Chapter 11 #2
McKenzie had grown bored quickly with the adult conversation and had asked for ‘Booey’, and Peyton, who didn’t like her watching too much television, hadn’t been able to refuse.
Hearing her daughter say actual words – Bluey had been one of her first – was sweeter than the sweetest music in the world, and seeing her dance now she could actually hear the music was endlessly thrilling.
They watched as Valentino took McKenzie’s hands and danced around with her. McKenzie giggled as he lifted her off the floor and twirled her round, his dark hair almost black compared to her lighter hues. She clapped as he put her down and signed, ‘Again.’
And Peyton’s broken, fractured, battered, stomped-on heart just about melted in her chest.
‘Oh, my,’ her mother said, her hand fluttering to her chest.
Peyton dragged her gaze away from the endearing sight of Valentino – a large, virile, Italian man his hands dwarfing McKenzie’s torso – twirling her daughter – a little pink fairy girl – round and round.
It was exceedingly sexy.
She blasted her mother with an impatient glare. So, he was good with children. Arnie had been great with kids. Had been over the moon about the pregnancy. But look how quickly he had turned his back when it had come to the crunch.
To the hard times.
‘You’ve won a heart there,’ her father commented as Valentino re-joined the table.
Valentino shrugged. ‘I have ten nieces and five nephews back home. Children like to dance in any language, I think.’
‘That they do,’ he agreed.
‘Actually, sir.’ He glanced speculatively at Peyton, which put an itch up her spine. ‘I’m glad you’re both here.’ The itch spread to her scalp. ‘It is a tradition in my country to ask a woman’s parents for their blessing before proposing, so—’
‘What?’ Shock galvanised Peyton as she rose to her feet, effectively cutting Valentino off. Had he gone mad? ‘I’m not marrying you, Valentino. I told you that yesterday.’
Valentino reached into his pocket and pulled out a velvet box. He opened it and pushed it towards her until it was sitting in front of her on the table.
Peyton blinked. The simple square-cut diamond nestled in the satin dazzled in the direct morning sunlight. It was simple and beautiful and perfect. The full engagement ring fantasy right there on her table. And a crazy part of her wanted to put it on her finger so badly it itched.
But she’d gone headlong into one marriage; she wouldn’t do that a second time.
Using her index finger to snap the lid shut, Peyton pushed it back. ‘I said no.’
She glanced at her parents. What the hell must they think? They were looking at the box then at each other. ‘It’s pretty traditional in our country to have the woman’s consent first,’ her father joked. Her mother dug him in the ribs with her elbow as she fought a smile.
‘Which he doesn’t have,’ Peyton said adamantly, glaring at Valentino.
‘Peyton, I know it’s old fashioned but I want our baby to be born within the security and stability of a marriage.’
The air around Peyton evaporated with a pfft that echoed through her head. ‘Valentino!’ she hissed.
Her mother gasped and turned goggly eyes on Peyton. ‘Baby?’
Raking his hand through his hair, Valentino muttered something in Italian that sounded very much like an expletive. ‘You said you were going to tell them?’
Peyton shut her eyes and slowly sat down. ‘I was,’ she said, utterly defeated. ‘Soon.’
‘Well… that explains the appetite,’ her father said, bemused.
‘Darling…’ Her mother reached out, sliding her hand onto Peyton’s arm and squeezing. ‘Are you okay?’
The worry in her mother’s voice was a blow to Peyton’s chest. She’d wanted to ease them into this, not have it blurted it out. ‘A little shocked. And ravenous.’
‘Maybe that’s a good sign?’ she suggested. ‘You couldn’t keep anything down with the twins.’
That was true. The nausea and vomiting had been awful. ‘Maybe.’ Peyton nodded. But the truth was she was still scared witless about the pregnancy. And she didn’t have to look at her parents to know they were too.
‘I’m going to be with your daughter every step of the way,’ Valentino assured them. ‘It is my solemn promise to you both. And to Peyton.’
