CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
T HE PRIVATE ROOM was very comfortable, and Siena sat, propped up with pillows behind her back, gazing down at her baby son in his hospital crib beside her. Fast, fast asleep—and so, so tiny.
And safely out of ICU—blessedly.
He was completely safe. That was what the consultant had assured her when he’d called by this morning.
‘His arrival was dramatic, but he has taken no harm from it...none at all. All his vital signs are totally normal,’ he had told her.
‘Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure?’ Siena’s voice had been fearful.
‘Absolutely. He is completely healthy. No cause for any concern at all.’
She clung to the words now, as she gazed into the crib. Emotions flowed through her—a tangled, overpowering mix. So much emotion...for so many reasons...
A nurse tapped on the door, put her head around it. ‘You have a visitor,’ she said brightly.
Vincenzo walked in.
Siena felt something leap inside her—hold for a moment. Then it subsided. She made it subside.
He looked at her, but only briefly, as if in greeting, and then his eyes dropped to the crib, his expression changing. As if reluctant to look away, he looked quickly back at Siena. This time he smiled. But it was a careful smile, she could see.
‘How are you?’ he asked.
The concern in his voice was real, though, and she appreciated it. Appreciated it so much. Emotion turned over inside her.
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘I’m on painkillers, and will be for a while. But they’ve made me walk about a bit already—they say it’s good for me.’ She glanced across at the crib. ‘And, as you can see, he’s out of ICU.’
Her voice had softened, relief open in it. She looked back at Vincenzo. So much was inside her, and to some of it she must give voice.
‘Oh, dear God, Vincenzo...’ Her voice was low, heartfelt. ‘Thank God you realised what danger I was in—’ She broke off, lifted a hand, then let it fall on the bedclothes again. ‘I’d been trying not to look up every single thing that might make me alarmed unnecessarily! I thought it would just work me up into a bag of nerves! The midwife had said everything was fine, so I was determined not to let myself worry.’
‘What happened could not have been predicted,’ Vincenzo said. Concern was in his voice.
‘But if you hadn’t been there—’ Fear was in her again.
Vincenzo held up a hand. ‘You would have phoned, and your midwife would have called you in—just as happened. You would have taken a taxi to the hospital—you said you had the number on standby. So please do not think about it any more. Everything was safe in the end.’ His gaze went from her back to the crib. ‘How is he? He looks so peaceful. So—’
He broke off. Siena could hear the emotion in his voice, see it in his face.
‘Perfect,’ she said, her own voice softening, filling with love. ‘Just perfect.’
For a moment they just gazed at him, so tiny, so perfect...
‘Have...have you thought about names?’ she heard Vincenzo ask. His voice was tentative.
So was hers as she answered. ‘How about something for your father?’ she ventured uncertainly.
‘My father’s name was Roberto,’ he said slowly, as if trying it out.
She thought about it, tried it out too. ‘Robert in English. Rob or Bob—or Bobby.’
It sounded good.
‘And for your father? A second name?’ Vincenzo was asking.
The shake of her head was instinctive.
Vincenzo frowned. Looked at her. His gaze searching. Perceptive. ‘What is it?’
She didn’t answer immediately—could not. Memory was knifing through her—and all the terrible emotions that went with that memory.
She heard Vincenzo draw a chair close, sit down beside her.
‘What is it?’ he asked again, his voice low. Troubled.
She plucked at her bedclothes, not wanting to look at him. Keeping her gaze lowered. Feeling the overpowering presence of the baby in his crib beside her bed. Her safe, healthy baby...
So utterly unlike—
‘Can you tell me?’ Vincenzo’s voice was still low.
Her face worked. She didn’t want to tell him, but knew she must.
There was so much she could not say to him—could never say—but this she could. And maybe she needed to say it for herself, too. To help her make sense of the way she had been since learning she was pregnant.
She took a breath, making herself look at Vincenzo. That itself was hard to do. Emotion twisted inside her—so much emotion—for so many reasons, so tangled and knotted.
But this was one she could unknot...make sense of.
