The Salvatore Marriage Deal

by Natalie Rivers

  ‘Are you all right?’ Vito’s voice sounded genuinely concerned.

  ‘I’m fine. Just tired.’ She picked up her glass of water, deliberately not letting herself look at his face. She knew his expression would reflect what she had just heard in his voice. If she saw that concern, combined with his heart-stoppingly good looks, she knew her defences would start to melt.

  ‘You look sad.’ Vito reached out to touch her arm, and the gesture of comfort sent a wave of warmth through her which was at odds with what her brain was telling her. ‘Why are you unhappy?’

  ‘Because you only married me for the baby inside me,’ she said, the honest words coming out as a reaction to the conflict she was feeling inside.

  ‘You knew that—I told you that from the start.’ Vito let his hand drop from her arm abruptly. ‘Why is that an issue now? Are you saying that you thought there was another reason?’

  ‘I thought—I hoped—there was something between us, more than just the child inside me that you still refuse to even consider is yours.’ She put her feet down onto the marble flagstones, looking beside the recliner to locate her flat sandals. ‘Now I know I was wrong. All I am to you is a convenient baby-machine.’

  She rammed her feet into her sandals and pushed herself quickly to her feet.

  Suddenly she felt a strange sensation inside her, followed by a gush of warm fluid down her legs. She stared down at the puddle on the ground in a moment’s bewilderment. The baby wasn’t due for another month. Then she heard Vito’s voice, strong and reassuring.

  ‘Your water just broke,’ he said, sweeping her up into his arms and striding swiftly to the palazzo’s water entrance. ‘We’re going straight to hospital.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  LILY stared in awe at the baby sleeping in her arms. He was utterly beautiful. Her heart ached with how small and perfect he was, and she didn’t think she’d ever be able to take her eyes off him again.

  He had arrived so suddenly. By the time they’d reached the hospital her labour had already been well advanced. But everything had gone smoothly and he’d been born at nine-thirty in the evening, weighing a healthy six pounds.

  Vito had been amazing during the labour and delivery, an absolute tower of strength and encouragement. He had known exactly when to hold her or rub her back, or whisper fortifying words of comfort in her ear. He had never left her side for a moment—until now, when she’d had to urge him to go and call his grandfather.

  The door of her private room opened and she looked up, expecting to see Vito returning. But instead it was the doctor.

  ‘I gather the baby has already fed a little,’ the doctor said. ‘That’s good. He’s a strong little fellow for his size. But I’m afraid I must disturb him to take a small sample of his blood.’

  ‘What for?’ Lily asked, assuming it was some kind of routine test done for all babies. ‘Why do you have to do it now while he’s asleep?’

  ‘I think it best to find out whether he has inherited his father’s rare blood-type as soon as possible,’ the doctor replied, talking as if he thought Lily knew what he was referring to. ‘Being delivered at thirty-six weeks we wouldn’t expect any problems,’ he continued. ‘But in the circumstances it’s prudent to know the facts regarding his blood type.’

  ‘I don’t understand what you are talking about,’ Lily said, hugging the tiny baby protectively to her. At that moment Vito returned and she stared up at him, a wave of panic rising up within her.

  ‘I was just explaining about the situation with your blood type,’ the doctor said to Vito as he crossed to Lily’s side.

  ‘You didn’t explain.’ Lily flashed her gaze anxiously between the two men. ‘You just told me we needed to find it out, in case something went wrong!’

  ‘Just a precaution,’ the doctor said, pulling up a chair next to her and placing the equipment he needed to draw a blood sample on a small tray on the table beside them.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me about this?’ Lily looked up at Vito accusingly, still keeping her baby out of the doctor’s reach.

  He stood as straight as a ramrod with an unreadable expression on his face, but Lily knew the answer to her question. He hadn’t told her because he’d thought it was irrelevant—he didn’t believe the baby was his.