Her mother gave a small smile as she squeezed Peyton’s arm again. ‘I believe you.’ But her tone was cautious because she, too, had been here before. ‘For now, though, I think we’d better leave you both alone to talk. We’ll take McKenzie out to the park.’
Peyton nodded, although throwing something at Valentino’s head right now would possibly be more satisfying. ‘Thanks.’
Her parents stood, her father holding out his hand to Valentino.
‘It was nice meeting you. And I appreciate that you want to do the right thing by our daughter.’ He dropped his hand after a brief shake.
‘It’s been a tough few years and it hasn’t been easy as a father to watch Peyton go through what she’s been through.
I trust you understand our… tempered response. ’
‘Of course.’
Peyton was grateful that Valentino waited till they had all departed before he spoke again. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know your parents were going to be here this morning. Or that you hadn’t told them.’
Peyton picked up the velvet box and held it out. ‘That didn’t seem to stop you.’
He ignored it. ‘I’m serious about this, bella.’
‘So am I.’
‘You are carrying my child. It’s the honourable thing to do. My duty. My mother would disown me if I didn’t do the right thing.’
Duty and honour. Two things that Arnie hadn’t been big on. Still, they weren’t the words a girl wanted to hear when talking marriage. Arnie had said he loved her and couldn’t live without her.
That had worked a treat.
Fortunately, she was somewhat more evolved now, her heart hardened to flattery. But there was no way she was making the biggest commitment of her life based on anything other than love. And as she’d vowed to never be so stupid again, she just didn’t see how it could work.
Peyton placed the box back on the table. ‘Listen to yourself. This shouldn’t be about what’s honourable. About duty. A child, marriage… those are long-term commitments. At least for me and you are not a long-term guy.’
‘I am now.’
Peyton gave him a reproving look. ‘Are you telling me that the first time you laid eyes on me you knew I was the girl you wanted to marry?’
‘Many people have long, happy marriages that did not start with love at first sight which any marriage expert will tell you is not a sound basis for marriage.’
‘Maybe not, but it’s a good place to start. What about Daniella? Didn’t you take one look at her and know?’
He frowned. ‘I was twenty-four. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t thinking with anything north of my belt. It was lust… infatuation. Not love.’
His words struck a chord. Maybe it had been lust with Arnie too? Maybe she hadn’t fallen in love after all. Maybe his flashy, blond good looks and his total adoration of her had blinded her to the real man beneath.
‘And it didn’t work out. Neither did you and Arnie. So maybe approaching marriage like this is the best way to go about it. We don’t have to get married straight away, we have time to get to know each other.’
‘My mother would say we should have done that first.’
He gave a wry smile. ‘So would mine.’
Peyton returned his smile despite her heart pounding in her chest as she prepared to ask the next question.
‘Just say I agree to getting married… what happens when you do meet the one and you’re trapped in a marriage with me?
Do you expect me to be okay with it? Do you expect me to sit back and watch you break our child’s heart when you leave me for her?
Not to mention McKenzie’s heart? Would you fight me for custody? ’
‘Il mio Dio! I haven’t thought about any of these things.’
Which was entirely Peyton’s point. ‘You don’t say.’
Valentino’s jaw tightened. ‘There will be no other women.’
‘What about sex?’
‘What about it?’ The question seemed to bewilder him. ‘I thought you liked having sex with me?’
Peyton didn’t think her liking it was really the issue. That was a given. ‘If you think I’m going to risk this pregnancy by having sex during it, then you really are crazy.’
He rubbed his forehead then, clearly nonplussed. He didn’t appear to have thought through that aspect, either. But he just shrugged, clearly unbothered. ‘No problemo.’
‘You seriously expect me to believe you can go without sex for that long?’
Arnie had cited lack of intimacy as one of the reasons he was leaving and she’d known their defunct sex life had frustrated him.
But she’d been exhausted, being at the hospital all day and worried sick about the twins, watching Daisy grow steadily more ill.
She’d been emotionally numb and physically disconnected from her body, and sex had been the last thing on her mind.
And besides, it hadn’t felt right, indulging in her own pleasure with her children fighting for their lives.
