Chapter Eleven
THE ROAD TO the village was much rougher than Ann-Sophie remembered it.
Or maybe it was just that every single bump seemed to trigger another pain in her belly.
Still a month before delivery, she told herself, but her worries were growing.
Which certainly were not helping her blood pressure.
The doctor had warned of so-called false contractions, but Ann-Sophie was pretty sure they weren’t supposed to feel like this.
Her baby was telling her something, and it couldn’t be anything good.
“Tell me what is happening.” Alessandro’s voice broke through her worries. “Has anything changed?”
His mouth was a grim line of determination as he drove the car along the narrow road that led to the village.
In her mind, she flashed to the stark terror on his face when he looked up and saw her in pain.
All of his anger and frustration disappeared, and she was almost sure she saw…
Think about that later, she told herself, pushing the memory away.
“Nothing’s changed. It’s just…” She groaned as the pain hit her again, shooting across her back. She took a couple of deep breaths, then tried again. “It’s like my entire belly is seizing up. And that covers quite a lot of me these days.”
“Just a few more minutes and we’re there,” he said. “The doctor will be waiting for us.”
“Never have I hated cobblestones so much in my life,” she muttered.
The car screeched to a stop in front of the clinic, and Alessandro rushed around to help her out of the car.
The doctor and three other staff members came to the door and helped her into the bed that was waiting for her.
One attendant wheeled her into the room as another took her vitals, then began to hook her up to a series of monitors.
Her heartbeat skittered across the screen, ticking higher as her belly seized again.
Just as the pain was taking hold, Alessandro slipped his hand into hers. “Squeeze my hand and take a deep breath.”
Ann-Sophie gave him a bewildered look. Just moments ago, he was walking out the door, and now…
She cried out and squeezed as hard as she could.
“Good job,” he said, brushing her hair from her face. “Just keep breathing.”
“What if something happens to the baby?” she pleaded, gasping for breath.
“Nothing bad will happen.” Alessandro’s voice was tight.
“We don’t know that.” Tears began to well, but she fought against them.
His brown eyes were dark and so intense, and she saw fear leaking into his gaze, a fear that mirrored her own. “We don’t.”
“It’s not supposed to go like this,” she whispered.
“I want to make this better for you. For the baby. And I can’t.” His voice broke, and he swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “But I will be here for you. We’re in this together.”
Dr. Cantabella looked up from the fetal heartbeat screen and said, “The baby is coming today.”
Ann-Sophie stared at the doctor. “I… I’m not due for another month.”
The doctor frowned. “Babies have a mind of their own when it comes to due dates. I suppose it’s to get to prepare us for life as parents.”
“But it’s too early,” she protested weakly. This was feeling all too much like the visit to the doctor back in Stockholm, the last time her body demanded something she was not ready for.
The doctor nodded. “It is early, but we will meet whatever needs your baby has.”
Before Ann-Sophie had a chance to fully process this news, another contraction—because that was what this pain was—hit her.
She sucked in a sharp breath, and Alessandro tensed.
“Can something be done for all her pain?” he growled. “This can’t be right. She’s suffering.”
“We have pain-mitigation options,” said the woman gently. “But some partners find it easier to wait elsewhere while the baby comes.”
He frowned and shook his head. “If she has to go through this, I will be here.”
Alessandro Carandini was a man of his word.
He stayed by her through every minute of it, coaching her breaths and stroking her forehead.
In the back of her mind, she was still hurt and frustrated, but those feelings faded because the baby was coming.
Quickly, in fact. It was all a blur of pain and brusque voices until, finally, the doctor handed her their baby boy.
A beautiful baby with wisps of dark hair and bronze skin so much like his father’s.
Alessandro kneeled by her side as the tiny baby let out a wail.
“He takes after me,” he said with a hint of dark humor, but his eyes were filled with astonishment.
It felt as if her heart was expanding in her chest as she looked from Alessandro to this tiny, beautiful baby. A halo of love was growing around her, pushing out their disastrous start to the morning and filling her with joy.
“Hello, little one,” she whispered. “Welcome.”