‘You asked me when we were in Selcombe why I hadn’t gone to art school when I was a teenager.’ She began, her voice low. ‘I... I never really answered you.’
She paused again, looking away for a moment. Then made herself continue. It was so sorry a tale—so desperately sad...
‘I didn’t go,’ she said, ‘because my brother and his wife had just had a baby. And the baby—’ She broke off again, then made herself look at Vincenzo, her expression bleak—for what else could it be? ‘He was severely disabled,’ she said heavily. ‘There was a cruel, incurable congenital condition, inherited from my sister-in-law, that meant he was life-limited. He needed round-the-clock support, even when they could finally take him home. They were in pieces...distraught. And I...well, I stayed at home to help them. Practical care, emotional support... It was just...just dreadful.’
She paused again, then made herself continue.
‘He was named after my father—and he...he died last year.’ She swallowed painfully. ‘His death, expected though it was, broke my brother and his wife. They...they emigrated to Australia, to put it all behind them.’
She broke off, unable to speak any more. Yet there was more that she must say.
‘When they moved to Australia,’ she said, ‘I reapplied to art college, and was accepted again as a mature student. I thought my life—on hold for so long—was finally starting. Until—’
She stopped again. Looked at Vincenzo, sitting beside her, his face sombre.
‘I realise now,’ she said slowly, ‘that what happened to my nephew—which I never wanted to tell you about, or even think about, because it seemed like a dark, frightening shadow over my own pregnancy—affected my reaction to finding myself pregnant. Part of me felt guilty, I suppose, that I was having a baby and my poor brother and sister-in-law had just lost their child. And part of what I felt...’ her voice caught ‘...was...was fear. Yes, I know that my nephew’s condition was genetic, that he so tragically inherited it from his mother’s side, not my brother’s. But still I felt, I suppose, a kind of dread—even though I wouldn’t admit it, even though I was having a healthy pregnancy—lest something went wrong for me, too.’
She took a breath, like a knife into her lungs.
‘And it so nearly, nearly did!’
She reached for Vincenzo’s hand, clutching at it.
‘I know... I know you say that even if you hadn’t realised how dangerous that bleed was, my midwife would still have called me in, and the outcome would have been blessedly the same, but it was you who saw the danger—’ She broke off again. Then, ‘ You saw it! You knew it!’
And now it was Vincenzo’s turn to speak. Heavily, sombrely. ‘There was a reason for that. As your time approached, I ensured I had learnt as much as I could about late pregnancy and labour. What risks might present themselves... What might go wrong.’ He stopped. Then: ‘You see, I knew things could. Knew things could go wrong. Because...’ He took an incising breath. ‘Because it did go wrong for my mother. She died.’
Siena could hear the hollowing in his voice.
‘She died from complications in labour, giving birth to my still-born sister.’
She saw his eyes go away from her, out across the room, out into the past, to the mother he had lost, the sister he had never known, the father bereft of his wife and daughter. Then they came back to her.
‘It was the last thing I wanted to tell you,’ he said. ‘And maybe...’ he took a narrowed breath, ‘...knowing how my mother’s death devastated my father, taking my sister as well, I felt anger somewhere inside...that...that we were having a baby so...so...’
‘So carelessly.’
Siena’s voice was flat. She held Vincenzo’s gaze. Would not flinch from it.
‘Both you and I,’ she said, ‘have tragedy in our families. Loss that should never have been. Not just our parents. Two children...loved and wanted and yet lost. While we—’
She broke off again. Her face buckled, her voice choking now. Emotion overwhelming her. So much emotion. Carried for so long. For nine long months. Suppressed, denied...feared. And now it was pouring through her in an unstoppable tide.
‘To think I never wanted to be pregnant! Could only feel how wrong it was! So completely wrong! And then yesterday—oh, dear God, we nearly lost him! We nearly lost him!’
She felt the remembered terror of that breakneck drive to the hospital, the horror of realising what was happening—realising, like a blow, just how desperately she wanted this baby, how terrified she was of losing it...
