And against her will, to the gray-eyed writer who’d dismissed her like she was nobody at all.
CHAPTER 27
MARCO
Eight pounds. Marco stared at the number on the baby scale Christina had borrowed from the pediatrician, trying to make sense of it. Eight pounds, four ounces. His wallet, stuffed with cards he hadn’t used in days, probably weighed more. And yet this tiny creature—his daughter—felt like she contained the entire world.
“You have to support her head,” Christina said from the doorway of the nursery, arms crossed over her chest. “She can’t hold it up on her own yet.”
“I know.” He didn’t know. He knew nothing. Four days since the dock, since the truth had finally broken open between them, and Marco Castellano—heir to a fashion empire, face of international campaigns, man who’d navigated boardrooms and red carpets with equal ease—was terrified of a ten-week-old infant.
Violet blinked up at him from the changing table, her eyes catching the afternoon light through the window. They were changing—the blue-gray of her first weeks giving way to something greener, hints of gold just beginning to emerge around the pupils. The Castellano eyes, arriving slowly, like a secret revealing itself.
“Okay.” He slid one hand beneath her head, the other under her bottom, exactly as Christina had shown him. Twice. “Okay, piccola. Come to Papa.”
He lifted her against his chest, and the smell hit him first—baby powder and something else, something clean and new that he had no name for. Violet squirmed, her tiny fists batting against his collarbone, and then she settled. Just like that. Her cheek pressed against his shirt, her breathing slowed, and she was asleep.
Marco stood frozen in the nursery, afraid to move, afraid to breathe too deeply. The weight of her was nothing—eight pounds, barely there—and everything. He could feel her heartbeat through his shirt, quick and light.
“She likes you.”
Christina’s voice had softened. When he looked up, she was still in the doorway, but her arms had dropped to her sides. The wariness hadn’t left her eyes entirely, but something else was there too. Something that might be hope.
“She doesn’t know me yet,” Marco said quietly. “She just knows I’m warm.”
“That’s how it starts.”
From the living room came the sound of voices—Sophia’s clipped Italian accent, then Tara’s warmer tones responding. His sister had insisted on coming to the cottage this afternoon, on seeing Christina and Violet properly. Marco had expected fireworks. Instead, Sophia had stood in the doorway of the nursery ten minutes ago, watched him fumble with a diaper, and said nothing at all.
He wasn’t sure whether that was better or worse.
“I should go rescue my mother,” Christina said. “Sophia looks like she’s trying to figure out which fork to use for conversation.”
“She’s not usually this quiet.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing.” Christina disappeared down the hall, and Marco was left alone with his daughter.
His daughter.
The words still didn’t feel real. None of this felt real—not the quaint cottage with its hand-sewn curtains, not the view of the lake through the nursery window, not the ceramic bluebirds on the shelf or the rocking chair in the corner that creaked when you sat in it. This was Christina’s world. Violet’s world. And he was just a visitor, trying not to break anything.
Violet made a small sound in her sleep, her lips pursing and releasing. Marco found himself swaying without thinking about it, a gentle side-to-side motion that seemed to come from somewhere instinctive. His mother used to sway like this when she held Lorenzo as a baby. He remembered watching from the doorway of the Milan nursery, six years old and jealous of the attention.
Now he understood.
“I’m going to learn,” he whispered against Violet’s downy head. “I’m going to learn everything. I promise.”
The living room had rearranged itself in his absence.
Sophia sat on the edge of the worn sofa, a cup of tea balanced on her knee, looking profoundly out of place among the quilted throw pillows and family photographs. She’d changed out of her ruined designer clothes into a pair of black leggings and an oversized sweater—and the effect was startling. Without her armor, his sister looked almost vulnerable.
Tara was in the kitchen doorway, wiping her hands on a dish towel, watching the scene with an expression Marco couldn’t quite read. She’d been polite when they’d arrived, but underneath the courtesy was something cooler. Protective. A mother bear assessing a threat.
Christina stood by the window, arms crossed again, her posture a mirror of how she’d looked in the nursery doorway. Guarded but willing.
“She’s asleep,” Marco said, settling carefully into the armchair. He was getting better at sitting down while holding her, at not jostling her awake. Small victories.
“She has your coloring.” Sophia’s voice was neutral, observational. “The hair, especially.”
