Caroselli's Accidental Heir. Michelle Celmer

wouldn’t be making that mistake again.

      She pried her lids open and looked at the clock. She blinked several times, sure that her eyes were playing tricks on her. It couldn’t possibly be 11:30 a.m. That would mean that she’d slept for almost eighteen hours.

      On the bedside table her phone chirped, alerting her that she had new text message. She reached over and grabbed it.

      Ugh.

      There were half a dozen text messages. All from her mom.

      Lucy had taken the coward’s way out last night. Instead of calling, she’d messaged her mom to say that she wouldn’t need a lift from the airport after all, and she’d be staying in Chicago a little longer than expected.

      How long and with who? had been her mom’s immediate response.

      As tempting as it was to throw her mom’s words back at her—wouldn’t marry a woman like me, my ass—that sort of thing always seemed to blow up in her face. After careful consideration, Lucy decided that it wouldn’t be worth the temporary feeling of satisfaction. The less her mom knew at this point, the better.

      She texted back, A friend, not sure how long, no time to discuss it. If Lucy believed for a second her mom was concerned for her well-being, she would have answered. She knew better.

      She rolled out of bed and looked around for her clothes, then remembered that Tony had offered to wash them for her. He must have forgotten to take them out of the dryer.

      She grabbed his flannel robe from the back of the closet door where he’d always kept it. The scent of his soap and aftershave tickled her nose as she pulled it on over the white undershirt he’d given her to wear last night. While the shirt was so huge it hung to just above her knees, the robe didn’t quite make it all the way around her tummy.

      With the baby doing aerobics on her bladder, her first stop was the bathroom. Tony used to keep a hot pink toothbrush for her in the vanity drawer, but he wouldn’t have kept it all this time. Would he?

      She slid the drawer open, gasping softly when she saw it lying there next to a brand-new tube of her favorite toothpaste. How did he remember that? And why keep her toothbrush if he was planning to marry someone else?

      One thing at a time, she reminded herself. She brushed her teeth and finger-combed her hair into place. She had always worn her hair on the short side, but her current style, a messy-ish pixie cut, was by far the easiest to maintain, and she knew Tony liked it that way. Her mom claimed it made Lucy look like an elf. The way Lucy looked at it, the less she had to fuss over herself, the more time she would have to fuss over the baby.

      Knowing they had much to discuss, Lucy was ravaged by nerves as she walked to the kitchen. To Tony. But as she rounded the corner and saw who it was standing at the stove, she wished she would have stayed in bed. She froze in the kitchen doorway, wondering if she could sneak back to the bedroom, but Tony’s mom must have had eyes in the back of her head.

      “Sleep well?” she asked Lucy, still facing away, using a fork to lift several crispy slices of bacon from the pan onto a paper towel. On the counter beside the stove sat a plate with golden French toast made from thick, crusty, Italian bread. Just like the kind Tony used to make her.

      Her mouth started to water and her stomach howled for nourishment.

      “Where is Tony?” Lucy asked her. And what the heck are you doing here making me breakfast?

      “He was gone when I got here,” she said, patting away the extra grease from the bacon with an edge of the paper towel. In slip-on flats, she was just about the same height as Lucy, but that was where any similarity ended.

      “When was that?” Lucy asked.

      “Thirty minutes ago, give or take.” She put the bacon on the plate and turned to Lucy, giving her a quick once-over, one brow slightly raised. “I hope you’re hungry.”

      She held the plate out and Lucy took it, so nervous her hands were trembling. If his mom noticed, she was kind enough not to point it out. She gestured to the table and said, “Sit down. Eat it while it’s hot.”

      Obediently Lucy sat. It was like her worst nightmare come true. Coming face-to-face with the mother of the man whose baby she was carrying, and doing it not only alone, but in his T-shirt and robe. Could this get any worse?

      “Maybe I should call Tony,” Lucy said, tugging the robe tighter around her belly.

      “Why don’t you and I chat for a while?” his mom said, taking a seat across from Lucy. “I’d like to know a little bit about my future daughter-in-law.”

      Oh, boy, this was going to fun to explain. “Maybe we should wait for Tony.”

      She dismissed the idea with a flutter of perfectly manicured nails, her smile patient yet firm. “Tell me about yourself. How did you meet my son?”

      “We met at the bar where I was working,” she said, leaving it at that.

      When Tony’s mom realized that was all Lucy planned to tell her, she asked, “How long have you been seeing each other?”

      “Mrs. Caroselli—”

      “It’s Sarah. Or Mom. Whichever you’re more comfortable with.”

      Mom? She was sure she wasn’t ready for that. “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. Tony and I, we’re not...we were never anything but friends. I know this will be hard to believe, but I didn’t come here intending to break up the wedding. I didn’t even know it was a wedding. I had heard that he was getting married and knew I should tell him about the baby. I was planning to go right back to Florida after I talked to him.”

      Looking amused, Sarah said, “And how did Tony feel about that?”

      She shifted in her seat. She didn’t want to offend Sarah, or come off as a bitch. Or even worse, seem as if she was hiding something. But it didn’t seem right talking about this without Tony present. “Suffice it to say that we have a lot to work out.”

      “In other words, mind my own business,” Sarah said, looking more amused than angry.

      “Sarah, I can only imagine what you must think of me. What your entire family must think.”

      “Lucy...can I call you Lucy?”

      “O-of course. Absolutely.”

      “Take my word for it, anyone who saw the look on your face when you stepped into the room yesterday knew you were just as stunned to see us as we were to see you. I would say, considering my son’s reaction when he saw you, and his demand that you announce your business to everyone, you two must have a very complicated relationship.”

      She had no idea.

      “You don’t have to answer that,” she said. “Not only is it not my business, all that really matters to me is that you stopped my son from marrying that horrible woman.”

      Four

      Horrible woman? Lucy blinked in surprise. “You didn’t like Alice?”

      “No one did. To be honest, I don’t even know if Tony liked her all that much. Or she him.”

      What? “Why would they get married if they didn’t like each other?”

      “That’s what everyone has been trying to figure out. We all assumed that she was pregnant.”

      Lucy’s breath caught in her throat, and her stomach did a violent flip-flop. It had never occurred to her that Alice could be pregnant, too. It would explain the rushed marriage. But what were the odds that he would knock up two different women accidentally within months of each other? And would Tony let Alice go back to New York knowing she was carrying his child?

      “Could she be?” Lucy asked, terrified that Sarah might actually say yes.

      “When I saw the way she was slamming