Suddenly she was starting to shake. Tears began to convulse her. She couldn’t talk—not any more—as sobs ravaged her. And she was shaking...shaking so much—
And then arms were coming around her. Arms that were strong and sure, folding her against him, holding her, holding her safe while sobs choked in her throat. He was speaking to her, but it was in Italian, so she couldn’t understand. And yet she heard the passion in it, the vehemence. Her tears poured and poured until there were no more, and still he held her, gently now, soothing her, his hands warm and safe and protective.
For a long time he went on holding her as her tears ebbed, and it was the only place in all the universe that she wanted to be.
The only place she should not be...
She drew back. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said chokingly, tearily. ‘I know I shouldn’t...shouldn’t cry. It’s just that—’ She broke off, unable to say more.
Her hands were still in his, and she was clinging to them, warm and strong. But they were not hers to cling to...
He pressed her fingers. ‘There is no more need for fear,’ he said. ‘He is well and safe, our Baby Roberto. We can give thanks for that.’ He took a breath—a scything one. ‘That is all we must think of now. That—and the future.’
Something had changed in his voice...something that made Siena look at him. Her heart was still beating hectically, in the aftermath of her outburst. She felt a chill go through her. Nervelessly, she slipped her fingers from his.
She took a breath. A hard one. A difficult one. Infinitely hard. But one she must take all the same so she could say what she must.
For his sake.
‘Vincenzo—it’s all right. You...you don’t have to say anything. I... I know what the future must be. I’ve always known.’
She could hear the hollow note in her voice...knew why it was there, knew that it echoed the hollow forming inside her. She made herself go on, knowing she wanted to say it herself, not wait to hear him say it to her. Say what she knew she must.
The tragedy that had so nearly consumed them yesterday had ripped from her all that had meshed about her during her pregnancy: her fears and her guilt, her resentment and her resistance. Ripped them from her and transformed them into what had been so blessedly bestowed upon her—her precious baby son, alive and well and loved with all her heart.
But now she must face what remained to be faced.
For a moment pain lanced in her...and anguish. But she must go on. Because nothing had changed. All the drama and terror of yesterday—it altered nothing.
‘I know that now we have to move on,’ she said, making herself face him...face what had to be said. ‘Move forward. You’ve been so good,’ she went on, ‘supporting me as you have. And yesterday... thank you ...’
She felt her voice become unsteady, forced herself to make it sound more normal, less strained. She must not burden him with her pain, her anguish.
‘And thank you now...for coming in, for the private room, for seeing me through to this point. Thank you for all your support! But now...’ She swallowed. There seemed to be a stone in her throat, blocking it, making it hard to speak, but speak she must. To say what must be said, cost her what it would. ‘Now I don’t want...don’t want to impose on you any longer—’
‘Impose?’ There was an edge in his voice suddenly. He pushed back the chair, getting to his feet. Looking down at her, his face shuttered.
She forced herself on. ‘You have been so good to me—and yesterday...’ She didn’t finish—couldn’t. Instead she went on: ‘I am so, so appreciative. But now you will want to get your own life back.’
He cut across her. ‘My own life—?’ His voice was flat.
She spoke on, saying the difficult things that had to be said. Even now, after all the trauma, they had to be said. The abject relief of their baby’s safe arrival could not last for ever. It had drawn them together in urgency, but now the reality of their situation must apply again. However guilty she felt now, for having come so terrifyingly close to losing her baby, guilty for how she had not welcomed becoming pregnant, had wished it had never happened, that did not blot out all that she must face.
She looked him square in the eyes—but her fingers were working on the folds of her sheet.
‘I forced this on you, Vincenzo. Forced on you the knowledge of what had happened that night we spent together. And I know... I know you are grateful for our baby’s safe birth, when it might have gone so dreadfully the other way, but I don’t want... I don’t want that to...to change anything. I mean, I don’t want you feeling...obliged...in any way because of that.’ She took a breath, made herself go on. ‘I know you will always honour what you feel are your responsibilities, but...’
His expression had changed. She had seen it before, that expression—but not for a long, long time.
‘Responsibilities? Obligation? Is that what you would reduce me to?’
