“So, she’s okay? She’s stable?”
“I wasn’t given any information about her condition, only that she’s to be closely monitored.” The nurse hesitated. “Would you like to see your son, though? I can take you to him until you’re able to join your wife.”
Brando stood at the window of the neonatal intensive care unit staring at his son in the Isolette. His son looked tiny and red-faced, swaddled in a blue-and-white blanket with a little blue knit cap on his head.
A nurse joined him outside the window to explain that the incubator was protecting the baby from infections, allergens and excessive noise. He’d had a stressful delivery and the hospital was doing what it could to regulate his environment with optimum oxygen, humidity and warmth. “It’s a lot to go from his mother into the outside world,” the nurse said with a smile. “But overall he’s doing well.” She shot him a side-glance. “It’s his mother we’re worrying about. How is she?”
“I don’t know yet. I’m supposed to go to her once she’s in recovery.”
“Let me make a call.”
The wait again felt endless, and Brando stared at his son, unable to imagine his child growing up without his mother. Without Charlotte.
He couldn’t imagine life without Charlotte. She was meant to be with him, part of everything. She was part of him. How could she go? How could there be a future without her?
Brando’s gut burned, and the fire spread to his chest, creating a searing pain. None of this made sense.
How had they even gotten to this point?
And yet how had he thought this would turn out?
The nurse returned. “I’ll take you to her.”
Charlotte might have been taken to recovery from surgery, but she wasn’t awake. She lay utterly still, her skin so pale that it looked like alabaster. Tubes were attached, as well as machines that monitored her.
Her long hair had been gathered into a side ponytail, the vivid gold strands the only color against the white sheets.
The nurse who’d walked him to ICU stood next to him for a moment. “She’ll remain sedated for some time,” she said quietly. “Don’t expect anything.”
Brando gave a brief nod that he’d heard the nurse, but he couldn’t look away from his wife. He still couldn’t process it all. That she’d been with Livia all this time. That his family had been taking her meals and keeping her company. That even his mother had been to see her.
Everyone had been with her but him.
The nurse silently slipped out and Brando drew a chair close to the bed. He watched the shallow rise and fall of her chest, watched the pulse at the base of her throat, watched the monitors measuring her every breath and beat of her heart.
She looked so small and fragile. So terribly alone.
Regret filled him, regret and pain. He’d caused her pain, and everyone could see it, and everyone could feel it, and everyone wanted to do something about it...everyone, it seemed, but him.
Brando slipped his hand through the tubes and cords and covered her hand with his, careful not to bump or disturb anything attached to her.
Carefully, gently he squeezed her hand. Of course, there was no response, and yet her very lack of response drove home how vulnerable she was. How vulnerable they all were.
“We made a beautiful baby,” he said to her, voice low and rough. “He’s in the nursery where they’re taking good care of him. But he needs you, cara. You are his everything. You’re the only one he knows. You’re the only one he loves. He trusts you. He depends on you. Don’t leave him, Charlotte. Don’t break his heart.”
There was no response from her, no flicker of her eyelids, no movement in her fingers. She was so still it was as if she was no longer there.
And yet she was here. She was somewhere in there, resting, quiet, waiting.
Waiting for what?
He thought of Livia’s words. But was there love?
He’d answered that of course there was love. He married her. He was starting a family with her.
Charlotte loves you, so much I think she’s dying because her heart is breaking...
But that didn’t make sense. He loved Charlotte. It’s why he’d followed her to Los Angeles. It’s why he wanted her in his life—forever. How could she not know how he felt? How could she not believe he cared deeply?
He stood up, and leaned over her, gently kissing her forehead. “It’s not just the baby that needs you, cara. I need you,” he whispered, his lips brushing her cheek, and then her lips. “I love you. I always have. I always will. Now come back to me. You’ve made your point. I’m paying attention. Give me a chance to make it right.”
She woke late that night, groggy and weak, but her eyes opened, and she saw him and for a long moment just stared at him. “The baby?” she croaked, voice raspy. “How is he?”
Brando left the chair he’d been in all day, all night, and stood next to her. “Good. But he’ll probably be happier once he’s with you.”
“He’s really all right?”
“Yes.” He could see the fear in her eyes as well as the extreme fatigue. She’d been given transfusions, but she was still pale, dark shadows etched beneath her eyes. “You’re the one we’re worrying about.”
“I’m fine.”
And yet her voice sounded hollow and there was no light in her eyes. She wasn’t fine. She hurt. She didn’t feel safe, didn’t feel loved. He felt an ache in his chest, hating that all this time he’d caused her so much pain. “I have missed you,” he said. “I looked for you everywhere. I called everyone in your family. No one knew where you were.”
“Hiding right beneath your nose,” she answered.
“I’ve been worried sick.”
“I took no risks. I kept all my doctor appointments. Your family has been really good to me.”
He felt another lance of pain. “I should have been the one taking good care of you.”
“I don’t think we belong together—”
“But we do,” he interrupted quietly, firmly. “I haven’t expressed my feelings properly, and I apologize, and vow to become better, and more communicative, but you must know that just because I struggle with words, doesn’t mean I don’t feel, and don’t care. Charlotte, I love you. I care for you so much that I can’t imagine a future without you in it. I don’t want a future without you in it. You are my future.”
Her head turned and she looked up at him, her eyes slowly filling with tears. “You have your son now. You don’t need me. I did my job. I gave you what you wanted. Now I just want you to let me go.”
“Cara, baby.”
The tears shimmered in her eyes, turning the blue irises aqua. “I can’t live like this anymore.” Her eyes closed, and a tear spilled. “I don’t want to live like this. Let me go.”
“I love you, Charlotte.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
He bent over her and wiped away the tear before kissing her near the corner of her mouth. Her lips trembled. “I love you, Charlotte.”
Another tear slipped free. He wiped that one, too. “I love you, Charlotte,” he repeated.
“They’re just words.”
“But they’re the words you needed to hear, and I should have told you. I should have said them before, not just once, but over and over, until you felt safe, and loved. Because you are
loved. You are my heart, Charlotte. Come back to me. Stay with me. Give me a chance to show you I’m the one for you.”
Her mouth quivered as she gave her head a faint shake. “I can’t do more pain.”
“There’s no more pain. We’ve done that part already. It’s time for happiness. Time for love. Time for change. I promise. I swear. I give you my word.”
Her eyes slowly opened and she looked at him. “I don’t want your word. I want your heart.”
“You have it, cara. You have all of it.”
“Why do you feel now, but you didn’t before?”
He used the pad of his thumb to dry her cheek. “I feel. I’ve always felt things, sometimes so strongly that I keep those emotions under lock and key.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “I was the youngest in a big family. Everyone else was important. Everyone else had a voice. I was the baby, dismissed as shallow and silly, a boy with a pretty face. I learned to hide things, especially the things that affected me deeply. It’s become a terrible habit, and I promise to never again shut you out.”
Her hand reached for his. Her fingers circled his. “I need to know how you feel. We need to know, your baby and me.”
“Our baby,” he corrected. “And, yes, I agree.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IT WAS A week before she was released from the hospital but now they were all back at the castello, a family having come home.
The grapes were close to being harvested, and the days were long and warm. During the morning and early afternoon, Brando was in the fields, and with his winemakers, but late afternoon he always returned to her. Now Charlotte drowsed in the lounge chair beneath an umbrella by the pool, their newborn asleep on her chest, while Brando swam laps. She could hear the lazy hum of bees in the flowers in the big terra-cotta pots and the warble of a distant bird. Now and then she opened her eyes to watch him swim, marveling at the ripple of bronzed skin and muscle against the sparkling water.
He was magnificent.