Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 79833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
“The car?” She raises a brow as if to say, really? “Already saw it.”
“You can push him in it. He doesn’t have to actually drive it until he’s three. Even then, I’ll build a track in the garden that’s safe.”
She straightens and walks over slowly. “Have you noticed how you say him, and I say her?”
I smile when she stops in front of me. “It’s going to be a boy. I have a feeling.”
She cranes her neck to meet my eyes. “And I have a feeling it’s going to be a girl.”
“God.” My laugh is nervous. “I hope it’s a boy.”
She tilts her head to the side. “Because only boys can be heirs?”
“No.” I run my gaze over her beautiful face. “Because girls are so damn fragile and perfect. They’re a lot harder to protect. I’ll be terrified every time she leaves the house. I’ll want to commit murder each time a boy turns his head to look at her.”
She places a hand on my chest. “You have to learn to rein in that beast inside you.”
I shake my head. “Not gonna happen, treasure, not with a baby girl.”
“You’re impossible, Saverio De Luca.”
I grin. “So you’ve told me.”
She’s quiet for a moment before saying shyly, “I didn’t get you a gift.”
“I didn’t get you anything either.” Except for a pair of diamond earrings that will go nicely with her wedding dress. But I can pretend it’s a wedding gift. “What would you like?”
Turning her eyes toward the ceiling, she thinks for a moment. “I’d like to redecorate.”
“The nursery?”
“The house.” She wrinkles her nose. “It’s so stuffy and gloomy.” Shrugging, she adds, “As I’m going to live here.”
That grin that still tugs at the corners of my mouth threatens to split my face. “Go for it.”
“Really?” she asks, removing her hand from my chest and curling a lock of hair around her finger.
“Yeah. I’d like that.”
She looks at me from under her eyelashes. “What about you? What would you like?”
The smile vanishes from my face. I turn serious. Just for a moment. “I’d like a shot at being a father.” When her expression drops, I add quickly, “A good father. I’d like to protect your child and take care of him if you’d let me. I’d like to lighten your burden when you’re tired—feed him when you’d like to take a bath or rock him to sleep when you need a nap—and carry the responsibility of raising him.” Cupping her cheek, I continue in an earnest tone. “I’ll love him like my own. I swear that to you. I’ll never let anyone take him away from you. You don’t have to give him my name. You were right. It was wrong of me to insist on adopting him if that isn’t what you want. All I ask is that you let me share his first smile and his first step.” I caress the line of her jaw with my thumb. “His first word and first birthday.”
She leans into my touch, rubbing her cheek against my palm. “Oh, Sav. There was never a question about it. You are going to play a role in his life. We’ll be living with you. I don’t doubt you’ll be a good father.” Just as the frown on my brow smooths out, she says, “But…”
The big fucking but.
“But a child knows when her parents don’t love one another,” she continues. “And I think a child needs a loving environment more than anything else.”
I purse my lips. “He will be loved. I already told you that.”
She studies me with a sad, sympathetic light in her eyes. “It’s not the same.” After a beat, she continues, “You don’t really need to marry me. Giorgio isn’t going to kill me. Neither is Luigi. They first have to find someone else to do their books, and I’ve already made myself indispensable. Luigi relies too much on me now.”
I let her go and step away from her. My tone is cold and calculated, as angry as I feel. “This wedding is taking place whether you consent to it or not. I will carry you down the aisle if you refuse to come to me, and you will say yes even if I have to push a knife against your throat.”
“If that’s how far you’re willing to go, you don’t care about me, and if you don’t care about me, you can’t care about my child.”
“Tell yourself that as much as you like, but we both know I care. What’s more, I know you care too. You care more than you’d like to let on or you wouldn’t worry that I won’t come home.”
“That’s true. I care.”
I ball my hands into fists, willing her not to fucking say but.
Then she says, “But it’s not enough.”
“It’ll have to be enough,” I say, clenching my jaw so hard I’m about to crack a tooth.