There was a chill in his voice that reached into her veins. She stared at him, consternation in her face.
‘Vincenzo...’ Her voice was anguished, each word forced from her, halting and hesitant, but they had to be said—they had to. ‘We know—we both know—that had yesterday been the tragedy it might have been, we...we would never have seen each other again. For there would have been no reason... And I know...’ each word was a blade, cutting into her ‘...that...that our baby is all there is between us—nothing else.’
He was looking at her, and it was unbearable that he should do so. But she must bear it—she must. Even if it was a weight that was crushing her, stifling her...
He was silhouetted against the window, motionless and rigid.
‘But that is not true.’
His words fell into the space between them.
His face was shuttered. His own words echoed in his head.
‘But that is not true.’
Not true.
His eyes went to the crib on the other side of her bed. He felt his heart catch, turn over in his chest. His son...
And Siena’s too.
But other words overwrote those.
Ours—our son.
Conceived on a night that was impossible to forget. That burned in him still. A night he had since seized a second time—taking her into his arms, into his passionate embrace...
The bitter irony of it tore him like a wolf at his throat.
That first night together it had been he who had left her in the morning, not wanting to face the truth about what had burned so fiercely between them. But that second night...
She left me. And, yes, I have had to respect her wishes, her decision. Had to let her be.
But now...
Now urgency filled him—impelling him to speak.
‘That is not true,’ he said again.
That morning—that first morning—waking with her...walking out on her. But if I hadn’t? If I had stayed? And that second morning—if she had not left...?
But he knew the answer to that question. Knew it because he gave it now.
‘Not true,’ he said, ‘because from the very first there has been something between us.’ He paused. ‘And there still is, Siena.’
Her eyes lifted to his, and in his she saw an intensity that stilled her.
‘From the very first,’ he said again. ‘It has been there. And you cannot deny it, Siena—and no more can I. Neither of us. You cannot deny that first night we spent together—’
‘It should never have happened!’ The cry broke from her.
‘Why?’ he challenged. ‘Because you became pregnant? That does not negate what brought us together that night!’ His voice changed. ‘And nor does it negate that night in Devon.’
He held up a hand, as if to silence her—but she could not speak, not a word. Tumult was in her. This should not be happening. He should be accepting what she’d said, that there was nothing between them except the baby now sleeping, unconscious of the tormented circumstances of his conception and his birth.
Vincenzo was speaking still, his voice grave, guarded, as if he were picking his words carefully, deliberately.
‘When you left that morning in Devon I respected your decision to do so,’ he was saying. ‘Respected that it signalled—could only signal—that you wanted nothing more to do with me. That for you there was nothing between us other than a pregnancy you had never wanted.’
‘But there was nothing else! I’ve said that—known that—all along!’ Siena’s voice rang out.
‘And I tell you that is not true,’ Vincenzo said.
Something worked in his face as he stood there, his expression grave, looking down at her. His voice had changed—she didn’t know how, or why. Didn’t know why there seemed to be something in her throat. Something making it tight.
He was still looking at her. Speaking again. But all the while her throat was tightening yet more. As if to hold something back—something she dared not allow.
‘What is it between us, Siena, that draws us together?’ he asked.
There was an intensity in his voice now, beneath the gravity, and his eyes were still holding hers, not letting her go... She could see tension in his face, in the stance of his tall body. Felt her own face and body tense in return. Her throat was narrowing still more, making it hard to breathe, and in her chest she could feel her heart thudding.
She heard him answer the question he had just put to her—for she was incapable of answering it...incapable of saying anything...
‘The child we created between us? Yes—but how did his conception come to be? It came, Siena, because when I first set eyes on you I wanted you, desired you. In an instant—a second! Overwhelmingly and absolutely. And it was the same for you. That night we spent together proves that beyond all question! And despite everything else that has happened since that night, that desire—that overpowering, overwhelming desire that burnt between us—has been there. And neither of us can deny it!’
He reached for her hands, holding them fast. His expression was no longer grave, but his eyes were still holding hers, not letting go...
