Chapter 13
Two weeks later Valentino lay horizontal in his business-class seat, wide awake, somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. The lights in the cabin had been turned low and most sensible travellers were using it to grab some shut-eye. They’d be landing in Brisbane in just over four hours.
But he couldn’t sleep.
He was impatient for the plane to fly faster, to get there sooner. He needed to see Peyton. He’d screwed up with her so badly with that botched proposal and he needed to make it right.
What he should have said was – I love you, please marry me.
He just hadn’t realised at the time it was how he felt. He’d known the minute the plane took off though, carrying him thousands of kilometres away from her, his heart heavier and heavier the closer his plane got to Italy.
The further it got from Peyton.
His thoughts drifted to that day again. The day of the market and the brunch with her parents. It had started so well and had got even better as he’d massaged her feet with those red toenails which been an inexplicable turn on. They’d looked so damn… sexy and he’d known he was in big trouble.
Which was why he should never have offered the foot massage, but he’d thought he could handle it. And maybe he could have prior to the incident in the scrub room when the baby had kicked and he’d placed his hands on Peyton under her scrub top.
He’d been doing just fine with keeping his distance until that point. Treating Peyton as the pregnant mother of his child. Affording her the right amount of reverence and respect. But that moment she’d looked at him, her eyes smoky with desire?
Yeah, his thoughts had been less than reverent from that point.
But it had been her feet for crying out loud.
Nothing sexual about feet – for him anyway.
He was wrong, though, so very wrong. Especially with such vocal approval of his technique.
Every time his fingers had strayed to a new part of her foot she’d given an appreciative moan which had shot his concentration to pieces.
He’d continued through sheer grit alone and steadfastly refusing to look at anything but her feet.
That little squirm of hers had been the limit, though.
He’d been going okay till then, holding his libido in check, but she’d moved and things had shifted in his peripheral vision, and he couldn’t stop himself from turning his head and looking his fill.
Finding her hand resting on her belly in a pose he’d seen more and more often since her tummy had popped had been the last straw.
Her habit of wearing baggy clothes and scrubs had allowed her to hide her pregnancy from others.
But he knew. He’d felt it. And that day she’d been wearing a flowy skirt that had hidden her legs as she’d walked but lying horizontal on the couch had flattened to reveal the outline of thighs that had filled out over weeks of him feeding her the most tempting food he could find and the small rise of her tummy.
And God help him, he’d wanted to see it. To lay his eyes on it. A swell of desperate need rising in him that he hadn’t been able to contain.
Despite the insistent buzz of his libido, Valentino hadn’t meant it to be sexual when he’d first kissed her belly.
It had merely been impulsive but then somehow it felt natural to keep kissing, like men the world over did to their partner’s pregnant belly.
Until her quiet whimper had kicked things into an entirely different tempo and he’d wanted to see all of her body.
To catalogue all the changes pregnancy had wrought, yes, but also because his blood was throbbing and his pheromones were raging and the rough cant of her breathing was filling his head, and the tight rein he’d been keeping on his libido vanished like smoke as her nipples had brushed the pads of his thumbs and she’d arched her back and cried out his name then lifted her head for his mouth.
Dio! Her mouth. He hadn’t been able to get enough of her mouth.
The phone call had been like a bucket of cold water.
The worst timing but also his worst nightmare come true.
The one thing that always worried him about being too far away from home.
But even so, with his sister hysterical and his mother in who-knew-what state, he’d have given anything to have rewound time and not answered that call.
Delayed it. Switched it off. Let it go to voice mail.
With Peyton looking rumpled and dazed, her mouth glistening, her nipples engorged, her small round belly out and proud and the aroma of her arousal a dizzying distraction, he could easily have ignored it until they’d satisfied their hunger.
Soothed the itch in his blood.
Maybe then he wouldn’t have proposed on the wave of roiling testosterone sloshing through his pent-up body. Maybe he would have thought about something other than his own needs. Thought that using his crisis situation to get his own way would come across as disingenuous.
Manipulative, even.
