I couldn’t fucking sleep the entire night, though, and before the first rays of sun came sliding into the room, I dressed in workout clothes and met my old man for a run. By the time we were done, I was soaked, but still not settled. Stella had the villa smelling like coffee and breakfast. We ate, showered together, and then I reminded her about the doctor.
“I called,” she said, looking away from me. “He was busy.”
“Busy,” I repeated, but it was only to keep myself from doing something that would tip her off, like smashing the entire villato pieces before I found the fucking doctor and did the same to him.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’ll call him back later. I’m going to go over to mama’s so we can discuss the wedding this morning. Magpie and Scarlett are going to meet us there. I’m so excited for mama!”
My wife was going to have to call the doctor back. The doctor who was supposed to make her health a priority.
I kissed her on the top of the head, told her to grab her things, and drove her to her mama and Niccolo’s place in her car. Two of my men were waiting in a SUV to drive me when I left. I took her things from her, walked her to the door, and before Magnolia answered, kissed her until she couldn’t breathe.
She stared after me, my mamma behind her, when I walked to the waiting SUV. As I climbed inside, I got a glimpse of my mamma’s face. She had a far off look in her eyes, and her lips were pinched. Not a vision then, but she was worried.
That rock in my heart had doubled in size and had made it to my stomach. What felt like centuries ago, but had only been last year, came back to me, fluttering in my memories. The white butterfly, or moth, or whatever it had been when Stella and I were together for the first time underneath the stars in Tuscany. The winged thing seemed to be fluttering around her stomach, or her womb, and I gripped the grab handle, or as we usually called them, pussy handles, in a death grip.
It wasn’t because the car swerved.
It was because, when the memory from all those months ago came back to me, it slammed me in the gut and stole my fucking breath. The look on my mamma’s face. How different it had been. How she said she couldn’t tell me anything concrete.
I’d decided to block it out, refuse it space in our lives, refuse it air. I’d killed even the thought of it by will power alone.
The situation with Magnolia, and the same future my wife could be facing, was giving it a pulse though.
I snapped at my solider to hit the gas harder. He started driving like he would’ve if we had an enemy to kill.
I fucking did.
One I couldn’t see or touch, who seemed to be slipping into my life without a sound or trace.
The doctor, the geneticist, was with another patient when I stormed into his practice. The nurse at the desk, English by her accent, looked at me with wide eyes and said she’d go talk to him.
I looked down at my watch.
He had three minutes.
One.
Two.
Three…
I almost knocked the nurse over when I went to bulldoze my way into the back. She caught herself on the wall and said, “His patient is leaving now. Please give her a minute. She is not fast on her feet.”
The woman reminded me of my mother-in-law, and I snapped at my men to help her to her car. If she didn’t have one, they were to take her to wherever she needed to go.
The reminder only sent my heart into overdrive, my blood rushing through my veins, making it swoosh in my ears. I told the nurse to close up.
“But Dr. Canavero still has patients!”
“Just for lunch.”
She didn’t hesitate to grab her coat and fly out the door.
Dr. Ennio Canavero stood when I walked into his office. He wore glasses like Uncle Tito and was similar in ways I couldn’t process at that moment. Except for one: the man’s caring nature lived in his eyes.
“Ah, Signore Fausti,” he said. “My nurse, Catherine, she tells me you wish to speak to me.”
He was being kind about it. I didn’t wish to speak to him. I was demanding it. He damn well knew the fucking difference.
