Chapter 26
LILIANA
It begins with a scratch at the back of my throat and a heaviness in my limbs that I pretend not to notice, and it turns my thoughts sluggish and hazy.
By the time morning comes, my head aches and my body aches worse. Giovanni notices before I can hide it. He takes one look at me over breakfast, his fork pausing midair, and orders me back to bed as if I am a child who has broken some unspoken rule.
I protest, but it is useless. Within an hour, the curtains in our bedroom are drawn, a tray of tea appears on the nightstand, and Giovanni has appointed himself my jailer.
He sits beside me, checking my temperature every few minutes with the back of his hand, calling for soup, adjusting the blankets as though the fabric itself could cure me. His attention is relentless, suffocating and tender all at once.
By mid-afternoon, the entire house knows I am unwell. Alba arrives with a pot of broth and a string of reassurances in rapid Italian. Camilla follows, her arms full of fresh linens, insisting the bed must be changed so I can rest properly.
Even Tomasso lingers at the doorway, awkward in his concern. Dario would be here, were he not on a mission Giovanni sent him on. Maria hovers too, worry lines furrowed on her forehead.
It is in the middle of all this fuss that the truth slips out.
Giovanni says he wants to go bring the tea the doctor recommended for pregnancy, and Alba’s head snaps up. Her eyes widen, and then she is smiling in a way that fills the whole room. The news spreads before I can stop it.
The first person to reach me is Maria. She rushes in, her dark eyes wide and shining, her hands finding mine instantly.
“Liliana…” She doesn’t finish, her voice catching. She bends over me, kissing my cheek, murmuring blessings in a voice that trembles with happiness.
I squeeze her hands, touched more than I can say.
She'd gotten me that kit, and even though she knew what it was, she didn't question me about it.
I didn't tell her the outcome because I was waiting for the right time, and also because I felt like telling her would jinx the newfound happiness I have with Giovanni.
But she doesn't seem to mind that I didn't tell her. She's not angry. There's only happiness that radiates off her as she smothers me. She has been beside me through every quiet moment, every storm, and now she looks as though this news is her own to celebrate.
Her smile doesn’t fade even as Alba claims her place at my bedside, touching my hair as if I am still a child. Camilla offers congratulations, softer and more sincere than I expect, and Tomasso nods once, a small smile tugging at his mouth.
The room feels warmer somehow, thick with voices and affection. I try to smile back, though my head is heavy and my skin is too warm. A part of me wishes I could have kept it to myself a little longer, just for us. This was not how I imagined everyone finding out.
That night, fever blurs the edges of everything.
Sleep comes fitfully, and with it, a fever dream that claws at my heart.
In it, I'm holding a baby—our baby. He's small and perfect, but his eyes are distant.
When I speak his name, there is no reaction.
I call again, louder, my voice shaking, but still there is nothing.
He's unable to hear my voice or form his own.
He has my ailment, my silence, my isolation. The weight of it crushes me, a fear I’ve never voiced taking shape in the haze. I wake gasping, my cheeks wet, the dream’s grip lingering as I clutch the quilt, my heart pounding.
Giovanni is there instantly, brushing the hair from my forehead, his expression sharp with worry, murmuring soothing words, but I can’t shake the terror, the image of our child trapped in my own struggles.
I sign frantically, my hands trembling. The baby. It cannot hear me. It cannot speak. Get the doctor. I need a scan. Now.
His brows draw together, his hand cupping my face, his voice calm but firm. “It was only a dream. You need to get better first, cara. Rest.”
I shake my head, my hands moving faster, insistent. No. I need to know he's okay. Please.
The dream’s shadow clings, and I can’t let it go, not until I see proof our child is whole.
He tries to soothe me, tells me I should rest first, that the fever is making my thoughts spiral. But I keep signing it, over and over. Please. Please. Please.
He hesitates, his jaw tight, but the desperation in my eyes must sway him, because he nods, pressing a kiss to my forehead before stepping out to make the call.
The doctor arrives within the hour, his bag heavy with equipment, his demeanor calm despite Giovanni’s hovering.
I lie back, the fever now cooling off, as he sets up a laptop and explains it is for the transmission of the portable ultrasound he brought with him.
Giovanni sits beside me, his hand gripping mine, his eyes fixed on the screen as the doctor begins to move the wand over my stomach. The gel is cold against my skin, a sharp contrast to my overheated skin, and I shiver. I hold my breath, fear and hope tangling in my chest.
The screen flickers, and I stare at the two tiny shapes the doctor is pointing to, not understanding what they mean.
“Wow, not one sac,” he says, glancing at Giovanni. “There are two sacs.”