‘Desire, Siena—that is what draws us together. And has from the very first! In London and, yes, in Devon too—because why else should we have ended back together again as we did? Throwing all our caution to the winds! And there is more...oh, so much more that draws us together! Now we have the miracle of parenthood, so long resisted but now—oh, dear God—treasured and rejoiced in, as it should have been from the first, given to us as a gift beyond measure!’
His voice was shaken, intense—vehement. She could scarcely bear to hear it.
But he was not done yet.
He stood there, beside her hospital bed, so tall, his eyes never letting hers go, and she was helpless—just helpless to do anything but hear his words, feel the constriction of her throat, the thudding of her heart, the catch of her breath in her lungs.
How could she deny what he was telling her? Impossible.
And he was talking still, his eyes still holding hers...just as his hands, so warm, so strong, were holding hers...
‘And there is one more thing that can draw us together, bind us, hold us.’ His voice changed, softened. ‘If we let it.’
She couldn’t speak—could only sit there, eyes fastened on his. Her heart now thudding in her chest...ringing in her ears.
‘And if you want it,’ he said. ‘That second night with you told me something—blazed it to me!—that I know now I can never deny. And even if you deny it, or do not feel it—which, if it is so, I must accept, cost me what it will—it changes nothing. Not for me.’
His eyes were pouring into hers, and she was reeling from what was in them. The drumming in her ears was making her feel faint...or something was. But she must speak. She must . No matter what it cost her to say it. To dare to say it...
‘But for me,’ she said, and her voice was so low it was almost a whisper, ‘it did change everything. Oh, Vincenzo, what is this “one more thing” that might be between us?’
Anguish was in her eyes, in her face, as she asked him. Asked him the question she could now dare to ask him—risking all.
He gave a slow, grave smile. Lifting his strained features. Transforming them.
‘You know its name, Siena, and so do I. So say it.’
But she could not. Could not speak at all. Could only let her hands cling to his, her heart thudding in her chest like a hammer.
‘Then I will say it for you,’ he said. ‘It’s the missing piece. We started with desire—instant, blazing and consuming—so strong, so powerful, that we both did something we had never done before to consummate it. And then we jumped straight to parenthood. But we missed out the bit in the middle—the bit that binds the one to the other. I thought... I thought we had had found it, that night in Devon, but—’ He broke off, his voice twisting. ‘When I woke to find you gone—’
Words burst from her.
‘Vincenzo, it’s why I fled from you! I couldn’t bear it—couldn’t bear the realisation! Couldn’t bear that it might mean as little to you as our first night together!’
A rasp broke from him—remorse and self-castigation.
‘That first night was just desire! Because I would not let it have a chance to be anything more! I feared it—I admit that now. It was only when we had to spend time with each other, because of what that first night had created, that it started to grow. So slowly at first... And then—’
He lifted her hands, clasped them in his, raising first one to his lips and then the other.
‘But on our second night... Then I knew—oh, I knew —’ He took a breath—a ragged one. ‘I knew, Siena, that I had come to feel for you so much more than mere desire.’
He paused, her hands pressed in his, his eyes pouring into hers. And they were telling her what he now said in words, his voice softening, catching.
‘Love, Siena—that is the missing piece. Love that leads from desire to what we have now. Binding the one to the other, bringing us together, now and for ever.’ His gaze went to the crib at her side. ‘With our son. Our precious, beloved son...’
Tears were sliding down her cheeks. Tears that spoke of so much. Of love given—with anguish in her heart—as she fled his bed after that night in Devon. When she had known that she had fallen in love with him...when she had known that to him she was only a woman of fleeting desire and unwilling parenthood.
Her tears were for hopeless love, and the anguish of her months away from him, alone and pregnant, knowing that for all her days, the rest of her life, she must share the child she had conceived with a man who would only ever desire her...and nothing more.
And now she felt her heart blossom and flower, and sweet, sweet air fill her lungs, dissolving the unbearable ache in her throat. And now her fears, her anguish, had vanished, were no more, and never again would be. For now the love she had thought only she felt was his too—for her. Love given and returned...
