Just one.
But enough.
He leaned into my touch like a man who had been starved for something he didn’t know he needed—
Until now.
His arm wrapped around me, tucking my head back beneath his chin as he adjusted us both into a more comfortable position.
His fingers slid into my hair.
Slow. Smoothing. Soothing.
The backseat of a Lamborghini shouldn’t have felt like safety.
But with his arms around me...
His heartbeat steady beneath my ear...
It did.
For the first time in what felt like forever—
I let myself breathe without bracing for the next blow.
I closed my eyes and let myself imagine.
Not the past. Not the pain.
But the future.
Our son—soon out of that incubator, no longer fragile and distant, but warm, safe, and alive in my arms.
I imagined Vincenzo holding him for the first time.
His large hands, so accustomed to control, to violence, to precision, cradling something impossibly small and delicate with a care so profound it felt almost sacred.
His voice—usually low, commanding—softening into something I had never heard before as he whispered Italian lullabies.
I saw him teaching our child to walk, his steady hands guiding those tiny, uncertain steps across polished marble floors.
Always watching. Always waiting. Always protecting.
At night, I imagined him sitting beside a small bed, reading stories in that deep, gravelly voice—turning even the simplest fairy tale into something grand, something unforgettable.
I pictured him lifting our child onto his shoulders, carrying him through a garden in bloom, letting small hands reach for the highest gardenia flowers.
Protecting him with every ruthless instinct he possessed—yet softening, always softening, each time he looked at him.
And at me.
I saw myself there too.
Not in the background. Not as someone waiting to be chosen.
But as someone already chosen.
A partner.
