Ricardo
Chapter Thirty Six
Victoria knocks briefly, then enters my study.
Every man in the room turns toward her.
She does not flinch beneath the attention. Even exhausted, even pale from a night no pregnant woman should have had to endure, she carries herself with grace.
Mario moves toward her. “Victoria.”
“She’s awake,” she says to me.
My body reacts before my mind catches up. I step away from the desk, the argument.
“Is she all right?” I ask.
Victoria’s eyes come to mine.
There is something in them.
Not panic.
Concern, yes. Tenderness, yes. But something else too, something that makes every thought in my head narrow to a point.
“She wants to speak with you,” Victoria says.
Mario studies his wife’s face, and I see the moment he catches whatever I have caught. His jaw shifts. His hand lowers from where it had been resting against the edge of the desk.
“Did something happen?” he asks.
Victoria’s gaze flicks to him briefly, then back to me. “She needs Ricardo.”
That is enough.
I am already moving.
The hallway outside the study is guarded. Two of my people stand near the front entrance, another near the stairwell, and one more at the back corridor leading toward the kitchen and service rooms. My house has never felt less like a home, but right now I am grateful for every weapon inside it.
I take the stairs quickly, then force myself to slow before I reach my bedroom door.
Julia has endured enough startling entries.
I knock once.
“Come in,” she says.
Her voice is soft. Tired. Rough around the edges.
I open the door.
She is standing near the window in the clothes Victoria brought for her, black leggings and a cream sweater that doesn't quite fit her. Her hair is brushed and loose around her face. She looks fragile in the morning light, but there is steel in her even now. I saw it in the hospital. I saw it when she spoke Harrison’s name with Dante’s blood still on her.
I close the door behind me.
For one second, neither of us moves.
Then I cross to her.
My hands settle at her waist, then her arms, then her face.
“Cuore mio,” I say tenderly.
Her mouth trembles.
“I’m sorry I pulled you away from downstairs.”
“Nothing downstairs matters more than you.”
She looks down, and both hands close around the sleeves of her sweater. Her fingers twist in the knit, tightening until her knuckles pale.
“What is it?” I ask, putting one gentle finger under her chin to tilt her head up.
“I woke up sick this morning,” she says.
“I'm sorry for that,” I say, sympathetic. “Do you want me to call the doctor?”
She shakes her head.
“It's not the first time. I thought it was stress. The gala and Dante. Then last night. I kept explaining it away because there was always something to blame.” Her eyes meet mine. “It was easier, I guess, than admitting the truth.”
My heart stops.
“Victoria offered to get me a test.”
I cannot breathe.
I have faced guns, betrayal, blood, men begging, men lying, men dying with their secrets spilled on the floor in front of me. I have stood beside my son’s hospital bed and ordered him to stay alive because I could do nothing else.
None of it prepares me for Julia standing in my bedroom, terrified and brave, about to change my entire world once again.
“It was positive,” she whispers.
I stare at her.
At her pale face. Her swollen eyes. Her trembling mouth. Her hands twisted in the sweater.
Pregnant.
Julia is pregnant.
With my child.
The thought is too vast to fit inside me along with all that rage, fear, strategy, or any language I know.
For a moment, Harrison disappears. Luca disappears.
The Winthrops, the men in her apartment, the blood, the study downstairs, all of it falls away in the face of the impossible fact standing before me now.
My child.
Our child.
Then the world comes back all at once.
Julia is standing in front of me, carrying my child while danger circles close enough to leave roses on her table.
My hands tighten slightly against her face before I make them soften.
“I know,” she says quickly. “I know this is horrible timing. I know Dante is in the hospital, and you’re dealing with Harrison, and Mario is downstairs, and I don’t even know how far along I am.
I haven’t seen a doctor. It could be early.
I don’t know anything except what the test said, and I know you already have so much—”
“Julia.”
She stops.
I brush my thumbs beneath her eyes, caressing the redness where tears fell for my son.
“Come here.”
Her face crumples, and I pull her into my arms.
She grips me hard, burying her face against my chest. I hold her carefully at first, then closer when she starts trembling, one hand spread over her back and the other cradling the back of her head.
For several breaths, I say nothing.
