“I… I’ve been having these twinges in my lower back, you know, for the last two days,” she said, her voice trembling. “Which is why I came back early from my girls’ night out. They’ve been there for a while now. I guess I didn’t notice that they were gathering momentum. They did hurt, and I should’ve told you, and I should’ve gone to the hospital, but I didn’t think much of it, and I…”
Her fingers dug into his chest, trembling, and Renzo wished he could take even a fraction of her pain away.
“What if I neglected all the signs my body was giving me? What if I rushed to the hospital two days ago and—” Her voice cracked, the words dying on her lips.
It was the moment Renzo felt the weakest in his entire life. His wealth, his influence, his intelligence—none of it could help him now. All he had were his words, his faith, and the enormous admiration he felt for this woman.
This woman who never let herself weaken in front of anyone needed his strength now.
“Stop,bella,” he said, gathering her to him. He made his tone as stern as possible to get through the panic, to help her find the steady ground she needed right then. “You cannot blame yourself, Mimi. The specialist has assured me that this happens sometimes for no good reason. Everything was fine at the last checkup. Only the baby seems to have shifted now. Nothing you did, nothing you thought, contributed to this. Do you hear me? If anybody is to blame, let me take it upon myself then.”
Her tearstained eyes widened as his words turned into a rough growl. “What if all this is because of the stress I caused you? Because I convinced you to marry me, and then I surprised you with this giant farce of a wedding?”
“No,” she interrupted, shaking her head, fair to the last. “This started way before this morning,” she said, her voice exhausted, drained of all fight.
Renzo dismissed the attendants, the physician, the nurse—everyone. Then he lifted her, settling her in his lap. “Listen to me, and listen well, Mimi. You did nothing wrong.”
He placed his palms over her belly, willing their baby to understand his words as well as its mother. In the matter of mere hours, his entire perspective had been turned upside down. “This baby could have been the unluckiest, losing the parents that wanted it so much before it even came into the world.”
He tipped her chin up and wiped at another rogue tear from her soft cheek. “Do you know what convinced me to marry you?”
“Your obsessive need to play controlling hero in my life?” she said, a sliver of her irreverence coming back into her eyes.
Cazzo, if they got through his together, there was so much more to look forward to. Not a single day with this woman would be boring. But neither would she chase excitement or fame or sacrifice everyone else’s happiness around her just to indulge her own whims.
“The faith, the strength, and the sheer joy I saw in your eyes when you talked about how much you already loved this innocent life. Such clarity of purpose in one so young…”
“Keep talking, Renzo. I believe I’m beginning to see why the media adores you so much,” she said, hiding her face in his throat. But he heard the wobble there. And it tore at him that he couldn’t fix everything for her.
“You didn’t care that you hadn’t planned for this baby, that it came out of a twisted set of circumstances. You simply remembered how much this baby was wanted by Pia and Santo—and so you would want it and love it.” He blew out a choked breath. “I surprised myself when I proposed marriage to you. Did you know I don’t even eat breakfast without planning and optimizing it?” These were not words he’d ever thought he would utter, but they came easily now.
“I don’t know what to say,” Mimi whispered against his neck.
“After losing Santo, your faith made me believe too. Gave me a purpose again, a way to honor his wishes even though he’s gone. You got this far, Mimi. Now I want you to calm down and let things unfold, okay? The stress you’re feeling now—the guilt you’re putting on yourself—cannot be doing you or the baby any good.”
Her cold hands cupped his cheeks, and he realized with a start that this was the first time she’d touched him willingly. It felt like a milestone in an avalanche of them rushing at him. “Thank you for making me listen,” she whispered. “If something—”
He silenced her with a kiss, knowing they needed something more than words. A deeper connection.Cristo, he needed her taste and her faith in this moment as much as she needed his. The soft press of her lips against his jolted through him.
She tasted of tears and toothpaste and pain, but Renzo refused to let her go. Suddenly the idea of a world without Mimi in it, without this baby in it, felt like a nightmare he couldn’t imagine.
Slowly, she relaxed in his arms, and he continued to stroke his hands down her back. Her breasts pressed into his chest. Her softness engulfed him.
It was only the awful situation that they were in that had her cuddling into him like a kitten, but he enjoyed it just the same. Whatever this woman chose to give would be a prize, he told himself, his thoughts fragmented by her nearness.
Like the flutter of butterfly wings, her lips moved under his, and she began to kiss him back. Softly, tentatively, as if afraid to shatter the fragile peace of the moment.
He opened his mouth to capture her every huff and groan. Fingers twisting in his chest, she clung to him as if he were her only lifeline.
Heated desire filled him, but more primal, more urgent than anything he’d ever known. As if every cell in his body understood the raw poignancy of the moment, as if desire could be more than just his body’s need.
With a rough groan, he plundered her mouth, seeking more faith, more strength, more warmth. As if her own need for validation in this hard moment mirrored his, Mimi matched him stroke to stroke, fervor to fervor, until breathing itself became secondary. They lost themselves in the deep, drugging kiss for long moments, worries and the outside world shut away.
She pulled back and stared at him, pink mouth trembling. “Thank you for today, Renzo. I…couldn’t have coped without you.”
“No need to thank me for doing my duty,bella,” he said, knowing how much it cost her to say that. He pressed his forehead to hers, his voice a gentle murmur. “We’re going to be okay. You, me and the baby.”
Then came the long process of labor, which had lasted several hours. She was the one in pain, and yet Renzo thought he might climb the walls of the clinic in his worried frenzy.
