Valentino's Love-Child

Tino dressed while Faith was in the shower, and then he made a couple of business calls while she was getting ready. Anything to keep himself from going into her small bedroom and ravishing her body.

For some reason, Faith feared miscarriage. He refused to add to those fears, no matter how difficult it might be to abstain from intimacy with her luscious body. He had to admit, he had no idea that miscarriage was so prevalent in the first trimester.

He did a quick web search on his PDA while he waited for Faith to come out of the bedroom, and discovered some interesting facts.

When she came out, she was wearing a flowing sundress the same peacock blue as her eyes in a halter style that tied around her neck. The deep vee of the neckline accentuated her burgeoning curves, but the dress looked comfortable, as well. Its empire waistline had no binding around her tummy, he noticed.

It would look even more amazing once her stomach started to protrude with the baby. He could not wait.

“Did you know that the risk of miscarriage drops to less than one percent after the first trimester and that there are no studies linking normal sexual activity to the loss of the baby at all?”

She stopped and stared at him for a half second and then laughed. “Tino, you are too much. Did you call the doctor again while I was in the shower?”

Chagrined at the thought that doing so might have carried more weight with her, he shook his head. “Web research.”

“I didn’t realize you knew the password to my computer.”

“I don’t. I used my PDA.”

“Trust you to go right to the heart of the matter, and yes, I did know that. I told you as much, remember?”

“I didn’t know if you realized it held true throughout your pregnancy.”

“I did.”

“Good.”

She just shook her head and went to sit on the love seat she’d used the night before. This time he sat down beside her and pulled her legs into his lap, starting to massage one of her feet.

She gave him a shocked little stare. “Why are you doing that?”

“To make you feel good.”

“But…I’m not exactly huge with child and have aching feet yet, Tino.”

“So, I am getting some practice in. If you do not like it, I will stop.”

She glared. “Don’t you dare. It feels wonderful.”

He smiled, feeling smug. Faith had always loved a good foot rub. “Now, tell me why you are so afraid of losing this baby.”

The look of ecstasy on her face changed to one of deep sorrow tinged with very real fear. “I lose the people I love, Tino. Every single one. I’m not taking any risks with this baby.”

“You have not lost my mother…or my son.” He didn’t mention himself, because in truth, he wasn’t sure she loved him. Even when she had asked him if he could love her, he hadn’t known if she had those kinds of feelings for him, or was asking in the hopes of building something in the future.

“If you had your way, neither of them would be in my life.”

“That is not true.”

“You were angry when you found out I was Gio’s teacher, that your mom is my friend.”

“I was shocked—it made me respond badly—but I would not take them from your life. Even if you were not pregnant with my child.” And he realized that given the choice, he would not have prevented Faith from forming the attachments with his family that she had.

She needed them.

“I believe you. I don’t know why. I shouldn’t, but I do.”

“I am glad. I have never wished ill on you.”

“I know.” She reached out and brushed her fingertips down his arm.

It sent chills through him, but he ignored the stirrings of desire and said, “So you have not lost everyone you love.”

“Every chance I had at family has been snatched from me, Tino.” The remembered agony on her face was enough to unman him. “First my parents, then the one foster home I felt like I belonged. They were hoping to adopt a baby, and when the baby came, they let me go.”

“That is terrible.”

She shrugged, but her pain was there for him to see. “When I lost Taylish and our baby…” Tears filled her eyes and then slid down her cheeks while she tried to compose herself to continue. Finally she choked out, “I figured I must not be meant to have a family.”

“I understand why you might feel that way.” And it broke his heart for her. “But you must realize it is an irrational conclusion to draw. Though you have suffered more tragedy than any woman should have to, you are still alive—you have much to give to a family and much to receive from one.” He took the hand still resting on his arm and kissed her palm, squeezing her fingers tightly. “You are my family now, Faith.”

She pulled her hand away, with apparent reluctance, but did it all the same. “No, I’m not. If I manage to deliver this baby, then I’ll have a family—someone who belongs to me.” More tears and a final choking whisper, “Someone I belong to.”

