Valentino's Love-Child

Petrified for the first time in his life, sweating through his expensive shirt, he’d rushed into the room. Maura had been so damn pale and completely motionless. He’d taken her lifeless hand, his heart ceasing at its coolness. He had begged her to wake up, to speak to him, to squeeze his hand—anything.

But nothing. Not then. Not later. No fluttering eyelids. No half-formed words. No goodbyes. Absolutely nothing.

The only sounds had come from him—his desperate pleas and constant talking until his voice was no more than a horse whisper in hopes of sparking a connection to her shut-down brain—and from the machines hooked up to her. Machines and medications that had been unsuccessful at saving her life.

Her first discernable diabetic attack had been her last. Nothing the doctors did brought her blood sugars under control and she died without coming out of the coma.

He’d spent every minute with her, but it had done no good. And when she’d gone into cardiac arrest, the doctors had called security to force him from the room. He’d been in another country when she fell into the coma and out in the hall when she let go of life.

The doctors said her reaction to the disease was extremely rare. But not rare enough, was it? His wife, the mother of his child was dead and nothing would ever change that.

He would never forget the rage, the grief and the utter helplessness he felt holding his small son in his arms as they said goodbye to her. He had promised then, standing over her grave, holding their sobbing son who just wanted his mama. Valentino had promised he would never stop loving her, that he would never replace her in his heart.

Valentino Grisafi had never broken a promise and he wasn’t about to start now.

This thing with Faith had to get back on track, or it had to end.

There simply was no other option. No matter what he might want or think he needed.

CHAPTER FIVE

TRUE to his word, Faith did not see Tino again while Agata and Rocco were in Naples. There were no more phone calls, either.

She didn’t expect there to be.

Tino wasn’t going to accept the change in their relationship gracefully. If he accepted it at all. She had to believe he would though.

Especially after allowing him to make love to her that night. Not that she’d had a lot of choice. Once he set his course on seduction, she was a goner. She loved him. Needed him. While that truth scared her to death, she didn’t try to deny it. Self-deception was not something she indulged in. She’d accepted the physical intimacy because it substituted for the emotional connection she craved after learning she carried his baby. And sometimes, when he made love to her, she actually felt loved by him—if only for that short while.

It was that simple. And that complicated.

But maybe it was on the way to something better…something truly more.

He had initiated the shift in their relationship in the first place. Initially, sleeping all night with her in his apartment in Marsala, and then making love to her in his family home. That reality mitigated her fears for their future, although it did not completely rid her of them.

He might not want to admit it, but he was already thinking about her in broader terms than simply his “current convenient partner.” They’d been exclusive from the very beginning—something they had both insisted on. Add that to how well she fit with his family and their friendship and they had a strong basis for a lasting relationship. The fact that she loved him would only make it easier to raise a family with him.

Even if he never came to love her as he’d loved Maura, it would be enough to be his wife and mother of his children. She had never expected to have this much claim to family again. She certainly did not expect it all.

Not after everything she had lost.

Besides, she’d never loved Taylish like she loved Tino, but he’d been happy in their marriage. Content to have her loving commitment if not her passion.

There were times she knew he had wanted more, but he’d never regretted their marriage. Only leaving it in death. He’d told her so, just before breathing his last.

But she didn’t want to remember that day. It belonged in her past—along with the two families she’d lost. The only real families she’d ever had. Until now.

Her current hopes and dreams were reflected in the series of joy-filled family centric sculptures she did over the next week.

Agata called her when the older couple returned from the continent. Faith did not tell her about having dinner with Tino and Giosue, leaving that bit of information for them to reveal. She also avoided having Agata come to her studio the following week. She did not want Tino’s mother to see the revealing pieces of art before Faith had a chance to tell him of his impending fatherhood.

Every day that went by and she did not hear from him, she missed him more. She wanted to share the miracle of her pregnancy with him, but it was important to give him space. He had to come to terms on his own with the new parameters of their relationship.

However, when the silence between them stretched a week beyond his parents’ return, she called him. Only to discover he’d had to fly to New York to meet with his brother and a potential client. She tried his cell phone, but the call went straight to voice mail. After that had happened a couple of times, once very late in the evening, she figured out he was avoiding her with diligence.

