Page 66 of The Italian's Pregnant Enemy (A Diamond in the Rough)

Brilliant. Exceptional.

Handsome.

It grieved her that his father had betrayed him. That he had thrown him away like so much garbage when...

Imagining him as a small boy, confused and left behind, filled her with aching sorrow. If they had a little boy, and he had dark eyes just like his father, she would hurt every time she looked at him for that small boy Dario had been. Left behind and left without love.

And she would give their son love doubly in response.

She couldn’t explain it. But she knew it was going to be a boy. She just knew she was carrying Dario’s son.

She blinked back impending tears that threatened to fall.

She kept on smiling. Because the moment was happy. Even if it was weighted with other things.

The night before the wedding she took up residence in a different hotel room, much to Dario’s chagrin.

In the next morning, she felt completely undone, her heart fluttering continually, her hand shaking as her team of stylists got her ready.

She had chosen the dress because it reminded her of her mother. Her mother had always told her stories about the Fae Folk. And the soft gown with its plunging neckline and sleeves that trailed down along with the train reminded her of fairies. Elves. Something otherworldly.

She left her hair loose, with long ringlets. And she hoped that he would think she was beautiful. Her makeup was done expertly. Soft and natural to make her glow, but little more.

Her bouquet was made of cascading lilies, and she knew that the old church they were marrying in would be filled with candelabras and draped in flowers.

She had deliberately kept all of this from Dario, because she felt it fitting for the groom to be surprised.

Also, she hadn’t wanted his opinion. He wasn’t the one with design aesthetic. She was.

She got into the car that was waiting to take her to the church, and pressed her bouquet to her breast.

She was trying to calm the beating of her heart, or perhaps she just wanted to feel it.

She looked out at the city, and slowly, with each turn of the tires on the road, she realized something.

She wasn’t marrying Dario for the sake of their child. In truth, she never had been.

She could’ve fought him on this. It would’ve been easy.

She had power, and her relationship with her father mattered to Dario, because his relationship with her father mattered.

She was not marrying him because he had forced her into it. Because he had coerced or blackmailed her in any way. She was marrying him because she wanted to.

The car pulled up to the church and her father was standing outside waiting for her, wearing a suit. The door opened and he reached his hand out, lifting her from the back of the car. His eyes were shining. “Lyssia,” he said softly. “You are a beautiful bride.”

That tenuous grasp on her emotional stability eroded, and she found herself crying and being thankful for waterproof makeup.

“Dad,” she said. “I...”

She expected him to say something about how proud he was, because she was marrying Dario. Instead, he looked down at her, blue eyes sparkling. “I am amazed at the woman you’ve become. You’re not a child anymore, and I know that. You haven’t been one for quite some time. But I have always been reluctant to let go of you as my little girl. You’re the only child that I have. I think sometimes I have not given you all the credit you deserve simply because I couldn’t bear the idea that you were grown. I wanted you to need me. To need my advice. Perhaps even to need to work for my company because I wanted to keep you close. But you don’t need that. You are an incredible person. Smart and ambitious. But far warmer than I’ve ever been. You are more like your mother that way. Your softness. Your creativity. She would be overjoyed today.”

“It’s been hard, Dad,” she whispered. “There have been a lot of times I haven’t felt like...like I mattered.”

He closed his eyes. He looked pained. For the first time she realized he knew. And much the same way she’d been afraid to ask him for what she wanted, he’d been afraid to examine his failures. To hear them spoken out loud. Because they would no longer be doubts, they’d be confirmed.

“I am sorry,” he said. “For all the things I didn’t do when you were young. For all the things I couldn’t give you, even when you deserved them. I am sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” she said. “You’re a good father.”

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