Idiota! Così stupido!
Why hadn’t he told her he loved her? Why had he been so blind? Trying to keep himself from being hurt again all the while falling deeper and deeper.
Would Peyton have believed him with all her wariness and mistrust of love?
Maybe not. But at least it would have been the truth. Not the excuses he’d been spinning about stability and family values to induce her to say yes.
A steward, seeing him awake, smiled and said, ‘Can I get you anything, sir?’
Valentino smiled and shook his head. ‘No thank you.’ Unless they had a dunce’s cap out back somewhere.
He shut his eyes, willing himself to sleep so he could be in top form when he landed in Brisbane, and he thanked the universe once again that at least his mother was on the road to recovery which was one less thing on his mind.
Along with a broken arm and a bang to the head that had produced a shiny black eye and some mild concussion, they’d found a nasty spleen injury when they’d got her on the table.
They’d performed a splenectomy but, at nearly eighty, she’d been a little slow to recover, requiring an extended stay in hospital.
Not to mention how frustrated she was with her broken arm hampering her ability to sign.
Thankfully she’d rounded the corner and his father and his sisters had everything well in hand for her imminent discharge.
Her recovery might have been slow but her shrewd old eyes had not been as she’d taken one look at him in her hospital bed, pale as a ghost, and signed, ‘Who is she?’
Valentino had chuckled but told her everything in rapid sign language. About Peyton and McKenzie and the baby. She’d asked him point blank if he loved her and he’d been able to say yes with utter conviction.
But he hadn’t been able to confirm Peyton’s feelings for him because he just didn’t know how she felt – certainly not after his ridiculous proposal. Sure, Peyton had hugged him and told him it was okay, but Valentino knew he’d erred.
And that was without her history of protecting her damaged heart.
The truth was, misstep by him or not, he didn’t know if she’d ever allow herself to fall in love again and it was that keeping him awake.
Sure, there was something between them – a strong physical attraction.
That couldn’t be denied. And he sincerely doubted they’d be able to get through a co-parenting arrangement without occasionally succumbing to said attraction.
But Valentino wanted more than just scraps from her dinner table.
He wanted to be more in her life than just the father of their child. A part-time parent. Someone to scratch the itch when it got too much to bear for both of them. He wanted to love and cherish her. Introduce her to his family as his bride. He wanted to grow old with her.
He’d come a long way since his infatuation with Daniella. The young love he’d felt for her was lightweight compared to this constant, heavy feeling in his chest. It had been impulsive and superficial. It had been skin deep.
Not soul deep.
What he felt for Peyton reached right down inside. It was complex, multi-faceted. Messy and complicated. Especially in comparison to the easy, carefree time with Daniella. But maturity was a wonderful thing because he now knew sometimes good things didn’t come easily.
Sometimes they had to be fought for.
And that’s what he’d do, no matter how long it took, no matter how much he had to sit on his hands at the side lines of her life. Because loving her was worth it.
She was worth it.
Peyton rubbed her back absently as she sat in her office chair and updated the charts from the day’s surgery. It was hard to concentrate when her mind kept drifting to Valentino and the fact that in two weeks she’d received three lousy texts.
One had been to say his mother had undergone an emergency splenectomy. The next had come four days later to say her recovery was slow and he was staying another week or so. And the last a couple of days ago informing her he’d be back some time in the next few days.
Maybe it was her pregnancy hormones making her contrary, and sure, his mother had undergone major surgery and they hadn’t left on the best of terms, but his brevity had felt like a cold shoulder from the other side of the world.
And, truthfully, it hurt.
Worse than with Arnie. Way worse than with Arnie. Because she’d been an infatuated, blind fool with him but she’d walked into this one with her eyes wide open. Flinging open the door to her heart, too – wide open – despite all her misgivings.
And not just her heart but McKenzie’s heart too.
Another tightening sensation gripped her belly and she had to stop what she was doing and rub. She’d been having irregular Braxton Hicks contractions on and off all day, no doubt aggravated by standing in a cold theatre in hard clogs.