  ‘I’m sure he just didn’t want to worry you,’ the doctor said. ‘It’s extremely unlikely that the baby will have inherited it.’

  ‘What if he has?’ Lily asked, fear ripping through her.

  ‘Well, as you are obviously aware, your husband is as strong as an ox. It only becomes an issue if he needs a blood transfusion.’

  ‘What happens then?’ Lily pressed.

  ‘It’s harder to find suitable donor-blood. That’s why we want to be prepared, so we don’t have any surprises at a time we could do without them.’ He reached up gently to ease the blanket away from the infant. ‘If you can hold him steady, we’ll get this over with as painlessly as possible.’

  ‘But what if you can’t find the right blood to give him?’ Lily asked, feeling increasingly anxious. It all sounded very complicated and worrying.

  ‘There’s no reason at all to think we’ll need blood for a transfusion,’ the doctor said firmly. ‘But, if for some reason we do, then of course we’ll find it. It’s just that we may have to search further afield.’

  Lily took a deep breath and lowered the baby unto her lap. She unwrapped the blanket so that the doctor could take the blood sample.

  As the needle pricked his fragile skin he opened his eyes in horrified protest. A moment later he opened his mouth and started crying.

  Lily felt her lower lip start to tremble in response, and she hugged her son close to her. It was unbearable to see her baby upset.

  ‘I’ll get this sample off to the lab,’ the doctor said, taking his leave.

  ‘Lily…I…’ Vito was standing close to her, but she didn’t look up. For the first time ever, she thought he sounded uncertain—but right then all her attention was on her newborn baby.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ she said, feeling like she had been punched in the stomach.

  She unbuttoned her nightdress and tried to offer the baby up to her breast. But the position wasn’t right, and after a frantic moment of silence as he rooted unsuccessfully for her nipple he started crying again.

  Without a saying a word, Vito dropped down on his knees in front of them. He cupped the baby’s head gently and guided it forward to Lily’s breast. Just as the baby opened his mouth as wide as possible to let out a mewling cry, Vito nudged his head forward and he latched onto the nipple successfully.

  Lily looked down at her baby suckling contentedly, and took care to keep his position steady. Vito had rocked back on his heels, but his eyes were still locked on the infant.

  ‘I asked you to leave me alone,’ she said quietly, lifting her eyes to meet his. Vito’s gaze was troubled, but she was too angry with him to give it any thought.

  ‘But—’

  ‘I don’t want you here,’ she said, hearing her own voice crackle with ice. ‘Your pride has made you selfish. I can’t believe that you were so arrogant and stubborn that you let your lack of trust in me make you ignore something that could affect our baby’s wellbeing.’

  Vito paced up and down his study, looking repeatedly at his fax machine, waiting for it to whir into action.

  He’d had a miserable night. The worst night of his life—even harder than when he’d forced Lily to leave Venice back in March. That night he’d been upset, but he’d focussed his anger on what he’d thought of as her betrayal. He hadn’t been forced to look in the mirror at his own decisions and actions.

  Now, everything was different. His personal demons were howling round the room with him, unrelenting in their attack on his well-built defences.

  What if he’d been wrong?

  Wrong about everything?

  The thought plagued him, constantly looming up in his mind. He tried to reject it, the way he’d always successfu
lly rejected Lily’s claims. But now it seemed as if she was finally getting through to him.

  What if he really was the father of the baby?

  The look of fear on her face when she hadn’t understood what the doctor was saying about his rare blood-group haunted him. And the cold look of disgust on her face when she’d thrown him out of her hospital room stabbed into him like a jagged blade.

  Suddenly the fax machine came to life. He was rooted to the spot, watching as the sheet of white paper curled out.

  A copy of his fertility-test results.

  All those years ago he’d never read them for himself. The disdainful look on Capricia’s face had seen to that. His pride hadn’t been able to stand it. Even providing the sample in the first place, letting his virility be put to the test, had been hard to bear. He’d never considered getting a physical examination or second opinion. The brutal assault on his masculine pride had been unendurable.

