Page 14 of Hidden Heir, Italian Wife

Her posts were stale with nothing more recent than a year ago. In the few photos of her daughter, she had kept the girl’s face off camera, only showing the back of her head. He stopped scrolling on one with a woman asleep in a hammock. She was an older version of Bree. Her mother, Jax presumed. She held a baby in a sun hat face down on her shoulder. The caption read “First birthdays are tiring for everyone!”

It had been posted in early April two years ago. That meant her daughter had been born three and a half years ago, which was a very coincidentalnine monthsafter he’d met Bree the previous July.

The doors opened on Nico’s floor, but Jax stood there until the doors closed again. The car didn’t move, but it could have been plunging into the basement for all he knew.

It wasn’t possible that Bree had had his baby. He had only just decided he was ready to consider marriage again. He wasn’t ready to be a father.

He wasn’t sure he wasfitto be a father. Children needed love and when he loved, he caused pain.

News like this would only produce a fresh scandal and worry them. This wasn’t an unplanned pregnancy, allowing time for everyone to get used to the idea. It was achild. One he’d neglected forthree years. How did a man make up for that?

No. She couldn’t be his. He refused to believe it.

But deep down, in the roiling pit of his gut, he knew that she was.

***

Bree was still hyperventilating when they broke for lunch.

The project team was small because they were still in an information-gathering phase. So far, the work was interesting and challenging. After heavy deliberation, she had taken the position because the pay was excellent and the experience an asset on her CV. It allowed her to develop relationships with top executives in both companies, something she believed would serve her in the future.

Which meant she had also met Nico as well as Eve. Nico was a slightly older, more buttoned-down version of Jax. She had tried not to stare, but she’d had the same overwhelmed reaction while speaking to her daughter’s uncle as she had had to his aunt.

This whole situation was so bizarre, she kept pushing the reality of it to the back of her mind. At the same time, she had been mentally counting down to the wedding reception this Saturday. It wastheparty for the elites of New York, falling the weekend before Thanksgiving when anyone who was anyone was preparing to leave the city for family visits and Christmas vacations and warmer climates.

Bree wasn’t going anywhere, but she had given herself until Friday to decide whether—andhow—to tell Jax he was a father. She hadn’t expected him to waltz into the boardroomtoday.

When Eve had exclaimed, “Jax!” Bree had had one second to swallow her soul back into her body before being struck afresh by how compelling he was.

He had eschewed a power suit for a checkered jacket over tailored trousers. His natural charisma immediately captured the attention of everyone in the room, including her.

Oddly, she had been so stressed at the idea of telling him about Sofia, she hadn’t been prepared for the heat that engulfed her or the vivid memory of writhing with him in the throes of ecstasy. Where had she found the audacity to behave like that? It was mortifying to think back on in the professional setting of her workplace!

Maybe he won’t even remember me, she had thought with equal parts dread and hope.

Then his polite but indifferent gaze had locked with hers and lit up. It was the same energy he’d projected four years ago, as though he was saying,There you are.All his masculine energy looped out to snare her, exactly like the first time.

Heartening as it was that he recognized her and still found her attractive—or considered her easy, more likely—the stakes were entirely too high. If she hadn’t been a mother totheirchild, she might have been persuaded to follow him anywhere. All he had to do was crook his finger.

Instead, the pull of attraction crashed into the decision she’d been putting off. Tell him? Or keep Sofia to herself?

Through Eve, she knew a little more about the Viscontis. They were tightly knit. Bree was envious. She’d never felt close to her stepsiblings. Her father’s family weren’t interested in Sofia, either. If anything, that disinterest made Bree more reluctant to tell Jax. What if he and his family were ambivalent, or worse, hostile to Sofia’s existence?

Telling Jax was a huge gamble, the kind that could pay off or devastate her.

After he walked out, the morning passed in a blur. She had no idea what she said or did. She was on guard the whole time, aware he was in the building. The walls pulsed with his presence. When everyone rose to leave for lunch, all she could think was that she desperately needed air.

“Okay, Bree?” Eve hung back as everyone else filed from the boardroom.

“Totally,” she lied, slapping a big, fake smile on her face.

“Good.” Eve didn’t look convinced. She nodded toward the elevators as they stepped out the door. “I’m having lunch with Dom and my brothers. If I’m not back by one, will you take lead on the supply chain mapping?”

“Of course.” As she followed Eve’s glance to where the three men waited near the elevators, she saw Jax staring this direction as though he’d been waiting for her to emerge.

A fresh wave of anxiety assaulted her, one so strong her knees nearly melted out from under her. She mumbled something about water and dived into the coffee room.

It was a galley style with a coffee machine, a refrigerator, a sink, and some chipped mugs. There wasn’t anywhere to sit so it was empty.

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