wayland Square, on the second floor above a bank.

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