Her words sliced at his heart, leaving wounds he refused to dwell on in the midst of her sharing such a personal pain. “Marry me and you will have a ready-made son, mother, father and assorted aunts, uncles and cousins.”

She shook her head, her eyes telling him she did not believe. “I won’t have you, will I, Tino?”

“Of course you will have me. I will be your husband.” He could not understand how that could mean not having him.

She just shook her head.

He couldn’t stand it any longer. He pulled her into his lap, wrapping his arms around her. “I cannot imagine how you have survived losing the people you have. You are a strong, beautiful woman, Faith. A woman I would be proud to call my wife.”

He could feel the edges cracking around his promise to Maura, but he could not pull back. Not in the face of Faith’s sorrow.

“You only want to marry me for the baby’s sake.”

“And for your sake and yes, for my sake. I want you, Faith, and maybe you don’t think that is very important, but I have never craved a woman physically the way I do you.”

“Not even Maura?”

“No.” It hurt to admit and shamed him, but Faith deserved the truth. As much as he had loved his wife, she had not elicited the same sense of soul-deep need for physical oneness that the woman in his arms did.

“I don’t want to lose any more family,” Faith said in a pained undertone.

“You will not lose this baby. You will not lose me.”

“You can’t know that.”

“And you are not a person who gives up on life because of fear, or you would have given up already.” He held her tightly to him. “There is also the baby to consider. We can give her more stability as a married couple, cara, than simply living as house mates.”

“Her?”

“I can think of nothing I would like better than a daughter who takes after her spirited and beautiful mama.”

“Don’t say things like that.”

“I cannot help it.”

“But…”

“I am not only thinking of the baby.” He had to convince Faith to marry him.

“Who else?”

“My mother. You carry her grandbaby inside you. She will not be happy if you do not marry me.”

“Your mother knows you better than I do, she will understand.”

Tino managed a laugh at the implied insult, despite the heavy emotions surrounding them. “No, she will take it quite personally and will be heartbroken if you refuse to make yourself her daughter-in-law.”

“I cannot marry you because it will make Agata happy.”

“What about Giosue?”

Faith flinched, her beautiful blue eyes clouding. “You said he deserves someone better than me.”

“I did not.”

“You did. You want to give him a Sicilian stepmother, so he will have someone at least that much like his real mother.”

Hearing his own reasoning quoted back to him was not pleasant i

n this instance. How could he have said that to Faith, even if he had believed it at the time? Once again that morning, he felt shame. “My son does not agree. He does not want a traditional Sicilian woman for a stepmother. He wants a free-spirited artist who loves children enough to teach them though it is a mixed blessing for her because being around those children reminds her of what she has lost.”

Faith buried her face in his chest. “You said you do not know me.”

“Maybe I know you better than either of us thinks.” That thought was not an unpleasant one. “Can you do it?”

She did not ask what he meant, but he explained anyway. “Can you marry for the sake of our child, for the sake of my mother and your dear friend, for the sake of Giosue’s happiness, a little boy you already love? For the sake of your own inner strength that sees beauty and joy in a world that has already taken so much from you? Can you marry me because it is the right thing to do?”

She swallowed and spoke. “Ask me again in two weeks.” Her voice was barely above a whisper, as if forcing the words out had been difficult.

“Why two weeks?” he asked, rubbing her back and marveling anew at her resiliency.

He had never known another person like Faith. She amazed him, never more so than today after he heard the short version of her life story.

“My first trimester will be over.”

“What has that got to do with anything?”

She sat up and looked away from him, her gaze going to the view out the sunroom’s floor-to-ceiling windows. “You only want to marry me because I am pregnant with your child. If that pregnancy ends, you would resent the fact we had married because of it.”

“What is all this negative talk? You are not going to lose our baby. If you want to go without sex until you feel it is safe, I will not argue. But I refuse to consider the possibility of future miscarriage in making the decision about marriage. You are not going to lose us.”

She was looking at him now, her eyes wide but no longer spilling over with tears. “You can’t promise that.”