to take a field job in the Middle East to help vaccinate refugees.
Only that was before she’d found out she was pregnant. She couldn’t go then and had been weighing up her options, and then this position had become available. The more romantically minded would probably call it fate.
This would be her last foreign assignment for a long time and she was going to make the most of it.
Her career and her unborn child mattered to her. She was going to make sure her son or daughter had a good life and this job in Venice would give her a strong foundation. Even if she had to give up on her dreams for now.
The recruits were from all over Italy and some from Switzerland and France. They could all speak English and French, which Shay understood, and she was glad when Dante started to speak French to them over Italian, which she was still trying to pick up.
If her news had shaken him before, Dante didn’t show it now as he spoke highly of the United World Wide Health Association and the twelve-week training program they would be completing at the hospital under his and Shay’s guidance.
A baby hadn’t been in her plans either, but it had happened and she was going to be a good mother and continue with her career. Even if it was going in a slightly different direction than she’d thought. She wouldn’t pine away after a man who didn’t want her as her mother had done.
“Your dad’ll come back, Shay. You’ll see. I’m his wife. He went to Alaska to work for the crab season. He’ll be back and he’ll take us all up to Alaska.”
Of course, he never did come back.
He was still alive, the last Shay heard, but didn’t want anything to do with her.
He’d moved on and he certainly didn’t care that their house had been destroyed by Katrina and that his wife had died soon after from mold poisoning.
“Shay Labadie will explain the simulation scenarios you’ll be going through.” Dante stepped away from the podium and Shay shook the thoughts of her father from her head.
She was here to do a job.
And she always did a good job. Always saw a position through to the end, no matter what life threw at her.
She got up and explained the simulations that she would be running them through and answered questions. When she was done, the director of the UWWHA took the podium and she went and stood beside Dante. There was tension pouring off him and he barely looked at her.
Not that she could blame him.
She had dropped the fact that he was going to be a father on his lap.
She would’ve been more surprised if he weren’t shocked by the prospect.
Once the director finished talking, there was a mix and mingle session, so that everyone could get to know one another. Shay walked toward the stairs at the end of the stage, but Dante grabbed her arm, holding her back.
“A moment per favore, Shay.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “First, I was serious when I said I would like a paternity test done.”
“Okay.” He’d been right when he’d reminded her that they were strangers who’d slept together, much as it smarted that her word wasn’t enough to convince him that she didn’t sleep around. “Anything else?”
“This is hard for me to say.”
“Dante, you don’t have to do anything. I already told you that I’m not asking for anything.”
“I know you’re not,” he said quickly. “I am.”
“What...I... You’re what?” Shay didn’t know how to take that response. Now she was shocked, so she asked cautiously, “What’re you asking for?”
“Not much. Just that if the paternity test proves that I’m the father—”
“Which it will,” she interrupted.
“If it does,” he said through clenched teeth, “I want you to marry me.”
Of all the things she’d thought he’d say, that wasn’t one of them.
She hadn’t been expecting that.
“YOU WANT...WHAT?” Shay was trying to process what Dante had said and she wasn’t sure that she completely understood him. “Could you repeat that?”
“I said that if the paternity test proves I’m the father I want you to marry me.” There was no smile on his face, no glint in his eye letting her know that he was joking, because he had to be joking, right? Men just didn’t ask women they’d slept with once to marry them, did they?
“That’s what I thought you said, but then I was thinking that there was no way you could be asking me that.” She tried to move past him, because this was a bit crazy. This was not the Dante she remembered, the Dante she knew.
You don’t know Dante, remember?
And she didn’t. Usually she knew the men she slept with a bit better, but when she’d been in Oahu she’d thrown caution to the wind when she’d succumbed to Dante’s kiss.
Even now, standing here in front of him, she had a hard time trying to forget the way his arms had felt around her. The way he’d whispered cara in her ear.
This reaction to him is why you’re pregnant in the first place.
“Well, I’m not asking you,” he said.
“You’re crazy.” She tried to leave.
He stepped in front of her to block her. “I’m not asking you, Shay. I’m telling you. If I’m the father, we will get married.”
What?
“You’re telling me?” She cleared her throat. “Seriously?”
Dante nodded. “Yes. You will marry me.”
Shay tried not to laugh at the absurdity of it. This was not real life.
“And what about the paternity test you’re so adamant I take?”
He glared at her. “I only want marriage if the test proves I’m the father.”
“And if it doesn’t?” Which was absurd. She hadn’t been with anyone since him, and before him there’d been no one else for a long time.
“Won’t it?”
She crossed her arms, glaring at him. Suddenly she was having a hard time finding him charming. Sexy, yes, but charming—heck, no. More annoying than anything.
“You’re the father,” she replied icily.
“Then you will marry me once we receive the results.”
She
