So unlike Peyton who had depth and layers and who he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about since she’d walked down that aisle at his cousin’s wedding.
‘You must have looked great together.’
Her voice was carefully neutral but there was a tightness to her words that was… interesting. ‘I suppose,’ he said with a shrug, not caring about the superficiality of appearance. ‘Then I took her to meet my parents. The whole sign-language thing freaked her out. And when I started to talk about setting a date and planning a family, she ran a mile. She had a career and a social life. How could she possibly fit into her designer wardrobe or drink champagne at glamorous balls with swollen feet and no waist? What if we had a deaf child?’
She winced. ‘Ouch.’
‘Uh huh.’ Valentino shook his head. ‘I was devastated.’
‘Of course. First love is always the hardest.’
Valentino wondered if Arnie had been Peyton’s first love. On top of everything else had she been dealing with the shattering of that illusion, too? ‘There’s more.’ He hesitated. How did he say something he’d never truly voiced to anyone before? ‘A couple of months after we broke up I was working night shift in Emergency when Daniella was rushed through the doors. She was haemorrhaging from a back-street abortion.’
Her soft gasp was a balm to the surprising rawness of the memory. ‘Oh, Valentino.’ Rising from the chair, she crossed the short space between them, placing her hand on his arm as their gazes held. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘I didn’tknowshe was pregnant. She didn’t tell me. She didn’t ask me for help or bother to find out what I wanted. She just went and took my child from me.’
Peyton flinched a little and Valentino supposed that wasn’t exactly fair to her – she wasn’t Daniella. But Peyton had wanted to know.Tell me– that’s what she’d said. And he needed her to understand the stakes for him and why he was being so adamant.
‘You wanted to keep the baby?’ she asked slowly, quietly.
‘I wanted thechoice.’ He pierced her with a hard look. ‘I wanted to be consulted. Included.’
The truth was that, together, they may well have decided on a termination anyway. Career wise he’d just been starting out and babies had only been a vague one-day-maybe proposition.
‘That was wrong of her,’ she said quietly. ‘To act without consulting you.’
‘Damn right.’ He didn’t even bother to disguise his bitterness.
‘She was young and scared,’ Peyton said gently.
‘So was I,’ he ground out. ‘But I’m not now.’
She sighed and slipped her hand from his arm, and Valentino watched as she returned to the lounge. He met her gaze when she lifted it, her grey eyes stormy. ‘I’m so very sorry that happened to you, Valentino, and I promise I won’t go off and do anything before we’ve talked about it thoroughly, but…please.’ She clasped her hands together in her lap. ‘Don’t make this more difficult for me than it already is.’
Valentino’s jaw clenched. ‘You want me to make it easy for you?’ He shook his head. ‘I won’t.’
He strode towards her then, dropping to his knees, and reached for her hand, pressing it to her belly, holding it fast with his hands. ‘Inside there is our baby. He lives and he grows. He has a heartbeat. He’s going to have my dark wavy hair and your beautiful grey eyes and he’s going to be healthy and perfect and we’re going to love him.’
She looked at him for a long time as tears pooled in her eyes. It hadn’t been his intention to make her cry but Valentino had a feeling it was a positive.
‘He, huh?’
Valentino shrugged and smiled, a little encouraged by the softening of her voice, by the cradle of her hand. ‘Or she.’
Her gaze drifted to the album on the table. ‘I’m scared,’ she whispered.
And that was the crux of it, Valentino realised, which was a sucker punch to his gut. He couldn’t bear the thought of her being scared and he’d give anything to be able to take away her fears. ‘I’m not going to let anything happen to our baby.’
‘Don’t.’ She shook her head, her eyes huge. ‘You can’t promise that. And chances of delivering early again increase in subsequent pregnancies.’
Valentino slid one hand onto her cheek, his gaze boring into hers, needing her to see that he believed everything would be okay. That he believed enough for both of them. ‘I swear I will be right by your side.’
‘That’s what Arnie said.’
Oh no.No way. Valentino shook his head. He wouldnotbe compared to a guy who bailed when things got too tough. ‘I’mnotArnie.’
Whatever she saw in his eyes must be having an effect because she gave a wry kind of laugh through glassy grey eyes. ‘You’re not, are you?’