  He reached for the fax and hesitated, blood pounding in his temples.

  He was terrified at what he would read.

  Would the results show that he had been right all along, make him relive his humiliation yet again? Or would he find out that Lily had been telling the truth—that he was guilty of treating her appallingly when she didn’t deserve it? And that her beautiful baby boy was his son?

  He picked up the document and looked at it.

  His heart thudded in his chest and his palms were suddenly damp with sweat.

  Results: every likelihood of excellent fertility at this time.

  Lily lay on her side in the hospital bed watching her newborn baby sleeping in his crib. The nurses had made her put him down, told her that if she didn’t sleep when he did she’d become exhausted and her milk wouldn’t flow. But, even though she’d been awake all night, sleep would not come.

  Vito had left when she’d asked and he’d never returned.

  She didn’t know what she had expected—she hadn’t exactly been thinking straight at the time. But despite the fact he had proven once again just how little faith he had in her, she wished he were there with her.

  She couldn’t stop thinking about how wonderful he’d been during the birth. She couldn’t have asked for more. It must mean something. Maybe, although love was not part of the equation for him, he did care about her a little.

  But now she had sent him away.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, wishing sleep would come and ease her misery. But then she heard a quiet sound and, although it could have been a nurse returning to check up on her and the baby, she knew it was Vito.

  She rolled over and tried to sit up, but after the rigours of the birth she was stiff and sore. Vito was by her side in a second, gently helping her into a comfortable position.

  ‘Thank you.’ She looked up at him standing beside the bed, and her eyes widened with surprise as she took in his appearance. He’d showered and shaved since last night, but his face was ashen and painfully troubled.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ His voice was deep and rough, as if it had been difficult for him to say that word. Or maybe it was because he was so tired. But, whatever the case, his expression was contrite as he gazed down at her on the bed.

  ‘What for?’ she asked simply.

  ‘For everything,’ he said. ‘For the way I’ve treated you. For not trusting you. For making you marry me even though I didn’t mean it to last.’

  ‘Do you believe me now?’ Lily asked, looking at the lines of stress etched around his eyes.

  ‘Yes,’ Vito said. ‘I got Capricia’s doctor out of bed at an ungodly hour this morning, and had him go straight to his office to fax me a copy of the results of my fertility test.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Lily said, ignoring the wave of sadness that washed over her as she realised it wasn’t anything she had said or done that had convinced Vito. It had taken Capricia’s doctor. ‘How did that make any difference? You saw those results years ago.’

  ‘I never read them myself,’ Vito admitted.

  Lily stared at him in frank disbelief, too startled to mask her reaction. For a moment he actually appeared to wince with embarrassment.

  ‘You never read them?’ she gasped. ‘Surely you followed up the result—repeated the test or got a second opinion?’

  ‘No.’ Vito hung his head for a moment, then took a deep breath and looked her in the eye to continue. ‘I was devastated. All my dreams of becoming a father, of continuing the Salvatore line, were shattered. It seemed like an assault on my very existence.’

  ‘Why did she do it?’ Lily asked. ‘What would make Capricia lie to you like that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Vito said. ‘I’ve been wracking my brain all night, trying to work it out. The only solution I have is that she didn’t want children. I knew she didn’t want to come off the Pill—but I thought I’d persuaded her to try to start a family. Presumably she just carried on taking the Pill all along.’

  ‘I think you’re right.’ Lily thought about how Giovanni had described Vito’s first wife. It was ironic that the old man had got her measure better than Vito. ‘It must be painful to realise that the woman you loved tricked you like that.’

  ‘I don’t know if “painful” is the correct word,’ Vito said. ‘I’m furious with her. Furious that what she did led me to hurt you so badly.’

  ‘You should have read the results yourself,’ Lily muttered. She knew it was harsh to point that out. But she couldn’t help noticing Vito had not denied loving Capricia—a woman who had deceived and cheated him. For some reason that really hurt.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Vito said again. ‘I’ve treated you unforgivably.’