I look at him, certain I have misread his lips. “Two?” I mouth.
He nods, showing me the flickering shapes on the monitor, both strong and steady. The sound booms from the laptop speaker, two fast, separate heartbeats pulsing in rhythm. A miracle I hadn’t dared imagine.
Something in my chest loosens. I am smiling before I realize it, my hand covering my mouth.
Giovanni laughs softly, the sound rich with something I cannot name. His hand finds mine, squeezing. “Twins,” he says, as if tasting the word for the first time.
The joy is real. I feel it in my bones. But beneath it, the shadow of the dream lingers, tainting the moment with worry. Twins. Two lives, two chances for my fears to come true.
I sign, my hands trembling, What about their health? Can you tell?
The doctor shakes his head, his tone gentle. “It’s too early to know, but they look strong.”
Giovanni squeezes my hand, his eyes steady, and I want to believe him, to let his strength anchor me, but the fear is stubborn, rooted deep.
Giovanni dismisses the doctor, his voice quiet but final, and turns to me. He sees it in my face before I can hide it. “What is it?”
I shake my head, but he doesn’t look away. I sign slowly, my fingers careful. What if they are like me?
His answer comes without hesitation. “Then they will be perfect, like you. They’ll be fighters. They’ll be strong. And they’ll have us.”
The words hit harder than I expect. My eyes sting, but I blink quickly, not wanting him to see.
He leans closer, pressing his forehead to mine.
“You are the strongest person I know. Our children will be lucky to be anything like you.” He kisses my temple, his lips warm, and I feel the love he doesn’t say, the love I’ve missed hearing.
The weight of it, of him, of this moment, breaks something open in me.
I close my eyes. The weight in my chest shifts, not gone, but smaller. When I open my eyes, I find him watching me, his expression softer than I have ever seen it. The tightness inside me swells until I can barely breathe.
For so long, the words have lived in silence, pressed into my bones where no one could take them from me. I have held them back out of fear, thinking that if I kept them locked away, they would be safe.
But now, with his hands steadying me, with his voice still echoing in my head, telling me our children will be lucky to be like me, I know they have to come out. If I don’t say them now, I never will.
My lips part, but nothing comes. The air between us feels fragile, as though one wrong breath could shatter it. His eyes never leave mine, patient and searching, and that is what gives me the courage to try again.
When the words finally scrape their way up, they are hesitant, uneven, and raw. “I… l…o..ve yo…u.”
It is the first time I have ever said them to him.
Giovanni stills completely, as if the entire world has gone quiet. He doesn’t blink. He just looks at me, the muscle in his jaw tightening, his eyes dark with something I can’t quite name. For a moment, I think he might not believe he heard me right.
Then, slowly, his mouth curves, not into the easy smirk he uses when he’s amused, but into something deeper.
A smile that feels like it belongs to this moment alone.
His hands come up to cradle my face, his thumbs brushing my cheeks with a tenderness that makes my chest ache.
His voice is rough with emotion. “Say it again.”
The words rise before I can stop them, pressing against my lips, too big to swallow back.
The habit pulls at me, and I sign it first, my hands trembling slightly. I love you.
But that isn’t enough. Not anymore.
I take a breath, steadying my voice, and speak it aloud again. “Ti amo, Giovanni.” This time, my voice is firmer, even if it still breaks at the edges. The words feel too small for everything I mean, but they are all I have.
He’s given me something I never believed I could have. He’s been patient when I made it difficult, unyielding when I tried to push him away, and he has loved me without ever demanding I be anything other than myself. And I am utterly, hopelessly, recklessly in love with him.
The words scrape my throat on the way out, my voice low and rough, but they are steady. “Ti amo, Giovanni.”
For a heartbeat, he doesn’t move. His eyes hold mine, and in them I see everything—relief, hunger, something dangerously close to vulnerability.
Then he kisses me. It's not careful, nor restrained, but with the weight of a man who has been waiting for this and will never let it go. His hands cradle my face as though the words have changed the shape of the world, and maybe they have.
The kiss is deep, claiming, the kind that leaves no space for air or doubt. My fingers curl into his shirt, pulling him closer, and I feel the steady beat of his heart against mine.
It matches the twin rhythms still echoing in my mind from the monitor, two tiny lives tethering us to something bigger than either of us alone.
We stay like that for a long time, the room fading away, the fever, the fear, all of it drowned in the heat of him.
When we finally part, his forehead rests against mine, his breath warm on my lips. For the first time since the sickness began, I feel warm for reasons that have nothing to do with fever. It is the kind of warmth that sinks deep and stays, no matter what storms might come.