Chapter 10 #2
Her voice was laced with bitterness and Valentino knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was Arnie he had to thank for the brick wall around Peyton’s heart. But at least she seemed well and truly over him.
Valentino flipped to the last page, feeling Peyton tense even before it fully opened. And he could see why. It was a very raw photo, difficult to even look at without feeling as if he had intruded on something painfully private.
A snapshot full of utter human misery.
Peyton was holding a swaddled Daisy. She was free of all her tubes, her eyes swollen and closed, pink cap pulled snugly over her head. Her mouth was a straight line, the lips colourless, her skin deathly pale. The caption read, Rest in Peace Our Precious Daisy.
Peyton was crying in the photograph, clearly distressed as she gazed at Daisy. Like she’d give anything in that moment to bring her daughter back. Trade places even. The look said, Don’t go, I haven’t had the chance to get to know you yet.
‘She was just too little,’ Peyton whispered.
‘She fought the good fight,’ he murmured, feeling utterly inadequate. What could he say to make any of this better without sounding trite?
‘She did. She fought for so long.’
Valentino heard the sob catch in her throat and put his arm around her, tucking her head against his shoulder. Closing the album, he let her cry until her tears ran out. Until she went quiet and there was silence in the house once again.
He passed her a tissue from a nearby box which she took as she lifted her head from his shoulder. She dabbed at her eyes and scrunched it in a ball in her palm.
‘This is why I can’t go through another pregnancy,’ she murmured, her voice husky but firm. ‘I can’t bear the thought of losing another child.’
Valentino knew he had to tread carefully here.
That just because Peyton’s fears weren’t necessarily rational, it didn’t mean they weren’t real to her.
He turned slightly in the chair so he could see her face.
‘I understand why you don’t want to be emotionally vulnerable again.
You’ve been through a lot in the last few years. ’
She nodded. ‘Exactly. So if there’s no baby then there’s no chance of what happened to the twins, to Daisy, happening again.’
Valentino took her hand. ‘But there is a baby, Peyton. Do you think terminating a pregnancy doesn’t count as losing a child?’
‘It’s… it’s different,’ she said defensively.
‘Not to me.’
She looked at him sharply. ‘Is this a religious thing?’
Valentino’s brow crinkled. ‘This has nothing to do with religion. It’s my child, Peyton. My. Child. I have rights too and if you think I’m going to allow you to terminate this pregnancy, you’re very wrong.’
Even as he said the words, Valentino regretted them. Damn it, he hadn’t meant to blurt that out but he felt so helpless and that wasn’t who he was. He was strong and decisive. He was solution focused. He was the guy in charge.
‘Why?’ she demanded, her frame stiffening at his careless vehemence. ‘Why do you care so much? Being a father is such a long-term commitment. I’d have thought you’d be running a mile.’
‘You thought wrong.’
Valentino knew her assessment was justified but it stung anyway.
Frustrated, he stood and strode to the glass doors that overlooked the deck, shoving his hands in his pockets.
His heart pounded like surf in his head as he considered that maybe it was time to open up.
Peyton had just shared a part of her life that was intensely private; maybe it was time to share his?
‘There was a woman.’ His voice was husky and he cleared it. ‘A long time ago.’
‘Okay. Tell me.’
Her voice seemed to come from faraway, and Valentino turned to check she was still there. She was, watching him expectantly, her eyes still red from the tears she had shed but her spine straight, her expression grimly determined.
But… where did he even start?
‘We were in love. Or at least I thought we were. I was first year out, an intern, back home. She was a fashion design student. She was… beautiful.’
Stunning, actually. Twenty-one, curvy, gorgeous brunette hair that almost reached her ass. He had fallen hook, line and sinker.
‘And I was completely besotted. I proposed within two months and she leapt at it. I bought her this magnificent rock I couldn’t afford because she just had to have it.
We went to lots of fashion parties, made the society pages.
She bragged about marrying a doctor to all her friends and revelled in the kudos. ’
He paused for breath and Peyton spoke for the first time. ‘What was her name?’
Fighting his way back from the grip of the past, Peyton slowly came into focus.
‘Daniella.’
Once even the mention of the name would set his heart thumping, but he was surprised at how unaffected he felt.
Standing here today looking at Peyton, the absolute antithesis of his ex, he wondered what on earth he’d ever seen in Daniella.
Had he been that blinded by her looks? Had he been that superficial?
Like Daniella. Who’d only ever cared about clothes and shoes and the trendy new bars in town and had struggled to converse about anything else.