I let myself feel it because denying it would be useless.
Fear, first. Sharp enough to cut bone.
Wonder beneath it, so powerful it almost frightens me more.
Then love, fierce and immediate, not only for Julia, but for the life she has just placed in my hands.
I press my mouth to her hair.
“I wish you had told me the second you suspected,” I say, but gently, because the words come from fear and she deserves truth without punishment.
“I didn’t suspect. Not really. I kept thinking there had to be another reason. And then I just couldn't deny it any longer.”
She pulls back just enough to look at me. “Are you angry?”
“Yes.”
Her face pinches.
I take her chin lightly and make sure she sees me clearly.
“At Harrison. At the men in your apartment. At every circumstance that put you in danger while you were carrying my child.”
My voice roughens, but I keep it low. “I am angry enough to burn the world down, cuore mio, but none of that anger is for you.”
Her mouth trembles.
“I’m scared,” she whispers.
“So am I.”
She blinks as if the admission startles her.
Good. Let her see it.
“I am terrified,” I say. “Dante is in a hospital bed. You were almost taken from me last night. And now there is a child.” My hand lowers slowly, giving her time to move away if she wants to.
She does not.
When my palm rests low over her stomach, both of us go utterly still.
There is nothing to feel. It is too soon. Her body is warm beneath the sweater, soft under my hand, and still the contact alters something in me so completely that I almost have to close my eyes.
A child.
Mine.
Ours.
Julia’s hand covers mine.
“I didn’t want to keep it from you,” she says. “Victoria said you needed to know before you did anything about Harrison.”
Victoria is right, of course.
Mario chose well, even if I will never say that aloud because he would become intolerable.
“She was right.”
Julia searches my face. “You don’t think it’s too much right now?”
A tear slips down her cheek.
I catch it with my thumb.
“Life does not ask whether we are ready before it changes us,” I say. “And this child is not too much. You are not too much. Do you understand me?”
She lets out a broken breath. “I’m trying to.”
I bend and press my forehead to hers. “Try harder.”
A tiny laugh leaves her.
There she is.
Even now.
“For years,” I say quietly, “I believed Dante would be the only child I would ever have.”
Her fingers tighten around mine.
“I never thought…” I stop because the words do not come easily. Not with Dante hurt. Not with Harrison alive. Not with my heart split between a hospital room and this bedroom.
Julia waits.
I force the truth out because she gave me hers.
“I never thought I would want the possibility again,” I say. “Then you walked into Mario’s office and made me feel old, foolish, hungry, and alive, all in the same breath.”
Her eyes fill again, but not with tears. With feeling.
“Ricardo.”
“And now you are standing in my room, carrying something I did not know I was still allowed to want.”
“I love you,” she whispers. “Is that crazy?”
“Yes,” I say, smiling. “I'm not sure I deserve it, but I love you too.”
I pull her to me and kiss her.
Downstairs, my brothers and nephews are waiting.
Harrison is waiting too, though he does not know it yet.
The Winthrops, the East Coast, Luca, every old family name and political machine Julia warned me about, all of them can wait a few more minutes.
Because right now, my family comes first.
When we pull apart, I tell her. “You need a doctor.”
She looks down at our joined hands. “I don’t want to stay here today.”
“Julia—”
“I know this house is safer,” she says quickly. “I know that. But Dante is at the hospital, and if he wakes up, I want to be there.”
She continues before I can speak.
“I need to be there. Last night, I promised him that I'm still the same person. That I would not let another relationship change me or change what we have. Don't make me break that promise.”
Those words cut through every argument on my tongue.
I let out a sharp exhale. “All right.”
Her breath catches. “All right?”
“You will go to the hospital,” I say. “With me. With security. You will stay where I put you unless there is a reason to move. You will eat what you can. You will tell me if you feel sick, dizzy, or weak.”
“That’s a lot of conditions.”
“There will be more in the car.”
A small smile moves across her lips.
It nearly brings me to my knees.
“And the doctor?” she asks.
“I will arrange to have a proper test done at the hospital.”
Her hand covers mine where it still rests on her stomach.
I kiss her gently.
Then I offer her my hand.
“Come,” I say. “We go to Dante.”