Epilogue 03
August, Pisa
an entire universe
Cecily
“You need to stop kicking your mom so much and let her sleep,” Alexander murmurs, his lips pressed reverently to my eight-months-plus belly. “She needs her rest if she’s going to keep loving me properly.”
I scoff, peering down at him with mock offense. “I’m the one carrying a human being and riding a hormonal roller coaster, and you’re the dramatic one?”
He looks up at me, grinning unabashedly, but immediately returns his attention to my belly, still whispering as if our son is in on the joke.
“Your mama gets a little cranky sometimes,” he says solemnly. “But your papa knows exactly how to fix that.” He pauses, thoughtful. “It’s one of my many... superpowers.”
I can’t help but laugh. Even Alexander chuckles at himself. He presses one last kiss to my stretched skin, then shifts up beside me, pulling me close. His mouth finds mine in a deep kiss while his hand resumes its gentle caress over my belly.
“So,” I murmur over his lips, smiling, “what you do with your tongue, fingers, and other parts of your body are considered superpowers now?”
Alexander’s grin turns wicked.
“Without a doubt,” he says without hesitation. “If I can make you forget everything—even while you’re carrying that little giant in there—then I’m invincible.”
I grin back, because damn it... he’s not wrong.
Alexander takes my left hand and kisses my rings, then my wrist, just as he’s done for years. His lips linger there, right over the simple, delicate tattoo I got last year. His other hand never leaves my belly, tracing soothing circles.
It was exactly like this during my pregnancy with the twins. From the moment he learned he was going to be a father, he couldn’t stop touching me. He kissed my belly even when it was still flat, constantly crouching down to speak to the babies inside, as if they already knew him.
I think back to three years ago, when we came for Nonna’s birthday. One afternoon, Alexander kidnapped me without warning, claiming he had a surprise. That surprise turned out to be dinner in Edinburgh, at the same pub we’d visited on the last day of our trip the year before.
What made that time different was what came after.
We returned to the same inn together, and he spent the night worshipping my body with a kind of reverence that felt almost sacred, as if there were nowhere else we were meant to be but with each other.
At sunrise, he woke me and took me to the exact spot where we’d shared our first kiss, and right there, he proposed. Just the two of us.
Of course I said yes. We spent one more day in Edinburgh, celebrating.
When we returned to Pisa, everyone was waiting with a celebration of their own, Ethan and Alicia included. They’d stayed at the villa and already knew, because Alexander had asked for my hand in marriage from them first.
I found out I was pregnant two months later, just a month before our wedding. I spent two days trying to figure out how to tell him, turning the moment over and over in my mind, searching for something worthy of us.
Until it finally clicked—there had only ever been one perfect way. I felt foolish for not seeing it sooner.
“You know today marks exactly two years since we met, right here on this beach,” I murmur, leaning back against his chest, the sand cool beneath my bare feet.
Alexander chuckles. “And how could I forget? That was the day I felt my world turn upside down for the first time.”
I slip out of his arms and turn to face him, smiling. “What if we marked this spot with another first?”
Alexander arches an eyebrow, glancing around the deserted beach before fixing his gaze back on me, that suggestive glint I know too well lighting his eyes.
I laugh, exasperated by where his mind has gone. I can’t even blame him. When it comes to him, it’s never enough.
I crouch down and reach into my beach bag, pulling out one of the journals he gave me at the start of the year—the one I’d hidden away—and place it in his hands.
“Open it,” I ask, doing my best to keep the tremor out of my voice. When he turns to the first marked page, I add, “Will you read it out loud? I love hearing your voice.”
He smiles, confused, but he grips the journal a little tighter. Alexander takes a breath, his chest rising and falling before he begins. His voice comes out rough, even deeper than his usual tone.
“I could use all these pages to tell you how much I love you—for all the little things. But you already know, and there aren’t words enough to...”
He hesitates, swallowing hard.
“...to describe everything you make me feel. This past year with you has shown me what love truly is. Real love, the one you feel in every cell of your body, as if it’s coded into your DNA.
