“Well, where is it, lottatrice? Or…” he waggled his brows and sat up to push his face into the valley between my breasts. “Are you my present?”
I screeched with laughter as he held my breasts together and motorboated me. “Okay, enough! I’m going to have to sit over there if you can’t take control yourself.”
“That might be best,” he admitted, eyes sparkling like an entire universe built just for me.
I scooted over to the other side of the bed and retrieved the small box I’d wrapped. He took it eagerly, making love bubble up in my chest. He was a killer, a mafia Don, the scariest man I’d ever known. But to me, he was just this, boyish and charming and so handsome it hurt.
He frowned when he opened it to reveal a key.
“Grazie?” he asked.
Thank you?
“It opens something in the house,” I told him, getting out of bed and grabbing my robe in case Rora was already awake. “I wonder if you can find it.”
His eyes lit with the challenge and he took my hand to practically drag me out of the room. I laughed as he searched, trying to open drawers in the office and the kitchen.
When he got to the second floor, my stomach erupted with butterflies.
I held my breath as he tried to open the door to my old room, the one I’d first stayed in when he’d blackmailed me into moving in.
It didn’t open.
Dante turned to look at me with raised brows before he slid the key into the lock and turned.
I followed him as he stepped inside then came to an abrupt stop when he did. I slid between his body and the wall so I could look at his face as he took in what I’d done with the room.
It was a nursery now.
The walls the same light grey like we were inside a cloud and the furniture made to match the theme. The cribs were white with thick cushions, the rocking chair in the corner a dark grey boucle, the carpet beneath that a silvery blue. Giselle had even come over to paint clouds on the ceiling, a beautifully detailed mural of a twilight sky dotted with fat clouds and the first twinkling stars that came out at night.
It was like being on the inside of a tiny universe.
But I wasn’t arrested by the room.
I was fascinated by the look on my husband’s face.
He had the kind of power that captivated people and terrified them in equal measure. He was a storm, the lashing of wind and rain, the unique, palpable beauty of lightning strike and the terror of not knowing where it would land. He was a big man, a brutish one in build and sometimes, in action, but there was nothing intimidating about him in that moment, nothing that spoke of violence or harshness in any form.
The planes of his strong face were soaked in the dawn sunlight pouring in through the windows, highlighting the soft, open set of his mouth as if he had parted it to say something, but immediately forgotten the words. His brows were heavy, almost compressed as if in confusion, but it was his eyes that stole what breath was left in my lungs.
Because they were lacquered with tears that brimmed precariously in the troughs of his lower lids, catching in his thick lashes.
“Elena,” he called roughly, clearing his throat, but otherwise still as a statue.
“Yes, Capo.”
“Vieni.”
I obeyed, stepping close enough so that he could reverently corral me into his embrace. When he tipped his head down to look at me, the tears spilled like diamonds from his black velvet eyes. One fell on my cheek and felt like an anointment.
“Are you really?” he asked, his voice so ravaged it was almost hard to discern the question. “Are you having our baby?”
I didn’t notice I was crying until one of his rough tipped thumbs brushed across my cheekbone, collecting the wet there.
I nodded because my voice was lost somewhere in the chaos of emotion storming my chest.
He closed his eyes then, slowly as if in pain, or maybe, as if his prayers had finally come true and he couldn’t believe it was real. Gently, he pressed his forehead to mine and cupped my face as if it was fragile like an eggshell.
“You’re pregnant,” he confirmed on a shaky sigh. “With our baby.”
“I am, but there is a second part of your present.” I pulled away, but he wouldn’t let me go so I lead him with an arm around the waist to the other present I’d wrapped and placed on the ottoman before the rocking chair.
He sat down in the seat, tugging me so I fell into his lap. I grabbed the gift on the way, passing it into his hands as I curled up safe against his big body.
His hands shook as they opened the box.
Inside, there was a small black and white photo of the ultrasound Monica had given me two weeks before.
A photo of two, tiny, perfect bodies curled up together like yin and yang.
“We’re going to have twins,” I whispered, in case he couldn’t tell from the ultrasound photo. “They seem to run in my family.”
Dante stared at photo with such intensity it was palpable in the air around us. Tears fell from his eyes and sluiced down his cheeks, quick and silent. He seemed transfixed, unable to bear the amount of emotion coursing through his body.
I pressed my cheek to his heart and felt its racing beat.
“I always said I wasn’t a lucky man,” he finally murmured, his throat sticky with tears so his words were rough-edged. “I won’t say that ever again.”
Tears burned so hot in my eyes I had to close them as I curled even tighter in his lap, wrapped my arms around his neck and clutched him to me.
We cried then, silent and strong, for a long time.
We’d been trying for years, from that first time on the hood of the Ferrari in the garage, and nothing.
So, we’d gone to Monica two years ago and started hormone treatments.
Still nothing.
We had Aurora, who was everything, so we didn’t let it depress us as much as it could have, but it was hard when I’d always wanted to carry my only child, when I wanted so badly to see a baby with Dante’s black hair and lightly dimpled chin.
Last year, we tried IVF.
It didn’t take either time.
So, we stopped.
I was tired. Dante was tired.
Even poor Aurora was tired of praying for a baby brother or sister that didn’t seem to want to come.
We stopped trying and then, somehow, it happened.
I’d asked Monica about it and she said it was actually fairly common. That the stress of trying to procreate could keep it from happening. When we gave up, we released that tension.
I had a slightly more romantic theory.
Our babies were always meant to be ours, but like their papa and mama, they were stubborn and they took their time coming to us.
I didn’t care about the heartaches we’d endured to get to this point. Dante had taught me that every single decision in your life was leading to something, was leading to exactly where you needed to be at the moment.
And this moment, for us, was a miracle.
“Good luck topping this birthday present next year, cuore mia,” Dante quipped after we’d both composed ourselves and just sat quietly rocking back and forth in our babies’ rooms.
I laughed a little wetly as I tipped my head back to look up at his handsome face and scratch my nails down his bristly jaw. “I had to try to top yours from when you made Rora our daughter legally, but I think this one might take the cake.”
“I’m okay with that. More than okay.” He dipped down to kiss me, our lips salty from tears, his soft and firm as they parted my mouth for his tongue. He kissed me sweetly, but thoroughly, until I ached for him. “Do you know how much I love you, lottatrice mia?”