She said his name haltingly, through the tears sliding down her cheeks. He lowered himself beside her, leaning over her to kiss them away softly, gently, tenderly.
Lovingly.
‘No more tears, Siena,’ he said, kissing the last away.
‘It’s my hormones,’ she said, and her voice held a shaky laugh through the tears.
‘And love, Siena. Love—what else?’
Through the mist of her tears she saw his eyes were moist, as they had been when their precious son had been placed in her arms.
She gave a choke, words falling from her. ‘I left you that morning in Devon because I could not bear that after such a night you would think it a mistake...regret it as you did our first night! I could bear it that first time, but not again—not when I awoke in your arms and knew that I was in love with you. And that is why...why I have kept away from you...kept you away! Because I could not bear to know that at best you would never want from me anything more than desire, and at worst...not even that. All these months without you have been agony—agony because I knew that I had fallen in love with you, and that for the rest of my life it would be a torment to have you being the father of my baby but never anything more!’
‘And that is what I thought I faced too!’ His voice was rough with emotion. ‘These last hellish months, with you keeping me at bay, when all I wanted in the world was to come to you, be with you, stay with you—’ He broke off, taking a ragged, razored breath. ‘Damnable! That’s what it’s been! Damnable to know that I loved you and you could not bear me near you. Damnable to think that I would have to face all the years ahead, sharing with you our son—but nothing else! Damnable to think that one day you would find someone to love of your own, and I would have to stand aside and let it happen! Damnable!’
A sob broke from her. ‘Oh, Vincenzo—what fools we’ve been! What fools !’
She gave another choking cry and held him closer to her yet, her lips pressed against his. Emotion was pouring through her, filling her to the brim, overflowing...
So much emotion. And with one name—only one.
Love.
He had said it, declared it, and she had too. So what use was it for her to try and deny it still—to deny what he had said?
None.
And never again would there be denial. Never.
She clung to him as he kissed her, possessively, cherishingly, and she kissed him back, just as possessively, as cherishingly. Tears sprang in her eyes...tears of diamonds, of rainbows...
He drew back a little, but only to lift his mouth from hers and smile at her, looking deep into her eyes. She said his name, low and loving, and for a long and timeless moment he simply held her, his gaze pouring into hers. Then his eyes slipped from her, going to the crib beyond the bed. Their son slept still, oblivious to all that was taking place around him. She saw Vincenzo’s expression soften. Saw the lovelight in his eyes for her and for their precious son, loved and adored by them both.
‘He brought us together by his conception—and now he brings us together by his birth,’ he said.
‘And now,’ Siena said softly, her gaze aglow with all the love filling it, filling her whole being, lifting her into a joy she had never known or thought possible, ‘we will stay together as he grows, and be there for him all our days.’
She leant back against her pillows, taking Vincenzo’s hand, holding it fast. So infinitely much was filling her.
She gazed at him.
The man she loved.
The man she had desired, then hated, then, oh, so slowly come to feel love for—then fled from in fear of those very feelings. And now... Oh, now...
‘Is it possible to feel happier?’ she asked.
He shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Unless...’ His eyes held hers. ‘Siena, I once, in my arrogance, said we should marry.’ His voice was rueful, eyes glinting. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘I simply ask you. Be my wife, Siena. Take me for your husband so that the only day we will be happier than we are right now will be on our wedding day.’
She gave a laugh of joy, of love, of a happiness that stretched into the infinity around them. And as she did so another sound came. A tiny mewing sound.
Their eyes flew to the crib.
Their son was waking.
Carefully coming around the bed, Vincenzo lifted him up to place him into her arms.
This token of their love for each other.
This living symbol of their love.
The cause of their love for each other.
For without him...
Thankfulness poured through her as she put her precious infant son— their precious infant son—to her breast.
Her joy was complete.
And gently...so gently... Vincenzo—the man she loved, with whom she had made the long, strange, difficult and tormented journey to where they now were and aways would be—brushed his mouth on her forehead as she nursed their newborn son. The reason and the proof and the future of their love.