A love so beautiful, so intense and immeasurable, it feels as though it was written in the stars just for us. ”
He looks up, and when his gaze meets mine, it’s overflowing with a devotion that makes my heart stumble. He clears his throat, then lowers his eyes back to the page.
“And if I’m being honest, I never believed in soulmates until I met you. Until I let you into my life. Until I allowed you to fill my heart and my days with the vastness of who you are.”
“I think that no matter how much time we spend together, I’ll always find something new to love about you. And every day, I’m grateful for that. My chest has been bursting with gratitude... for having you by my side, for you choosing me, and for allowing me to choose you.”
A trembling smile tugs at the corner of his lips as he moves on to the next paragraph.
“I thought there was no way I could be happier than I am right now, with just over a month left until I become your wife. But once again, life has shown me that with you, the bar will always rise. And since you always tell me how much you love my words, I couldn’t think of a better way to tell you this. ”
Alexander stops.
The wind off the sea rustles the pages of the journal, but his hands are frozen. I see the exact moment his eyes reach the next line... and lock there.
He doesn’t read the sentence aloud at first. He reads it to himself, absorbing the shock. When he finally speaks, it’s a strangled whisper, nearly lost to the breeze.
“We’re creating a new life together, Alexander... There’s a little someone growing inside me as I write this for you, made from our love.”
He lifts his head. The journal nearly slips from his fingers. He looks at me as if he’s seeing me for the first time.
“Cecilia...”
He forces his gaze back to the page to finish, blinking against the blur of tears.
“I can’t wait to see you become the incredible father I already know you’ll be. I can’t wait to write this new chapter of our lives with you by my side. Ti amo, now and forever.
Per sempre tua, Cecilia.”[LXXXIII]
He closes the journal slowly, then carefully slips it back into my bag.
With trembling hands, I undo the bow of my blue wrap dress, pushing the fabric aside before taking his hand and placing it directly over my still-flat belly.
“Say it,” he asks, his voice pleading, his eyes locked on mine. “Say it for me. I need to hear you.”
“I’m pregnant, Alexander. You’re going to be a father.”
With his hand pressed to my stomach, he captures my mouth in an urgent kiss. It doesn’t take long before I taste the salt of our mixed tears.
Alexander breaks the kiss and drops to his knees in the sand. He presses his forehead to my belly, his large hands wrapping around my waist with utter devotion.
He stays there for a moment, breathing heavily, murmuring words in Italian against my skin—too fast for me to catch.
I slip my fingers gently through his hair, the light catching on the ring he placed there, the most beautiful thing I’ve ever worn.
My tears fall freely, but the smile never leaves my face.
Then Alexander lifts his head and raises his voice, switching to English so I can hear him clearly.
“You, your mom, and Ethan and Alicia—your two siblings—are my world. And I will always love you, cherish you, care for you, and protect you. Always. Always.”
He presses reverent kisses across my belly, one after another. I close my eyes as the sea breeze brushes my face, and I silently thank whoever, or whatever, guided our lives together to this place, to this exact moment, two years ago.
I sigh, and Alexander glances at me.
“Why the long sigh with that beautiful smile on your face?”
“I was just thinking about when I told you I was expecting Stella and Alessio.”
His smile softens. He leans in to steal a quick kiss, then lowers his mouth to my belly. “One of the best days of my life.”
Then his expression turns mischievous. “If you were thinking about the day we found out they were twins,” he adds, “your face would look very different.”
I laugh.
It would be the understatement of the century to say I was shocked at that first ultrasound. I nearly passed out right there on the table, while Alexander couldn’t stop smiling—touching my belly, beaming—after he’d calmly cleaned the gel off himself.
Naturally, I blamed his side of the family for that particular twist of fate.
But, I was so happy. Overwhelmed with love. Just... terrified at the thought of caring for two newborns at the same time.
We’d started talking about children even before he proposed.
I was the one who brought it up. Alexander wasn’t a father yet, and I needed to know how he felt about it.
When I told him I wanted more kids, that I’d always dreamed of a big family, his smile told me everything.
If it were up to him, we would’ve started trying right then and there.
He started preparing to step down from his position even before our wedding. By the time the twins were born, he was already acting more as a consultant, a role he keeps today, dedicating only a few hours of his week to the family business.