Chapter Twenty-Nine

"How does it feel to be married?" Emelia asks me. She rests a hand on her pregnant belly and strokes small circles over it with her fingers.

I watch her for a moment, envious of her impending motherhood. I can't wait to have children with Marco.

"I feel like you all need to get out of here so that my husband and I can get back into bed!" I say with a giggle.

My cheeks flush as my friends laugh with me.

I'm not kidding, though, I am more than ready to find Marco and start our honeymoon.

I scan the room, looking for Marco's dark head in the crowd.

I can't see him, but my eyes fall on a pretty woman talking to her child nearby. She is hunkered down chatting with him before he runs away to play with the other kids.

I don't know who she is, but her child is so beautiful that I decide to speak to her.

"What a beautiful child," I say to her.

She glances up at me, looking a little startled. "Thank you," she says with a small smile.

"How old is he?" I ask.

"He's six," she says to me.

"I hope that my children will be as adorable as he is," I tell her.

I rub my hand over my belly, imagining being pregnant for the first time. Marco and I have already been being ‘less than careful', and I could be pregnant already.

"I'm sure they will be," she replies. She hesitates, then says, "There's something I should tell you about me and my child."

"Oh sure," I say, a little perplexed.

I grab a drink off a waiter's tray, then realize that I shouldn't drink it if I think I could be pregnant. I stare at it for a moment, indecisively.

"I think you should know that Marco and I grew up together and that I have been in hiding for the last seven years," the woman is saying to me, and I look away from the drink in my hand. "Marco has made sure that Mateo and I were as comfortable as possible."

I look at the woman blankly. "I'm sorry," I say, "Marco kept you comfortable? Why?"

She looks nervous, but she says, "Because he claimed Mateo as his own child after I ran into….difficulties."

"Difficulties," I echoe. "That child isn't actually Marco's, then?"

She meets my confused gaze, and says, "As far as anyone else knows, he is."

I feel anger rise in my chest.

I need to find Marco. Now.

"Okay, I am getting to the bottom of this," I say to her. "Come with me," I tell her, turning my back and marching through the crowd. I don't look back to see if she is following me.

I am so tired of bad surprises.

Why is Marco's life full of so many secrets?

"Where is my damn husband?" I mutter under my breath as I scan the room. I see the two large doors that lead out to the courtyard and decide he might have gone outside for a moment.

I press the doors open, just in time to see a man punch my husband in the face, knocking him to the ground. Blood immediately starts pouring from his nose.

"Marco!" I scream, rushing to grab the arm of the unfamiliar man who is still pummelling my husband.

I wonder for a moment why he isn't fighting back.

The stranger flings me off of him with ease, and I crash to the floor on my hands and knees, my bones feeling like they have been shattered with the force of the fall.

I hear little pinging noises as a bunch of beads pop off my beautiful dress and scatter across the floor.

The strange woman I just met rushes over to the struggling men and grabs the wrist of the tall, slender man who just flung me to the floor like a rag doll.

"Elio!" she cries. "For the love of God, stop it!"

It's as if her words have turned off the man's rage. He freezes, and I watch him straighten up and turn toward her.

"Kate," he says to her, his voice a deadly purr. He stalks closer to her, and she backs away slowly.

"It's time to go now, love," he says to her, his voice so seductive that I shiver involuntarily.

He practically oozes danger and appeal in a way that makes me both want to scratch his eyes out and bend to his will.

"I just want you all to leave me alone," Kate says, sounding breathless as she continues to retreat.

"You're still my betrothed," he replies to her, still stalking her. My brain snags on the word.

Marco had mentioned that I was not the first woman that he had hidden away from her family.

Could this be the mystery woman he was referring to?

I start to try and rise to my feet, wanting to prevent Kate from rushing back into the room where my wedding reception is in full swing.

If nothing else, I was hoping to avoid bloodshed on my wedding day. It seems I was na?ve to hope for something so simple.

"No one is going anywhere." I feel a twisted relief when I see that Luca has wrapped his arm around Kate's throat and pressed a gun to her temple.