Chapter 14
“Your test results are normal, Dante. As I suspected, the PSA levels must have risen due to a slight infection. The antibiotics I gave you have cleared it up.” The doctor looked at his notes. “I think we can go back to annual tests instead of repeating them every three months.”
Just like that, the fear that had been smothering Dante until he almost couldn’t breathe disappeared. He hadn’t realized how much dread had gripped his soul until the doctor said those words.
“Grazie, Dr. Cavelli.” Dante couldn’t stop shaking the man’s hand. His life sentence had just been paroled. He would still have to be continually tested, but today and for the foreseeable future the grim reaper had been sent to purgatory.
He rose hurriedly. He wanted to shout out the news to everyone, but he hadn’t shared his condition with anyone.
Yet he knew the one person he wanted to celebrate this special day with—Abby.
He looked at his watch as he strode through the corridor and out into the sunshine.
She’d be about to finish work. Abby had talked him through On the Shelf and what she was working on, and he, of all people, learned about compromise.
It hadn’t hurt at all.
She could work as long as he and the family came first and she didn’t tire herself out. He’d noticed she looked a bit worn-out of late. He was going to suggest she have an early night this evening, alone for a change, but now—now he was so happy, he wanted to make love to her and celebrate.
His phone began vibrating in his pocket. It was a calendar reminder. Checking the text, he gave a small curse. He was having lunch with Carla. Normally he’d love to catch up with his childhood friend and tormentor, but he was so hyper with suppressed energy, all he wanted was to find Abby.
Carla was already seated when he arrived at their favorite restaurant. He bent and placed a kiss on each cheek. “Ciao, Bella.”
“My, someone’s in a good mood.”
“Carla, my friend, life is good.”
She lowered her menu. “Who is this stranger sitting across from me? I haven’t seen you this happy in—well, for a long while. Abby wouldn’t be the cause of the twinkle I see in your eye?”
Dante laughed. “Maybe.”
Carla silently studied him. “Would it surprise you—or frighten you—to know that I think your wife is in love with you?”
His happiness quadrupled. “Nothing about Abby frightens me, not now. What makes you say that? I didn’t realize you knew her that well.”
“Not true. I had coffee with her a couple of weeks ago. She was sitting at Café Fiore crying her eyes out. I couldn’t simply walk past.”
Dante leaned forward, his face instantly crinkled in concern. “Crying?”
Carla put down her menu and folded her hands together.
“She asked me to question you about your health and learn the truth. She is under the impression you aren’t well.
The blackmailing her into your bed with the demand for a child probably did it.
” She shook her head. “Sometimes I despair of men, I really do.”
“You appear to have gotten very friendly with my wife.”
“I said I would interrogate you, but you are my friend, first and foremost, and if you are ill I want to know regardless of what I tell Abby.” Her face grew serious. “After all, you would tell your best friend, wouldn’t you, Dante? We always swore there would never be any secrets between us.”
Dante remembered their drunken pledge. They’d made a pact, not long after Abby had left him and Carla’s latest lover, Jenny, an American art student, had dumped her.
They swore that if the people they slept with couldn’t be trusted, they would trust in each other.
There would never be secrets between them.
He felt his face heat. “I’m not ill, Carla.”
She waved her hand in the air. “You wouldn’t lie to me, too?”
“Too?”
“Angela has decided not to come to Brazil with me.” Carla’s eyes filled with tears. “I have so few people in my life I can trust. Please don’t destroy what we share.”
Angela was the new woman in Carla’s life. She, too, was a scientist, and for the last two years they had seemed such a fabulous couple. “I’m sorry, cara. What happened?” he said softly.
“Don’t change the subject.”
He sat back and took a sip of the wine Carla had ordered for them. She was right. He had promised no secrets. “I’ve been having yearly tests—”
“Prostate?”
“Don’t interrupt. You want the story, then let me tell it my way.”
Over their lunch, he told her everything.
About his abnormal test three months ago.
His sudden need for a child due to his father’s will, and the thought that he might die young.
That’s why he had been so desperate to have his wife back in his bed to provide a legitimate heir.
And finally, how Abby had become an important part of his life.
She made him happy. When he’d finished his story, Carla simply shook her head.
“Men are so stupid, no wonder I prefer women.”
Dante laughed out loud. It felt good to laugh again.
