the house. Immediately outside was a small seating area, with a chair and a table. Perfect for reading.
The gardens weren’t overly ornate, but there were a lot of gorgeous flowering plants in manicured beds. Roses bloomed in profusion along two stone walls, red and pink and white. Fat flowering hydrangeas, blue and pink, sat in the shade beneath tall trees, and a host of bright annuals bloomed in beds that ran down toward the river.
Lia’s fingers itched. She wanted to lose herself in the garden, to go dig into the dirt and forget all about Zach Scott and the Correttis for a while.
But that was impossible right now.
She hadn’t seen Zach since she’d arrived. A chauffeur had come to get her at the hotel earlier, after a terse call from Zach informing her to be ready. Once she’d arrived, a uniformed maid had showed her to this room and offered to put her things away. Lia only had one suitcase and a carry-on, so she didn’t really have much with her. She’d declined and hung everything herself.
Now she felt like she was in stasis. Just waiting for something to happen. The garden called to her, but she resisted. What would Zach think if he came looking for her and she was on her knees in the dirt?
As the minutes dragged by, she resolved to go out on the balcony and run her fingers through the potted geraniums and lavender, just for something to do, but a knock at her door stopped her. “Yes?” she called.
The door opened and Zach stood there, tall, handsome and brooding as ever. Lia folded her arms over her chest and waited.
“If you’ve no objection, I’ve brought a doctor who is going to take a blood sample.”
“Why?”
Zach came into the room, his hands shoved into the pockets of his faded jeans. Dio, he was sexy. Lia shook herself and tried not to think about him that way. She failed, naturally. Her heart thumped and pumped and her bones loosened in the shell of her skin.
“There is a paternity test that will isolate the baby’s DNA from your blood. Just to be certain, you realize.”
Lia lifted her chin. “I have nothing to hide.”
It hurt, of course, that he didn’t believe her. But if a test would erase all doubt, she was for it. Not only that, but she also looked forward to the apology he would have to make when the test proved he was this baby’s father.
“I’ll bring her up, then.”
“Yes, do.”
He left and then returned a few minutes later with a smiling woman who took Lia’s blood and asked her questions about how she was feeling. Once it was over, and the woman was gone, Lia was left with Zach.
“I have an important dinner to attend tonight,” he told her. “You will accompany me.”
Lia swallowed. She wasn’t accustomed to large gatherings. Aside from the wedding-that-wasn’t, and a few family things that happened once a year, she spent most of her time alone or with her grandmother.
“I don’t have anything to wear,” she said. She didn’t even know what kind of dinner it was, but if it was anything like that gathering she’d crashed last night, she knew she didn’t have anything appropriate. She’d put on the nicest thing she had for that event.
Zach didn’t look perturbed. “There is time. I’ll send you to my mother’s personal shopper.”
“That is not necessary,” she said, though in truth she wouldn’t begin to know where to start in this city.
“I think it is, Lia. It’ll go much faster if you simply let her help you pick out what you need. For tonight, you’ll need formal wear. But select a range of clothing appropriate for various events.”
“And do you attend many events?” she asked, her heartbeat spiking at the thought of being out among so many people so frequently.
Plants she understood. People not so much.
His eyes were flat. “I am a Scott. And a returning war hero. My presence is in demand quite often, I’m afraid.”
She didn’t miss the way his voice slid over the words war hero. It was like they were oily, evil words for some reason. As if he hated them.
“You don’t sound as if you enjoy it.”
One corner of his mouth lifted. “No, I don’t. Not anymore.”
She wanted to ask what had changed, but she didn’t. “Then why do it?”
“Because I am a Scott. Because people depend on me. And if you are going to be a Scott, too, then you’d better get used to doing things because you have to instead of want to.”
Lia nibbled the inside of her lip. She was no good at the social thing. She had no practice at it. But, for tonight, she would have to try and be something she wasn’t. She would have to navigate the social waters without falling flat on her metaphorical face.
“I’m no good at this, Zach,” she told him truthfully. “I don’t have any experience.”
Not to mention she was awkward and grew tongue-tied around too many people. She’d always been so self-conscious, so worried about whether or not others liked her.
Because she’d never felt very wanted and she didn’t know how to fix it.
“Then you’ll learn,” he said. “Because you have no choice.”
Zach slipped into his tuxedo jacket and tugged the cuffs of his shirt until they were straight beneath the jacket arms. Tonight was another event, another speech, where he would be speaking to some of Washington’s elite about the need for funding for veterans’ causes. Everyone tended to think, because the military worked for the government, that returning vets’
care was assured. It was to a point. Where that point ended was where Zach stepped in.
But tonight was different in a way he had not expected. For the first time since he’d returned from the war, he was taking a woman with him. A woman who was his date.
His fiancée, for God’s sake. An unsettled feeling swirled in his gut at the notion, but it was too late to back out now. He’d had the call from the doctor. They’d rushed the results—because he’d paid them a great deal of money to do so—and he knew the truth.
Lia Corretti was pregnant with his child.
He wasn’t quite sure how that made him feel. He was still stunned at his reaction to her earlier today, in her hotel room, when he’d suddenly decided that marrying her was the thing to do. It had been a preemptive strike, because though he’d fully intended to get an answer to the child’s paternity before proceeding, he’d also known on a gut level that she was telling him the truth.
She’d been a virgin. He’d realized something was different about her that night in Palermo, but she’d distracted him before he’d puzzled out precisely what it was. Not that being a virgin made someone truthful, but he imagined it was highly unlikely she’d turned around and taken a new lover so quickly.
His gut had known what his head hadn’t wanted to admit. And now he had a fiancée. A fiancée he didn’t quite know how to fit into this life of his. She hadn’t wanted to accompany him tonight, but he’d insisted she would anyway.
He’d been angry and resentful toward her all day. But now he felt a twinge of guilt over his reaction. Still, he’d told her the truth. She would learn to deal with her responsibilities as his wife because she had no choice.
They had appearances to maintain and commitments to keep. If he was going to have a wife, then she was going to be at his side. It’s the way it worked in his world. The way it had always worked.
He went downstairs and into his office, where he opened the wall safe and extracted a box. He’d told Lia to shop for clothing, but he’d not thought of jewelry. He had no idea what she would wear tonight, but he knew what