“Alex deserves the best a man can give,” Vincenzo added, and both men nodded.
“We have to want to be saved. The only hope is that someone we love, who loves us, will stand by us while we do it.”
She’d been right. So right. Vincenzo hoped with every cell in him that she would still stand by him. That he was worthy of that.
“Now, I would suggest a grand gesture of some sort,” Massimo added, clapping him on the back.
Vincenzo rubbed his eyes and stared at the two men whose forgiveness he still needed to beg. But not yet. Not now. “Cristo, if this is the kind of psychobabble that Alessandra thinks I miss out on by not being one of you, then I shall gladly tell her how wrong she is. I…don’t need a couple of Brunetti bastards to tell me I messed up. Royally.”
“Ha! We came to tell you that you chose a woman who will forgive you almost anything. If you grovel hard enough, V.”
Leo stood up. “Massimo has enough experience with that if you want some guidance.”
Vincenzo looked at them. “This is not easy for me. I’ve never asked anyone for anything in my entire life. I have never—” He stopped and swallowed. “Whatever I have to say, she deserves to hear it first.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
IT WAS PANIC.
It was sheer, unadulterated panic that sat like a boulder in his chest, that crawled up his throat like nausea at regular intervals, which had made him lose his head. Which had made him chase her halfway around the world—the wrong way.
Of course, she hadn’t been in New York. Nor in Milan. Nor in Beijing sourcing fabric.
She was at the place where it had all started. Where, by some stroke of fate, he’d tangled with the woman who would end up becoming his saving grace.
The lush greenery surrounding the small village of Ubud hit Vincenzo with an onslaught of memories as he walked through the villa they had stayed in the last time to the private beach area behind it.
He found her sitting on the massive deck, a glass of water on the table next to her and a paperback on her stomach.
She was sleeping. But not peacefully. Even from the length of the deck, he could see her eyelids fluttering. Her body tensing up.
Guilt raked its fingers through him.
He made his way to her softly, loath to disturb her rest. He was about to sit down when she startled awake.
Her golden-brown eyes found him, only half-awake.
“Hello, Princess.”
“V…?”
She rubbed her eyes, an innocent action that made his chest ache. When she realized he wasn’t a figment of her imagination, she sat up. And her mouth took on the stiff slant he hated.
“You ran away again, bella,” he said, finding that his voice was scratchy. As if he hadn’t used it in months.
“But I told you I was leaving this time,” she said in a low voice. Her chin lifted. “What are you doing here, V? I already told you the hearing for Charlie’s custody is in New York in two weeks.”
“I thought I would accompany you there.”
“I appreciate the consideration but I don’t need it.” The silence bore down upon them. He saw her swallow, as if she was bracing herself. “This polite courtesy needn’t be extended when it’s just the two of us. Hopefully, it will all be over soon. I’ll get custody of Charlie and we don’t need to see each other again.”
“Cristo, Alex! Don’t talk to me as if I’m a stranger.”
“I’m not. I just… I need to be strong. I can’t keep seeing you and stay sane.”
He nodded, that strange fear swallowing away the one thing he needed to say. Instead he said, “How are you feeling?”
“Good. I…I have morning sickness, except it’s all the time. Like morning, noon and night. I…but apparently, it’s normal. For some people.”
“Alessandra—”
“But I’m lonely, you know.” She rubbed her chest as if she could dislodge that ache. “I miss Greta and Leo and Massimo. And Natalie. And Neha and the babies. Did you know she had the babies?”
“Si,” he said, smiling despite the pain in his throat. “They are…healthy and thriving. They are naming them Maya and Matteo. The girl child is especially beautiful, just like her mother—”
“Wait, you went to see them?”
“Si. I…I asked Leo if I could and he said yes.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh.” She looked away, but not before he saw the flash of hope. But when she looked back at him, her eyes were full of a wariness that was like a knife to his chest. “Why?”
He considered answers and discarded them, incredibly nervous for the first time in his life. “I went because I…I knew you would appreciate hearing firsthand how they’re doing. But I also went—” he swallowed “—because that bastard Massimo told me he was going to be the fun uncle they adored and I couldn’t have that.” The words kept coming like a torrent, unchecked. Unabashed. “But then I also thought of what you said. How they’re my niece and nephew and how they’d be our child’s cousins and I realized that I wanted all that for our child.
“I don’t want our child to grow up all alone. Like I did.
“I want him or her to be part of a big family. A clan. A dynasty.”
Tears poured out of his beautiful wife’s eyes. A sound, like the combination of a sob and a moan, came hurtling out of her mouth. Vincenzo went to his knees in front of her. And buried his face in her belly. “Ti amo, Alessandra. With all my heart. Without you, there’s nothing in my world, cara.”
“V, if this is a game again—”
“It is not, bella. I don’t think it ever was a game to me. You felled me from the first moment I met you, Princess. I just didn’t realize exactly what that meant to me all this time.”
He raised his head, his breath suspended at the love he
