Claiming The Virgin's Baby (Mills & Boon Modern) by Jennie Lucas

Author:Jennie Lucas [Lucas, Jennie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mills & Boon Modern
Published: 2020-04-30T15:38:45+00:00

As Rosalie stepped onto the dock near the grand palazzo where the charity ball would be held, she had a hard time taking a full breath. It had to be due to her formfitting pink cocktail dress, she told herself. She wasn’t nervous. She wasn’t. Her high-heeled shoes tottered as Alex led her toward the red carpet and paparazzi waiting in front of the palace’s grand entrance.

But Rosalie knew she was lying to herself. She was afraid.

Because Giulia Zanella had seemed so spiteful and mean when they’d met yesterday. The woman had already spread gossip far and wide. Rosalie had heard Alex’s bodyguard telling him it had been Giulia’s posts on social media that had snowballed, brought crowds outside their restaurant and forced them to flee out the back door. Rosalie could only imagine how bad tonight would be, being surrounded by people who’d loved Alex’s dead wife, and come together to honor her. Would all of them believe Alex had been unfaithful, and Rosalie was some kind of trashy mistress-slash-home wrecker?

And her a virgin!

It was so unfair. But remembering how Alex had mocked her for that admittedly childish complaint earlier, she didn’t say that aloud.

“Are you ready for this?” Alex asked quietly, tucking her hand around his arm as they faced the crowds outside the door. With a deep breath, she nodded. Because as nervous as she was, she was totally sure about one thing: she couldn’t let him face this alone.

As they walked by the paparazzi, she ignored the shouted questions and Italian words that sounded vaguely like insults, and kept her head held high. She exhaled with relief as they entered the building. But she relaxed too soon. As he led her into the grand ballroom, she quickly discovered it was a case of out of the frying pan, into the fire.

Crowds of party guests, mostly young and dressed creatively, in wild, bright colors, or else scantily, barely covering themselves, all turned to stare, some with hostility, others merely curious. A few men in tuxedoes, clearly Alex’s friends, came and spoke with him quietly. They spoke in Italian, obviously astonished he’d come to enemy territory. They looked at Rosalie with something like pity.

“You made it!” Giulia was suddenly in front of them with a sharp, gleeful smile. With her extremely thin frame and tiny tight black-and-white dress, she made Rosalie think of Cruella de Vil.

“Hello,” she replied politely. “Thank you for inviting me.”

“Darling, you’re the star attraction. Come.” The blonde took Alex’s other arm. “Let me show you to your table.”

As they passed through the crowds, Rosalie watched as people came forward, speaking tauntingly to him in Italian. They didn’t even look at Rosalie’s face, only her belly. Her hands clenched. It was all she could do not to yell or run away.

A red flush crept up Alex’s neck. But he did not rise to the bait. He responded to each person coolly, even coldly.

Giulia gave each interlocutor plenty of time to corner them before she moved on through the ballroom at a glacial pace.

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