  Lily gazed at him sadly, swallowing against a hard lump in her throat. She ought to accept his apology. He was the victim of a wicked deception. If Capricia hadn’t lied to him, he would never have treated her so badly.

  But none of it was her fault. The only thing she’d ever done wrong was fall in love with Vito.

  ‘Nothing’s changed in the way I feel,’ Lily said miserably. ‘You never trusted me—you had to get Capricia’s doctor to send you proof.’

  ‘Something did change yesterday. I saw your fear when the doctor took the blood sample.’ Vito sucked in a deep, shuddering breath and raked his hands roughly through his black hair. ‘I spent the night in an agony of confusion. Once I’d admitted the possibility that you might be telling the truth, I was desperate for that to be the case. But, after Capricia left, I spent so long denying my feelings that it was almost impossible to get out of that rut. The security of encasing your deeper feelings in a layer of cold rock is hard to give up.’

  His heartfelt outburst tugged at Lily’s sympathies, but it was a cruel kind of torture to listen to him describing how he’d battened down his emotions after Capricia had left.

  ‘You must have loved her very much,’ she said.

  ‘Capricia?’ Vito looked at Lily in surprise.

  Her hazel eyes were wide in her pale face, and the dark shadows of fatigue around them accentuated their size. She looked so small and vulnerable, sitting there in the white hospital bed, that his chest contracted painfully.

  ‘I don’t think I ever loved Capricia,’ he said. ‘Not really.’

  ‘Then why did you marry her?’ Lily asked.

  ‘I was young,’ Vito said. ‘She was beautiful. Venetian. And at the time I foolishly thought she’d make a good wife and mother.’

  Lily didn’t reply, but he could see in her face what she thought of his judgement. It was terrible. It had always been terrible. In business it seemed he could do no wrong. But, in his personal life, everything he’d done was wrong.

  Until one day, in a moment of good fortune, he’d met Lily. And then he had set about ruining that too.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ve ruined everything,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t necessary to force you into this. I’ve married you when I didn’t need to.’

  Suddenly he saw her eyes fill with tears. As the liquid pooled and spilled down her cheeks
it felt as if someone had ripped his heart from his chest.

  ‘Don’t cry,’ he said, sitting on the edge of the bed and taking her hands in his. They felt pitifully cold in his grip. ‘I know we are married—but I don’t see how I can hold you to that now.’

  ‘But what about your grandfather?’ she said, her voice uneven with the sound of crying.

  Vito held her hands, gently warming them between his palms. Then suddenly he realised something.

  Lily was more important than his grandfather.

  His desire to see Giovanni end his days in contentment was still powerful. But not at the expense of Lily’s happiness.

  ‘My grandfather doesn’t need to know,’ Vito said carefully. ‘You’ve given him the heir he desired. And, with your friendship, so much more than that. I can’t ask you to give up your life.’

  He looked at her sad face, his heart contracting painfully at her distress, and suddenly all he wanted was to take away her sadness.

  ‘Don’t cry,’ he said again, leaning forward to kiss away the salty tears that were streaming down her cheeks. ‘You’re tired. It will seem better later. We’ll work things out.’

  ‘How can we work things out?’ she sobbed. ‘You don’t need me any more. You never needed me.’

  ‘Of course I need you!’ Vito exclaimed. ‘I’ve always needed you. From the very first time we talked I knew I had to make you part of my life.’

  He cupped her face and looked at her puzzled expression. She’d stopped crying and was looking at him in confusion.

  At that moment it hit him.

  Like a punch in the solar plexus, he suddenly knew the truth.

  He loved her.

  He’d always loved her. That was why her pregnancy had hurt him so deeply, why he’d forced her to marry him, and why the thought of letting her go now was grinding into him like a steel bar.

  He let his breath out with a whoosh, and smiled at her.