The earlier it’s detected the better my chances.”

“You haven’t told the girls.”

“No.” Payton felt a welling of fear. “I love them, Marco. They’re everything to me.”

His expression didn’t change. “So you did have an ulterior motive in coming to see me. It’s not just that the girls are older and easier to travel with. And it’s not about the girls missing me. It’s about you.”

She didn’t say anything and he swore softly, bitterly and shook his head.

“Maledizione,” he cursed beneath his breath. “I should have known better. You’d never come to me on your own. You only came because you were desperate.”

CHAPTER SIX

PAYTON swallowed the hurt protest. He was right. She wouldn’t have come to see him if she weren’t desperate.

Her mother’s death had left her without options. With her gone, she had no other living family member left, no one who could help her with the children while she underwent treatment.

So she came here, back to Marco’s home and in a painful, bittersweet paradox—it was exactly the right thing to do. Fate and circumstance forced her to do what her pride wouldn’t allow her. Fate and circumstance required humility and she had no other choice but to throw herself at Marco’s feet.

Beg for help, if not mercy.

“You smile,” he said tersely.

“A little.” A headache was forming and she pulled the elastic from her hair, letting the long curls fall loose. “But only because you’re right. You know how I hate to be wrong, especially if it means you’re right.”

His hard chiseled face gave away nothing. “Pride.”

“Pride’s always been a problem for me. Maybe growing up poor caused that. Maybe it’s because everyone knew my dad had left my mom—” She broke off, swallowed the sour taste in her mouth.

She was in kindergarten when her father finally left for good. Her parents had been fighting for months and the fighting escalated until everything seemed to be flying in perpetual motion across the living room—books, purses, shoes, car keys, telephones. Then one day the shouting stopped. Nothing was thrown anymore. No one ever slammed a door again. Dad had gone. And everyone knew.

Absolutely everyone.

Payton slowly sank down on a garden seat. “Everyone knew you married me because I’d gotten pregnant.” She consciously forced herself to relax, to take a deep breath. Inhale, exhale, inhale—nothing bad was going to happen. “I hated it. I hated that people—” she felt his gaze and she looked up at him “—pitied you.”

“Pitied me?”

She nodded, her neck stiff, her body sore. She felt as if she’d been through the spin cycle on a washing machine.