Chapter 9 #2
‘I see a woman whose world was torn apart three years ago. A woman who’s been going through the motions ever since, doing what needs to be done for her daughter but neglecting herself. Not getting any enjoyment out of life. I see someone who’s physically and emotionally starving.’
‘I’m eating,’ she snapped, completely ignoring his whole point.
‘Great. So your stomach is full but what fills your emotional well, Peyton?’
‘What? That doesn’t matter,’ she said dismissively.
Valentino snorted. ‘Of course it does.’
‘Okay then – what fills yours?’
‘Vivaldi.’ It was sterner than he had meant it to come out but her stonewalling, her blindness where her needs were concerned, was frustrating in the extreme.
He continued in a gentler tone. ‘A hand-written, hand-stamped letter from my mother. The first time a patient hears sound. Children laughing. Bruschetta. The way a woman’s waist curves out to her hip. Swan Lake.’
‘You think I have time for ballet?’ she asked incredulously.
‘Peyton.’ Valentino forced himself to keep his tone even.
Reasonable. It broke his goddamn heart that she was so depleted, and he wanted to help turn that around.
‘The point is I can take enjoyment from the world around me. When was the last time you did that? When was the last time you rejoiced in being alive?’
‘Oh, for crying out loud,’ she snapped. ‘I don’t have time to get my emotional well filled. I’m busy. I’m the sole parent to a high-needs child juggling a million things including working for you. I certainly don’t have time for another baby when I’m full up with the one I have.’
‘You don’t think McKenzie would like a little brother or a sister?’
She stopped then for long moments as if shocked by his question, her fingers rubbing at her temple.
Had she never even considered that?
‘I’m sure she would,’ Peyton said, recovering from her silence. ‘I’m also pretty sure she’d like a unicorn. Unfortunately, she doesn’t get a say.’
Valentino chuckled even though he doubted she was trying to be funny. Which was his entire point. She should expect more from her life than merely surviving it.
Turning beseeching eyes on him, she said, ‘I’m tired, Valentino.’
Her exhaustion sucker-punched him, but it didn’t defeat him. Because she didn’t have to do this alone any more. ‘I know but… I’ll be here. I’ll help.’
Peyton almost laughed out loud. I’ll be there. I’ll help. Where had she heard that before? Along with you won’t have to do this alone.
How long would it take an Italian playboy surgeon with an international career to grow tired of playing house in little old Brisbane? She hardened her heart to pretty words that sang like sirens from the rocks.
Arnie had also promised he’d help. Promised he’d be here until death parted them.
Obviously, he’d taken Daisy’s death as a literal translation. Their daughter hadn’t even been in the ground a week when he’d left for good.
Sure, he’d been mourning too and she’d tried over the past few years to make allowances for Arnie’s grief amidst her anger, but empathy was difficult when she was coping with everything else as well. Peyton couldn’t go through that kind of desertion and heartbreak again. She just couldn’t.
‘And when Harry gets back? When London calls?’
He scooped up her hands and held them cocooned in his. ‘Then you come with me.’
The broken edges of Peyton’s heart rubbed painfully at his simplistic, egocentric response. ‘No, Valentino. I can’t. I won’t. This is my home. It’s McKenzie’s home. I’m not going to uproot her when she has years of therapy left.’
‘They have speech pathologists in other parts of the world.’
Of course they did but Peyton had vowed never to blindly follow a man again, like she had Arnie. ‘She trusts the St Auburn’s team. Has built relationships with them.’
He squeezed her hands. ‘Children adapt.’
Peyton shook her head. Spoken like a true egotist, used only to looking after himself. Not a responsible father who put the needs of a child first.
Could he hear himself?
‘So, let me get this straight. You want me and McKenzie to up sticks and follow you around the world with your child like some puppy, hoping you can squeeze in some time for us all between your work and dating catwalk models?’
Valentino’s brow furrowed deep, his look of affront almost comical. ‘Dio! No,’ he rejected. ‘I have more respect for you than that. We would marry, of course.’
Marry?
Peyton almost choked. Firstly, if that was a proposal, it sucked. Secondly, what the what? Unsure that her legs would actually support her through such a bizarre conversation, she sank into the nearby armchair. ‘I beg your pardon?’
Was this really happening? Had she misheard? Or was it a lost in translation thing?
He shrugged like his suggestion wasn’t completely out of left field. ‘We’ll get married,’ he reiterated.
Okay, she had heard him correctly. About a million questions crowded her brain, but only one floated to the surface. ‘And what about love?’
Try as she may, Peyton couldn’t rid her voice of its helium-like squeak. She’d vowed never to marry again but if she was ever dumb enough to do so a second time, it would only ever be for love.
Far from backing down, Valentino shoved his hands on his hips. ‘Did you love your husband?’
Peyton frowned. ‘Yes. Of course.’ He might not have deserved it but for a few years, she’d been deliriously in love with Arnie.
‘How’d that work out for you?’
Peyton gasped at the streak of arrogance in his question. If her legs had been feeling remotely solid, she would have stood up and slapped his face. ‘Screw you,’ she snapped.
Blowing out a breath, Valentino sat in the chair beside her, rubbing his temple. ‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured, ‘That was uncalled for.’
Peyton snorted incredulously. ‘Ya think?’
‘Dio,’ he muttered, raking his hands through his hair. ‘I’m sorry.’ His voice was strained in obvious frustration. ‘I don’t have all the answers yet, Peyton. I’m as new to this information as you and I’m probably screwing it all up.’
She snorted again. ‘You’re definitely screwing it up because marriage is not on the table, here.’ It was utterly… ridiculous.
‘Okay, well…’ He shrugged. ‘We can circle back to that, I’m just saying we can work through all this. There are options and solutions. We have time.’
Except the thought of going through it all again, of growing a baby inside, loving it, wanting it, was just too much for her to bear. Her head throbbed in unison with her heart. It was just all too overwhelming.
‘I can’t think straight any more,’ she murmured. ‘I have to get home.’ She pushed to her feet. ‘Mum will be wondering where I am.’
He nodded and she was thankful he didn’t try to stop her or press his case any more. ‘Will you tell them about the baby?’
Peyton frowned, her mind too full to think straight. ‘Yes.’
Eventually. Soon. But not tonight.
She shuffled her feet awkwardly for a moment, looking at Valentino. This news had no doubt thrown a huge spanner into the works for him too. And even though he’d just made the most preposterous suggestion she’d ever heard, she understood he was also rattled.
‘Goodnight,’ she said, turning to leave.
But his hand grabbed hers as she passed and despite everything that had just gone down, Peyton felt the familiar fizz that happened every time he touched her. She halted, their gazes meeting, his imploring. ‘You won’t do anything… rash, will you?’
Peyton’s first reaction was anger to his startling question.
Did he seriously think she would terminate his baby in secret?
Or that she’d go off riding a wild bronco or soak herself in a hot gin bath?
But there was a plea in his gaze that reached right inside her gut, and she realised he was as vulnerable, as unsure, about all this as she was and that he had a lot at stake here, too.
‘Of course not,’ she assured. ‘I won’t do anything without talking to you first.’
‘Thank you,’ he whispered and released her hand.