Page 26 of Pregnant in the Italian's Palazzo

Nysio froze, looking at his father’s oldest friend and seeing in his eyes that the other man also knew about Zeus. Of course it would be impossible to hide such a secret from the man who had helped keep the Bacchetti family in check for almost five decades. Gianluca was their most trusted employee, their curator, the man who kept the entirepalazzorunning...he’d seen everything.

‘Sit down,’ Gianluca urged, a long sigh escaping his lips. ‘Let’s talk.’

He had assumed that his mother had tricked his father somehow into thinking Nysio was his baby, that his father had found out the truth and been forced to litigate to protect the family name. He wondered if his father had ever seen him as a disappointment, a cuckoo in his polished nest.

But through Gianluca’s eyes, he heard the story of how his parents had been very much in love. But one foolish mistake while they’d been briefly broken up had led Cora to Zeus. Shortly afterwards, she’d reconnected with Arturo and they’d become engaged. She’d been four months pregnant when she found out about the baby, the week before their wedding. She’d told Arturo straight away and handed him back his ring but Arturo had chosen to claim Nysio as his own. And that, according to Gianluca, was where it was always supposed to have ended.

Zeus was a notoriously powerful and cruel man, so the best way to protect Nysio and Cora was to pretend the baby was Arturo’s. That had worked, until Zeus had stumbled upon Cora Bacchetti’s handsome blue-eyed sixteen-year-old son at an event and secretly had a DNA test performed. The legal proceedings to protect their family had been gruelling and Cora had begged Arturo to tell their son the truth. But he’d refused, not wanting his relationship with his son to be changed. Not wanting Nysio to have to face such a long-buried truth...risking losing their son’s trust for ever. They’d been in too deep.

Nysio sat, reluctantly. And he listened to every word, not bothering to hide the tears that gathered in his eyes. By the time an hour had passed and Gianluca finally left him alone with his thoughts, he had an entirely different perspective on the sordid Bacchetti secret that he’d been avoiding thinking about and haunted by for weeks. He’d seen it for what it was, two parents doing what they thought was best to raise their child.

To protect him.

CHAPTER TEN

ARIAAIMEDHERknife in a downward arc, feeling a sliver of satisfaction when it sliced the courgette cleanly in two. Offering to help in the kitchen had been a necessary outlet for the hurt she’d stewed over since yesterday’s revelations. The only respite from her thoughts had been when the doctor had come back to remove the implant in her arm and explained that Aria would need a scan at the twelve-week stage.

The kitchen was full with staff preparing for a meal-delivery service that she discovered Nysio had delivered daily to a couple of homeless shelters in the city. The scent of bubbling marinara sauce and freshly chopped parsley assailed her nostrils and made her stomach grumble. She had already decided that she would not be dining with Nysio this evening again. He’d sent a note to her room, handwritten with an apology and a request for her to talk to him when she was ready. But she wasn’t ready, not when she felt so misled. The memory of how honest she had been, how she’d told him everything about her. Even told him about Theo.

Whether he had meant to lie to her or not, the secrecy was something that cut through the veneer of her confidence more effectively than any knife could.

She shook her head, popping another grape in her mouth and closing her eyes at the utter divinity of flavour that exploded there. She would really need to bring some of these with her when she went home. Food like this just wasn’t the same in England. She hadn’t had a bad meal since landing here.

She finished chopping the vegetables, chatting away to the chef until the woman went on her break and the other staff went back to their work and once again she was left alone with her thoughts.

An unexpected wave of emotion rose within her and it took everything she had to tamp it back down. Damn Nysio. Damn his suave Italian accent and whatever magical thrall it had held her under. She set her jaw and tried to calm the strange roiling sea within her chest.

The stairs at the rear of the kitchen led down to a basement corridor of sorts, the kind that you might see in a fantasy movie leading down to the dungeons. Did palaces even have dungeons? she wondered, feeling a little trepidation trickle down her spine as her steps echoed on the stone. A large doorway at the end opened up into a cavernous hall. Automatic lighting flickered on at her movement, and for a moment she stood frozen in absolute disbelief at what she saw.

It was some kind of huge underground lair. Well, that was her first thought until the lights along the vaulted stone ceiling began to brighten illuminating rows upon rows of giant barrels.

She walked along the cold stone floor that ran down the centre, looking at the labels upon each vessel, her eyes widening at the years listed upon them. Whatever was inside these things, some of them seemed to be over one hundred years old.

She moved through another archway and into an even smaller stone cellar. The temperature was not cold down here but not truly ambient either. Modern vents were visible in the walls, and small digital thermometers displayed the temperature and time.

A third area revealed itself even further down the impossibly long space. This room was lined with gleaming glass cases rather than wooden barrels. The wine here had already been bottled and labelled, the same brand name that she had seen that first night on the jet and on their dinner table the night before. Viti Di Cora.

Hard footsteps sounded from behind her and she turned just as Nysio’s broad-shouldered figure appeared in the archway behind her.

‘I saw you wandering down here. I wanted to talk to you...’

Aria looked down at the floor, her feelings still a little sensitive from the revelations the day before. But still, she wanted to talk too. She realised she hadn’t given him any time to share the details surrounding his secret. She had no idea how he actually felt about it. So she nodded, accepting his hand on her arm as he guided her further into the belly of the giant mountaintoppalazzo. ‘What is this place?’

‘It used to be an armoury, but now it’s a wine cellar. One of the most prestigious collections in the country.’

She looked back along the line of vintage caskets of wine from many other labels. ‘This is all yours?’

‘It is.’

‘I will admit, I have absolutely no idea why anyone needs this much wine.’ She made an attempt at laughter. ‘But far be it from me to judge.’

Nysio opened up one of the sliding glass doors by pressing a series of buttons that revealed a small pad on which he pressed his thumb. Aria felt her brows rise a little higher. ‘Who needs a bionic lock for his drinks cabinet?’

‘To call these caskets mere drinks would be akin to calling theMona Lisaa doodle.’

‘Well, well. I’ve always wondered what fancy old wine tasted like.’

He looked adorably aghast. ‘These are not for consumption.’

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