The doctor slipped an oxygen mask over the baby’s tiny head and pressed a heart monitor to his chest. “We need to do some testing, but this little guy looks strong, so we will give your family a few moments first.”
And then, they were alone. The baby’s eyes closed, and she wondered at the fact that this moment she had both worried about and dreamed about for so long was finally here. They had a baby, the tiniest, most joyful person she had ever seen.
“We will meet whatever needs you have, my love,” she whispered to him, as the truth of Dr. Cantabella’s words echoed inside her.
Alessandro hadn’t said a word, and his expression was inscrutable.
“Can I hold him?” he asked softly.
Ann-Sophie lifted the baby in his arms and held him close, his big, scarred hands cradling the tiny body, and he whispered in a low voice.
Tears welled in her eyes as every strong emotion cascaded at once.
This day had been filled with so much grief and so much joy, it seemed impossibly overwhelming.
Alessandro’s face was etched with a kind of wonder, but as he handed the baby back to her, the expression faded, shifting to something she couldn’t read. “I will go back to the villa and pick up anything you need. Then, when you are ready, I will leave for Milan.”
She blinked. “When I’m ready?”
“I promised I wouldn’t leave you, and I will respect that promise. You’re with a newborn, our child.” His voice wavered with a hint of emotion, but when he spoke again, it was gone. “I will not abandon you or the child. But I think it’s clear that this situation is untenable.”
“What situation?” she asked slowly, and the halo of warmth and joy that had surrounded her just moments before was shifting into something that felt much more ominous.
“This.” He gestured to the three of them, this tentative little family she couldn’t stop herself from wanting. “This has already gone too far. I let out enough poison to send you into early labor. This could’ve ended so much worse.”
He swiped a hand over his face, and she almost missed the haunted look in his eyes.
She let out an exasperated huff. “I know your power in the world is great, but you do not reign over my body.”
Alessandro managed to look both doubtful and smug, and Ann-Sophie felt a flash of something more complicated than desire, adding more fuel to the cauldron of her emotions.
“Your parents are callous and cruel,” she continued, “and as far as I can tell, you’ve been bottling up your very understandable anger for over a decade, pretending that nothing touches you.
Or maybe you even started to believe it.
” She ignored his frown and continued. “Of course, it’s going to be messy when it comes out.
The real question is what you will choose to do now. ”
“I’m doing what’s best for all three of us,” he said, frustration seeping into his voice.
“You’re doing what’s easiest instead of fighting for what we could have,” she snapped. Ann-Sophie regretted her words even before his expression shuttered. Desperation was starting to take hold inside her.
“I love you,” she insisted. “Not some public image of you but the man I have spent the past month with. That’s why I married you. Not just for the baby. I know I was not supposed to fall in love with you, but I have.”
And as she spoke the words, she felt the depth of truth behind them. She had told herself marriage was best for the baby, but she knew better than anyone that it was love, not marriage, that made the biggest difference for a child. Alessandro’s parents were a stark reminder.
His expression was hard and cold. “You know I cannot give you what you’re asking me for. I was clear from the beginning.”
She had not asked him for love, not directly, but he had heard it, anyway. But this was a want, not a need, she told herself. Even if it did not feel that way. Even if it felt like something inside her was breaking.
“That is your final decision?” she asked softly.
“It is not a decision. It is our reality.”
Ann-Sophie swallowed and forced herself to do what was right. For all three of them.
“Then I absolve you of your promise. I am not afraid of raising a child on my own. Of being on my own.” Her voice was so much stronger than she felt.
“I will never keep you away from your son—it will be too hard for us to spend time together if you refuse to let yourself free of the grip that the past has on you. So whatever we had between us has to end. I don’t want to see you, at least until this is less painful. ”
He flinched, as if she had slapped him. “You knew I had to offer. You accepted that.”
“It’s not enough.” The word enough felt strange as she spoke it, as if it was growing, taking on new meaning.
Alessandro was watching her, his beauty made harsh with the pain that radiated from him. Slowly, Alessandro lifted his hands, palms open, as if he was offering himself to her. His expression was stark. “Am I not enough?”