Page 27 of Hidden Heir, Italian Wife

Romeo was in an armchair and Nico rose from another one where the angle of the back had hidden him. He narrowed his eyes, but didn’t seem as surprised to see Bree.

“You’re here, too. Good.” Jax sounded more annoyed than pleased. “I can tell you all at once.”

“Tell us what?” Nico was flicking his gaze between them.

Thanks to her mother’s drilling in poise under pressure, Bree kept a relaxed smile on her face, but her blood was congealing in her veins.

“Mom, Dad. I want you to meet Brielle and Sofia. Our daughter.”

The silence that crashed down on the room should have left the house in rubble. This was even worse than walking into her father’s Georgetown mansion and his wife’s circle of DC’s elite. Romeo and Ginevra Visconti were high society and Old Money. They knew immediately that Bree was not One of Them.

“Are you trying to put Dad back in the hospital?” Christo drawled.

“How are we only learning of this today?” Romeo asked gruffly.

“Yes,” Nico seconded in a tone of heavy distrust. “Why today? Bree has been working for Eve for weeks.”

Ginny shot Nico a look, then back to Jax for confirmation, back to Bree with accusation.

“Maybe Bree thoughtIdeserved to know before she toldyou,” Jax said with heavy irony, then addressed his parents in a more even tone. “We met in Como four years ago. Bree was on her way to Virginia. I was needed in Naples. We lost touch.”

His parents were still staring as though utterly confounded.

“This has been proven scientifically, has it?” Nico asked.

“We stopped for a cheek swab on the way here,” Jax agreed.

“And?”

“It will be confirmed tomorrow.”

“But you brought them here today? Come on, Jax,” Nico chided. “You’re smarter than that.”

“We’ll go,” Bree decided and held out her hands for Sofia.

“No,” Jax said, but allowed Sofia to tip into Bree’s arms. “Nico will leave, unless he changes his attitude very quickly.”

It wasn’t just him. Bree felt the waves of dismay coming off his mother. It was exactly the derision she’d grown up in.

He has to let her come here. It’s part of their custody agreement. Otherwise, he’d have to pay more.

“It’s my job to protect our family,” Nico said without apology, holding Jax’s stare. “That includes you.”

“It includes Eve, but you didn’t mind throwing her to the wolf, did you?”

The men weren’t toe to toe, but they might as well have been. They were the same height, the same build. Animosity crackled like lightning between them.

Sofia read the room and buried her face in Bree’s neck, hugging arms and legs tightly around her.

“Bree wouldn’t risk Sofia’s well-being on a lie that could be disproved so easily,” Jax continued in a tone weighted with warning. His fingers dug into her hip, keeping her pinned against him. “They’re both also now part of this family. Act like it,” he commanded Nico.

No, thank you.

The very last thing Bree wanted was to be force-fed to anyone. Been there, done that, and had been thrown up like a hair ball to prove it.

“She’s Lili all over again,” Romeo said gruffly. “Look at her. Sofia,” he called gently. “Let me see your face.”

At her name, Sofia picked up her head to peek at Romeo.

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