She’d panicked earlier when the first one had hit in the break between theatre cases and she’d rung her obstetrician in a state of absolute dread, fearing the start of another premature labour.
Not that it felt like it had with the twins at all, just an occasional tightening, but at only twenty-four weeks and with her history, any little niggle was cause for fright.
After asking succinct questions, Erica had assured her they were Braxton Hicks contractions, which were perfectly normal.
Not having had any before her first pregnancy had come to a rather early finish, Peyton was ignorant to what they felt like, although she’d heard pregnant women and mothers talking about them frequently.
Erica had talked her through the things to watch out for and by the time Peyton had hung up, the panic had receded and she’d put it from her mind. Braxton Hicks were a perfectly normal sign of a perfectly normal pregnancy.
They were a good thing. She was going to have a normal pregnancy and deliver at a normal time.
Picking up the pen, she started writing again, motoring through her desk work over the next hour, head down, determined to get it done so she could go home early.
‘Peyton?’
Peyton’s hand stilled mid-word and her heart contracted as her gaze flew to the doorway. Valentino. There he was, large as life – rumpled shirt and trousers, jaw heavy with stubble, bleary eyes and unruly hair.
‘I came straight from the airport.’
She could see that. And yet even in his twenty-four-hour flight haggardness and her irritation at him, he was still the sexiest man she’d ever seen. She stifled the urge to get up and run to him. No matter how her arms ached to hold him and her heart bled, he couldn’t know her true feelings.
‘Valentino,’ she murmured, her knuckles white as her fingers strangled the pen.
Another Braxton Hicks came and she frowned as it gripped her belly hard, much closer and stronger than any of the others. She tried to remember how long it had been since the last one while simultaneously making polite conversation with the man she loved so he would never guess her secret.
‘How is your mother?’
He gave her a small smile. ‘She’s much better now. Should be home tomorrow or the next day.’
Peyton nodded, her jaw cramped with the effort of keeping her voice evenly modulated. ‘Good to know. I’m pleased she came through it well. It must have been worrying for all of you.’
His brow furrowed. ‘Is everything okay?’
No. It wasn’t. He was here and he was okay and she was so relieved but at the same time hating herself for caring so damn much. ‘Everything’s fine.’
‘Peyton?’ He walked into her office in that loose unhurried way of his, which was also seriously annoying because God, she’d missed that, too. ‘You seem… upset.’
A bubble of hysterical laughter rose in her throat at the same time another pain hit sharp enough to drive her to her feet. ‘Upset? Why on earth would I be upset?’ she demanded, pain making her snappy. ‘You go to the other side of the world and can’t even return a message?’
Peyton hated how she sounded. Like a spurned lover, or, in his case, a discarded girlfriend. Her hormones were making her obnoxiously, irrationally bitchy. But she couldn’t stop as the pain gripping her belly increased in length and intensity.
She glared at him. ‘I’ve been worried about you.’ God, she was so pathetic.
‘I texted you.’
Slamming her hand on the desk, Peyton stared at him incredulously. ‘Three times! Three lousy times in two weeks? You profess to want to marry me, for us to be a family together, yet you can’t even ring me when you get there to tell me everything’s okay? You text me?’
He blinked, clearly taken aback by her fervour.
‘I’m sorry… I wanted to talk to you, especially after the way we parted, but there’s so much to say and with everything that was going on back home and the time difference I didn’t want to try and squeeze it around the few minutes I had here and there. ’
‘Damn it, Valentino,’ she snapped. ‘I would have taken a few minutes here and—’ Peyton broke off as another pain squeezed hard down low, doubling her over. She gripped the desk with both hands as she panted.
‘Peyton?’
Something was wrong. Very wrong. That hadn’t felt like a normal, natural Braxton Hicks. That had felt exactly like it had with the twins when her membranes had ruptured at twenty-eight weeks and she’d been eight centimetres dilated.
Exactly.
She looked up as Valentino came around her side of the desk and clutched at his sleeve. ‘I think I’m in labour.’
And she burst into tears.