She sighed. “Fine. Help me up.”
Moving to the bed, I gently guided her legs over the side before providing the necessary support to ease her off the mattress.
Rory dropped her head to my chest when her feet touched the floor, a groan slipping from her lips. “I need him out like yesterday.”
“I know,” I murmured against her hair. “Soon. I promise.”
“This is all your fault,” she grumbled, pulling back and giving me a death glare.
It took all my power not to smirk because I was damn proud of myself every time I caught a glimpse of her pregnant belly.
“Would you rather I offer you a false apology or show you your surprise?”
Rory’s eyebrows rose. “Surprise?”
“Come on.”
I tugged her from the bedroom and into the hallway, but we didn’t go far, stopping before the door a few feet down from ours.
“Uh . . .” My wife looked over at me. “Hate to burst your bubble, but I’ve seen the guest room before.”
“Not like this, you haven’t.” I turned the knob and pushed inside.
Rory’s gasp sounded from behind me, and when I peeked over my shoulder, she stood frozen on the threshold, her glassy blue eyes wide.
“Gio,” she breathed. “This is—” Her words cut off, tears spilling down her cheeks. “I don’t even know what to say.”
I stepped forward, taking her hand and pulling her deeper into the guest room that had been transformed into a nursery.
The accent wall featured a mountain vista interspersed with evergreens, paying homage to Luca’s conception in a small town in the Rockies. His name was spelled out in rustic wooden letters over the crib. A glider sat in the corner near a bookshelf bursting with children’s stories, and there was a menagerie of stuffed woodland creatures peeking out of the top of a toybox.
“Tell me you like it.”
“Like it?” She shook her head. “I love it. But”—she looked around—“what happened to all the stuff Summer bought?”
My world had already been rocked the day of the bombing, but it was the delivery from the baby boutique the following day that really drove it home how badly I’d fucked everything up.
While I more than appreciated my sister-in-law stepping in,Ishould have been the one at Rory’s side, picking out our son’s first outfit, poring over the safety rating on his car seat, and debating which wood finish complemented the theme we’d chosen for his nursery. So, I immediately got on the phone with the little shop we’d browsed back in Colorado and had them send everything they had in stock with a mountain vibe.
It was a far cry from the impersonal shared nursery—sitting dormant in the opposite wing of the house—that I’d once occupied alongside my brother and cousins. Tended to by our nannies, the four of us spent the majority of our early years in that single room. We ate all our meals there, and it was where we were homeschooled. Our fathers showed very little interest in us until we were old enough to be trained as Bellini soldiers, which wasn’t very old at all. I was ten the first time a gun was forced into my hand and I learned how to shoot to kill.
Matteo mentioned months ago that he and Enzo were breaking the cycle, veering away from the relationship dynamics traditionally found in mafia families.
It had taken almost losing my wife and son to realize that maybe it was time for me to do the same.
Responding to Rory’s question, I said, “I donated it to a domestic violence shelter Gemma works with in Indianapolis.”
A disbelieving exhale sounded. “But why?”
I stepped forward to loop my arms around her waist, the best I could with her belly in the way. “Because I wanted a hand in creating the room our son will spend the first years of his life. The space where he’ll be surrounded by the love of his mother as she nurses him, sings to him, and rocks him to sleep.” Dropping my forehead to hers, I let my eyes fall shut as I confessed, “I’m trying to do better. For both of you.”
Rory’s hands slid through my hair, tugging gently on the short strands, encouraging me to withdraw enough to meet her gaze. The blue of her irises was so stunningly bright as she stared up at me.
“Thank you.”
Those two words, uttered whisper-soft, settled deep within a soul I hadn’t realized I possessed until this very moment.
And her gratitude only firmed my resolve to keep pushing forward in my attempts to dig deep in the hopes of unlocking that part of me she claimed to love.