It bothered her, feeling a lot like rejection. She clung to the knowledge that if he wanted to break it off with her, he would do so definitively. He would not simply begin avoiding her like an adolescent. No, he was just struggling with the changes between them more than she’d anticipated.

It made her nervous about how he might react to the news of her pregnancy. Thankfully, he was as Sicilian as a man could get. Some might think that meant unreconstructed male, but she knew that for Tino that translated into an all-out love for family and children especially. He might not be thrilled about her new role in his life, but he would be happy about the baby. Being the traditional Sicilian that he was, it would never occur to him to seek a relationship with the child that excluded her.

Thank goodness.

His desire to marry a Sicilian woman if he ever did remarry worried her a little, but he would just have to buck up and deal with it like a grown-up. It wasn’t as if he objected to her personally. He liked her as much outside the bedroom as in it. She was sure of it. Even at his apartment they did not spend all their time in bed together.

And when they were in bed, they didn’t only have sex. They talked. Not about anything personal, but about politics, faith, what they thought of the latest news, his business—the types of things you didn’t talk about with a bare acquaintance.

He might know much about her art career, but he knew her stance on environmentalism, government deficits, latch-key children and his desire to dominate his own corner of the upscale wine market.

Right now, though, he had to adjust to the fact that she was a part of his family’s life and a bigger part of his than he had intended when they first got together.

In the meantime, she agreed to join Agata for lunch at the Vineyard.

A day earlier than he had told his family to expect him, Valentino pulled his car into his spot in the newer multicar garage he’d had built to the side of the house when he married Maura. So she could keep her car parked inside for her comfort. She’d teased him about spoiling her, but it had been so easy to do. His dead wife had been a very sweet woman.

Much like Faith.

He sighed at the thought, frustrated with himself.

The trip to New York had been longer than he wanted or expected, though it had one side benefit. It had made it easier to distance himself from Faith. Though forwarding her calls directly to voice mail had taken a larger measure of self-control than he would have expected. Much larger.

Which only went to show that he had to become serious about getting their relationship back on track.

Or he would have to let her go, and that was not something he wanted to do.

r />

The craving he felt to hear her voice filled him with anger at himself along with a sense of helplessness he refused to give in to. He had been fighting the urge to sleep all night with her since the beginning. Never before had he been tempted not to be home in the morning for his son to wake up to because of a woman. He’d known giving in would come with a cost, but he had not expected it to be his sanity.

It had felt right taking her to his bed in the family home. Too right. Now he questioned his intelligence in doing so. For that insanely stupid choice had come at an emotional cost, as well, one he had no right to pay.

If he were a truly honorable man, he would let her go completely. He’d told himself so over and over again while in New York. What did it say for his inner strength that he could not do it?

Certainly it was nothing to be proud of.

Physically distancing himself from her was not the same as regrouped emotions, he had learned. His need to see her grew with each day even as he fought it. He might have won, but he hungered for not only the sound of her voice, but the shiver of her laughter and the feel of her skin. He was like a drug addict shaking for his next fix.

It would be a couple of days at least before he could go to her, too. Agonizing days if those in New York were anything to go by. But Gio had missed his papa and had to be Valentino’s first consideration.

Of course, if he left when his son was sleeping, Gio would be missing nothing.

The thought derailed from its already shaky tracks as he recognized the melodious laughter mingled with his mother’s voice coming from the terrace. He stood frozen, uncharacteristically unsure of what to do. No doubts about what he wanted to do. He wanted to see Faith. But what should he do?

His decision was taken from him by his mother’s voice. “Valentino, figlio mio, is that you?”

“Si, Mama. It is me.”

“Come out here.”

He had no choice but to obey. He might be thirty years old, but a Sicilian man knew better than to dismiss a direct command from his mother. It would hurt her and cause her distress. Hurting those he loved was something he avoided at all costs. Even when it was his peace of mind at stake, like now.

Walking out onto the terrace, he found not only his mother and Faith, but his father and Giosue as well.