Chapter Fifty-Six A Different Kind of News
Three weeks after they returned from the lake house, Elena sat on the edge of the bathtub at Larkspur Row, staring at a small plastic stick with hands that wouldn't quite stop shaking, and felt the entire shape of her future rearrange itself in the space of thirty seconds.
She didn't tell Dante immediately. She sat with it first, alone, turning the knowledge over like something fragile — fear and joy tangled so completely together she couldn't separate one from the other.
What would it mean, bringing a child into this world, into a family with guards at the gate and men like Salvatore Calvetti somewhere still nursing old grievances?
What would it mean for a man like Dante, who'd spent his whole life believing love made you vulnerable, to learn he was about to be handed something even more vulnerable to protect?
She found him in his study that evening, and something in her face must have given her away immediately, because he was on his feet before she'd said a single word.
"Elena. What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong." She managed a wobbly smile, crossing the room to stand before him, and took his hand, pressing it flat against her still-flat stomach. "Nothing is wrong at all, Dante. I'm pregnant."
For a long, suspended moment, he said nothing. His hand stayed exactly where she'd placed it, and something moved across his face — shock, first, raw and unguarded, followed by an emotion so overwhelming Elena watched his eyes fill before he could stop them.
"You're certain?"
"Three tests certain." She laughed, half-crying herself now. "I'm certain."
He sank slowly to his knees in front of her, right there in the study, pressing his forehead to her stomach with a reverence that undid her entirely, his shoulders shaking with something that was, unmistakably, quiet and disbelieving joy.
"I never let myself imagine this," he admitted, voice thick, looking up at her from the floor. "A father. A family that wasn't built on debt or fear or my own father's cold arithmetic of usefulness. I didn't think I was allowed to want something this good."
"You're allowed," Elena said softly, threading her fingers through his hair. "You've been allowed this whole time. You just needed someone to show you."
He rose, gathering her against his chest with a gentleness that had nothing to do with the dangerous, controlled Don the rest of the city feared, and held her like something infinitely precious.
"I will never," he said, low and fierce against her hair, "let anything in this world touch either of you.
I built an empire out of protecting what's mine, Elena.
I have never had anything worth protecting more than this. "