So unlike Peyton who had depth and layers and who he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about since she’d walked down that aisle at his cousin’s wedding.
‘You must have looked great together.’
Her voice was carefully neutral but there was a tightness to her words that was…
interesting. ‘I suppose,’ he said with a shrug, not caring about the superficiality of appearance.
‘Then I took her to meet my parents. The whole sign-language thing freaked her out. And when I started to talk about setting a date and planning a family, she ran a mile. She had a career and a social life. How could she possibly fit into her designer wardrobe or drink champagne at glamorous balls with swollen feet and no waist? What if we had a deaf child?’
She winced. ‘Ouch.’
‘Uh huh.’ Valentino shook his head. ‘I was devastated.’
‘Of course. First love is always the hardest.’
Valentino wondered if Arnie had been Peyton’s first love.
On top of everything else had she been dealing with the shattering of that illusion, too?
‘There’s more.’ He hesitated. How did he say something he’d never truly voiced to anyone before?
‘A couple of months after we broke up I was working night shift in Emergency when Daniella was rushed through the doors. She was haemorrhaging from a back-street abortion.’
Her soft gasp was a balm to the surprising rawness of the memory. ‘Oh, Valentino.’ Rising from the chair, she crossed the short space between them, placing her hand on his arm as their gazes held. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘I didn’t know she was pregnant. She didn’t tell me. She didn’t ask me for help or bother to find out what I wanted. She just went and took my child from me.’
Peyton flinched a little and Valentino supposed that wasn’t exactly fair to her – she wasn’t Daniella. But Peyton had wanted to know. Tell me – that’s what she’d said. And he needed her to understand the stakes for him and why he was being so adamant.
‘You wanted to keep the baby?’ she asked slowly, quietly.
‘I wanted the choice.’ He pierced her with a hard look. ‘I wanted to be consulted. Included.’
The truth was that, together, they may well have decided on a termination anyway. Career wise he’d just been starting out and babies had only been a vague one-day-maybe proposition.
‘That was wrong of her,’ she said quietly. ‘To act without consulting you.’
‘Damn right.’ He didn’t even bother to disguise his bitterness.
‘She was young and scared,’ Peyton said gently.
‘So was I,’ he ground out. ‘But I’m not now.’
She sighed and slipped her hand from his arm, and Valentino watched as she returned to the lounge.
He met her gaze when she lifted it, her grey eyes stormy.
‘I’m so very sorry that happened to you, Valentino, and I promise I won’t go off and do anything before we’ve talked about it thoroughly, but…
please.’ She clasped her hands together in her lap.
‘Don’t make this more difficult for me than it already is. ’
Valentino’s jaw clenched. ‘You want me to make it easy for you?’ He shook his head. ‘I won’t.’
He strode towards her then, dropping to his knees, and reached for her hand, pressing it to her belly, holding it fast with his hands.
‘Inside there is our baby. He lives and he grows. He has a heartbeat. He’s going to have my dark wavy hair and your beautiful grey eyes and he’s going to be healthy and perfect and we’re going to love him. ’
She looked at him for a long time as tears pooled in her eyes. It hadn’t been his intention to make her cry but Valentino had a feeling it was a positive.
‘He, huh?’
Valentino shrugged and smiled, a little encouraged by the softening of her voice, by the cradle of her hand. ‘Or she.’
Her gaze drifted to the album on the table. ‘I’m scared,’ she whispered.
And that was the crux of it, Valentino realised, which was a sucker punch to his gut. He couldn’t bear the thought of her being scared and he’d give anything to be able to take away her fears. ‘I’m not going to let anything happen to our baby.’
‘Don’t.’ She shook her head, her eyes huge. ‘You can’t promise that. And chances of delivering early again increase in subsequent pregnancies.’
Valentino slid one hand onto her cheek, his gaze boring into hers, needing her to see that he believed everything would be okay. That he believed enough for both of them. ‘I swear I will be right by your side.’
‘That’s what Arnie said.’
Oh no. No way. Valentino shook his head. He would not be compared to a guy who bailed when things got too tough. ‘I’m not Arnie.’
Whatever she saw in his eyes must be having an effect because she gave a wry kind of laugh through glassy grey eyes. ‘You’re not, are you?’
‘I am Valentino Lombardi,’ he said, his voice low and deadly serious. ‘My word is my bond.’
She nodded slowly then as tears slid from her eyes. ‘It had better be.’
And that was the moment Valentino knew she’d taken a leap of faith which she was putting all in him.
Now all he had to do was prove he was worthy.