Page 328 of Reign

I reach her in seconds.

Her eyes open as I grab her beneath the arms.

She jerks in surprise, fighting me for half a second before I pull her upward.

We break through the surface.

“What are you doing?” she shouts.

I drag her against me and swim us to the edge.

“Luciano, stop. What is wrong with you?!”

I lift her onto the patio before hauling myself out behind her. Water streams from my clothes and pools beneath my shoes.

Elena stands, furious. “Why did you do that?”

I grab the towel from the lounge chair and wrap it around her shoulders.

“Because you could have died!”

“I was thinking!”

I push her wet hair away from her face, checking her eyes, her breathing, the color in her cheeks. When I press two fingers to her throat, she slaps my hand away.

“Stop checking my pulse. I’m talking to you.”

“Humor me.”

“I’m obviously alive.”

“I can see that now.”

Her irritation falters, but she shakes her head.

“When my brain gets jumbled, I go underwater to think.”

“What?”

“My mom and I used to do it at the estate. We’d go under together and hold hands.”

“Why?”

“Everything gets quieter. The sounds are far away, the water presses against you, and the light moves above your head. You have to slow down because you have to think about how long you can hold your breath.”

She pulls the towel tighter around herself.

“After we came back up, she’d sing me a lullaby in Italian. It filled my whole head until everything that was jumbled started making sense again.”

I look toward the pool. “You go under there to talk to her?”

“Sometimes.” She shrugs one shoulder. “Mostly I go under when I can’t handle big things alone.”

Oh.

“My mother talking about a baby was a big thing.”

Her gaze returns to mine.