Valentino chuckled – not something Peyton had expected in answer to her question.
‘You don’t think,’ he said, his voice dropping an octave as his gaze raked her body like she was wearing clingy Victoria Secret underwear instead of shapeless, sexless clothes, ‘I’m imaginative enough to satisfy you – us – in other ways? ’
Peyton swallowed and to her dismay her nipples hardened in blatant response to his statement and ogling. Her breasts had been sore and tight and uncomfortable, but they practically flowered beneath his gaze, tingling for his attention.
It seemed her hormone-riddled body was hungry not just for food.
Peyton folded her arms across her chest to ease the ache, his knowing chuckle sliding like silk over her skin as his eyes lifted and their gazes snagged.
‘I don’t want to be excluded from the pregnancy, Peyton.
I want to be around to feel the baby move and kick, to see your belly grow.
To help out when you’re not feeling well.
To get you ice cream and tomato sauce when you wake up with a craving at three o’clock in the morning.
I want to get to really know you and McKenzie because I’m going to be in her life too. ’
Peyton wanted to shut her ears to the cosy picture he was painting. A flash of McKenzie and Valentino dancing flitted through her mind, the look of adoration on her daughter’s face as she’d clung to his neck crystal clear.
How could she expose McKenzie to him, like he was asking? Have her love and adore him when, try as she may, she couldn’t believe he was going to stick around.
Especially if something happened to the baby.
Yes, he was telling her he would but he’d spent the last decade of his life constantly moving on from one woman to another. Did he seriously expect her to believe he could reverse what by now must be fairly ingrained behaviour?
‘And what if something happens to the baby—’
‘Nothing’s going to happen,’ he interrupted.
Wishing she could have even a smidge of his confidence, Peyton held up her finger, needing him to listen to her.
‘Just go with me here on this, okay? Just say something happens and I go into labour again at twenty-eight weeks or even less and the baby dies. There’s nothing keeping us together after that – there’s certainly not love.
Are you going to tell me you’re going to stick around?
Or will you run when it all becomes overwhelming because, trust me…
’ Her voice wavered. ‘It will. What happens to McKenzie then?’ Hell, what would happen to her? ‘It’ll be devastating.’
Valentino ran a hand through his hair. ‘It won’t happen.’
‘Goddamn it, Valentino,’ she snapped, banging her fist on the table. ‘What if it does?’
‘You’re dealing in a lot of what-ifs.’
‘Yeah, well, I have to, I’m her mother, I have to protect her. That’s my job.’ To say nothing of protecting herself.
Valentino’s jaw clenched. ‘I make the same solemn promise I made your parents. I will not walk away.’
‘But it would be easier for you to go if we didn’t marry. If there was no wedding ring holding you here. Because staying when you’d rather be somewhere else would be just as bad.’
It was Valentino’s turn to slam his hand down on the table in frustration. ‘Dio! Listen to me. I. Will. Not. Walk. Away.’ He punctuated each word with a vicious stab at the table.
For what it was worth, she believed him.
Right now, at this moment, his conviction was palpable.
But Peyton knew that life could throw curve balls that could change things in a heartbeat.
She also knew this was getting them nowhere.
They needed a compromise, something to break the stalemate.
To take the pressure off and let things evolve naturally – if they were going to.
‘You want to get to know me? Us? Fine. Let’s just do that for now.
I’m not going to stop you from being involved in the pregnancy, Valentino.
I will include you as much as possible.’ She glanced at the velvet box.
‘Let’s just spend some time together first and then’ – she pushed it across the table to him – ‘we’ll see. ’
Valentino picked up the box but didn’t look at it, his eyes roving over her face as if trying to spot some loophole in her sudden amiability. ‘So, it’s not a no? It’s a… maybe later.’
Peyton nodded, even though she knew deep in her heart she would never marry again. Never give a man that much power over her happiness. ‘That’s right.’
Valentino examined the box for a few moments and then put it back in his pocket. ‘I’m going to keep asking.’
And she was going to keep saying no. ‘I wouldn’t expect anything less.’