“Why didn’t you share your fears with anyone? Abby was right. She said you try to take on the worries of the world and no one thinks to help you.”
“She said that?”
“She loves you, thickhead. She’s quite a woman. A shame she wastes herself on men.”
“Careful. I’m mighty jealous. I’d hate to think we’d fall out over a woman.”
Carla giggled. “She might be my type, but I’m definitely not hers.
She only has eyes for you.” She rolled her eyes.
“God knows why.” She paused and looked around the restaurant and back at Dante.
“I suppose, like all the other heterosexual women of the world, they fall for your sultry charms. The dagger-filled looks being shot my way—ooh la la. I can’t see it myself. ”
“You have a distinct way of bringing a man down to earth.” He sat grinning at her. “Besides, all the men are wishing they were sitting in my chair. Little do they know…”
That sat in companionable silence drinking coffee. Finally Carla spoke.
“So, you decided to play the hero and keep Abby at an emotional distance, while still getting her pregnant so she would not suffer as your mother did when your father died.”
“It’s scary how well you know me.”
“Stupido!”
He shifted in his chair. “It seemed a good idea at the time.”
“You should buy Abby the biggest bunch of flowers, go home, and take her to bed and worship her, and then confess all.” She reached over and slapped his hand. “She’s worried sick about you.”
He jumped to his feet. “That’s the best suggestion I’ve heard all day. Whose turn was it to pay for lunch?”
“Mine.” Carla stood and hugged him. She whispered in his ear, “I’m so pleased you are okay. Don’t scare me again.”
He hugged her back tightly. It felt good to share his worries. Perhaps there was merit in the saying a trouble shared is a trouble halved. “You be careful in the wilds of the . Don’t come back with any interesting diseases. Lunch is on me when you return. Be safe, my friend.”
Driving back toward the villa, he’d never felt so content. He had so many flowers in his car that his Porsche smelled like a perfumery. He pulled up at the villa, and with flowers in hand, went in search of Abby. He knew what he needed to do.
He found her in his mother’s drawing room, helping her grandmother and his mother make new curtains for the cottage. They stopped talking when he entered, their mouths dropping open at the armful of roses he carried. He could hardly fit through the door.
“Well, there’s a man in love,” Nana Taylor said.
“Or a man with lots to atone for,” his mother said drily.
“Was there a sale at the flower shop?” Abby asked with a big grin. “He’s bought flowers for all of us.”
Dante shrugged his shoulders and took the teasing. “Actually, they may as well be for mother and Nana Taylor as you, my beautiful wife, won’t be here to enjoy them.”
Abby’s smile faltered. “Won’t be here?”
“I’m taking some time off.”
His mother gasped in a mocking display of shock. He ignored her teasing.
“We’re going on a very long overdue second honeymoon.”
His heart felt too big for his chest as Abby’s face broke into a gorgeous smile and her eyes welled with tears.
His mother and Nana Taylor quickly took the flowers from him and quietly left the room.
He walked purposely toward Abby, who rose to her feet.
When he reached her, he couldn’t stop himself from pulling her into his arms and kissing her senseless.
When he finally let her up for air, he whispered, “Where do you want to go? I’ll take you anywhere, but we stop in Paris for two nights on the way.
I’ve got some business that can’t wait.”
At the mention of Paris, he felt Abby tense. “Do you not like Paris? I thought women loved the shopping capital of the world.”
With a slight hesitation, she melted into his arms once more. “I don’t care where we go as long as I’m with you.”
He swung her up into his arms and started walking to their bedroom. “I know exactly where I want to go with you right now. I want to make love to you, Abby,” he murmured. “I want to sink myself so far into you that we’re indivisible. I want to hear your cries…”
“Less talk and more walk. Hurry, please.”
In the privacy of their room, he gently placed Abby on her feet. They stood facing each other, chests rising and falling rapidly.
“For the next week I’m going to spoil you,” he said, stepping behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist, drawing her against him. He lowered his head and whispered, “I’ll spoil you so much you’ll never want to leave me.”
“Be careful what you wish for, Dante. There’s no going back. You’ll never push me away again.”
“I’ll never want to. I’ll never let you go,” he growled.
Abby’s heart kicked with a burst of clamoring exultation. He slid his hands up and cupped her breasts, and the pleasure of his touch swelled through her. Never had she felt like this in all the previous years of her marriage.