"Yes, you should have done, but we were both so caught up in thinking the worst. I should have trusted you enough to take care of my problems. Instead I ruined it all by letting my insecurities get in the way of what we had. I was a fool."
"No, I was the fool."
"No, I was."
"No, I was, cara mia."
"Oh, Dio santo." Stella's exasperated voice interrupted their argument. "Just kiss the girl already and make up, or so help me, I will bash your foolish heads together."
Stella stood in the doorway, hands on hips, Elise and Kitty behind her wearing identical amused grins.
"Do you mind, Zia Stella? I'm trying to tell my wife that I love her."
Giorgio's deep rumble settled inside Jemima's heart, and happiness spread through her veins like wildfire.
"Since when do declarations of love involve arguing?" She bustled farther into the room, and cuffed a startled Giorgio around the head, as though he was a little boy who she'd caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
"As you seem incapable I shall do it for you." Stella focused her attention on her, and Jemima couldn't hide her amusement at the mischievous twinkle in the older woman's eyes.
"While I quite agree that my nephew is a fool, and I hereby give you permission to make him pay for his foolishness for the rest of his natural days, he's also head over in heels with love you. Now it would help all of us greatly if you could just tell him that you love him, too, so we can get on with more important things, like choosing a name for my great-nephew." She pointed at Jemima's stomach and smiled. "And of course, then there is the matter of choosing an outfit for you to go home in. Hospital nighties are so not chic, dear girl."
Giorgio groaned, and Jemima giggled. He looked at her and rolled his eyes, but it was the uncertain expression on his face and the tight set of his shoulders that gave him away. There were love and heat and hope in his eyes, and Jemima's heart soared. She lost herself in his steely gaze until the rest of the room faded away, and it was just the two of them looking into each other's souls, and finding the missing part to complete them.
" Ti amo così tanto, cara mia."
Jemima blinked her tears of happiness away, and Giorgio smiled at her whispered reply.
"I love you, too."
The room erupted in cheers when Giorgio kissed her, and he groaned his frustration into her neck.
"I may just have to kill my family though."
Epilogue
Pain radiated up his arm, and Giorgio was convinced his fingers were broken in several places. He swallowed a curse and breathed a sigh of relief when the contraction finished and Jemima released her vise-like grip on his abused hand. He flexed his fingers and doubled over as pain exploded in his balls instead.
"I'm going to fucking kill you, if you so much as come near me ever again." Jemima screamed at him, her complexion mottled and red, and she yanked the washcloth Elise tried to put on her forehead away with such force that it flew across the room and hit the opposite wall with a loud squelch. It stayed there for a few seconds, and then slowly slid to the floor, leaving a wet trail in its wake.
Gasping for breath Giorgio managed to dodge another punch to his groin by mere seconds. The midwife just laughed, and Jemima growled and grunted as another contraction hit. She searched for his hand, and her whole body tensed with the force of the pain turning her tummy rigid.
"Breathe, cara mia, breathe. Remember our classes."
"I am fucking breathing, you moron. What the hell do you think I'm doing? Going for a fucking stroll by the sea side? Oh no … not again. Fuck, it hurts."
Another contraction hit, before the last one had even fully abated, and Jemima screamed her distress. Giorgio, too, wanted to howl and throw something, anything to stop the pain she was in. This couldn't be normal? This had been going on for hours. How much more could she take? Yet, Elise and the midwife simply smiled at him.
"Nooooo, I can't do this. I'm going home. I can't … I don't want to … I can't." Words merged into each other, so that she didn't make any sense at all. Sweat ran down Giorgio's back, and just when he thought he was going to hit the fool of a midwife, the screams stopped. Jemima went quiet and then started grunting. Deep, animalistic sounds he never would have thought any human being capable of making, let alone his wife. Jemima's temper had progressively gotten worse the further her pregnancy had progressed, but this demented sound, no, that couldn't be normal.
"You want to get down to the business end, daddy. It won't be long now."
"What? But, you mean…?" Giorgio's tongue tripped up over the words as the significance of what was about to happen hit him.
"That's a good girl … beautiful … keep it coming, keep it coming. That's my girl. You're doing so well. I can see the head. One more big push with the next pain and we'll have the head out I reckon. Come and see, dad."
Sure enough, as Jemima bore down the baby's black-haired head appeared between her legs. It slipped back again until the next contraction when with one almighty push from Jemima, the head left her body.
The noises faded away, and Giorgio could only stare in wonder at the miracle of birth playing itself out in front of his eyes. They didn't know the sex of the baby. Jemima had refused to find out, and they'd good-naturedly argued about the sex all throughout her pregnancy. He kept referring to his son, whereas Jemima was adamant the baby was a girl.
"Get ready now, daddy, if you want to catch your baby."
The midwife's words galvanized him into action. It had been Jemima's specific wish that their baby would be caught by him.
With one last effort by an exhausted Jemima, their child slithered out of her body and into his waiting hands. The little scrap of humanity wailed its displeasure with the world. Eyes wide open, the little purple face all scrunched up their baby looked straight up at him, and for the second time in his life Giorgio fell head over heels in love with a female.
The End
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Too Devious to Tame (The Giovanni Clan) Page 17
