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“I don’t deserve a medal for protecting two innocents.”
“How do you think I would want to do any less for my twin? For one who wasn’t as fortunate as me? Losing my parents, our house, the little security we had, being tormented ashis kids…all of it became a hundred times worse when Nadia and I got separated. I love her more than I’ve ever loved anyone.” A shuddering breath left her lips.
One hand clasped her cheek and Nyra pressed into it. The words came easily then, as if they had been waiting all this while to be released. “Mama always had trouble sleeping, and whatever the consequences of Papa’s actions, she told us every day how much she loved us. So I tell myself that the overdose had to be accidental. I was sent to live with a great-aunt in London and Nadia to some distant uncle in the States.”
She sniffled and his fingers tightened on her feet.
“I was twelve and so many things happened back then that all the memories are hazy. But some of the good ones are when Mama would recount stuff about us as babies. All of us would sit together and look at pictures. Usually, Nadia and I ended up giggling in her lap. I wish she were here so I could ask her, you know.” She looked at her fingers, willing herself to come back to the present. “All the literature I’ve been reading says it’s better to have help, even if it’s just an extra pair of hands once in a while. And since I don’t have any family and we do have the resources—”
“You have me,” he said, pulling her leg up and kissing the ankle.
She giggled, even knowing that he’d done it on purpose. Kissing her where she was extremely ticklish to distract her from echoes of the painful past. “The mighty, powerful banker that all of Italy fears will change stinky diapers, sing lullabies and do feeds in the middle of the night?”
“Si, I will. What else?”
His words were filled with such wonder that her heart stuttered. Words escaped her as she beheld this powerful man eager to know what else parenthood would entail. Would he ever cease to surprise her?
“Nyra?”
“Right. Feeds and burping, walking in the middle of the night to get them to sleep, changing diapers and doing it all over again. I read on some forum that one girl infant would only sleep on her father’s chest.” She patted his broad chest and his soft smile was like a beacon guiding ships into port.
“I would like to have at least one daughter, then,” he said.
Nyra’s heart melted. “And that’s just keeping them healthy and safe. There’s talking to them, singing to them, playing with them, exposing them to the world, bit by bit. Letting them stretch their wings even if it means little hurts but teaching them that we’re here to hold on to.”
“You’re scared?” he said, perceptive to the last.
“Terrified,” she admitted, the spike of fear so real that she shivered. If she thought he would take her into his arms then, she’d have been sorely disappointed.
He was in such a strange mood that she didn’t know what to expect. And it underlined how little she really knew about the deeper, real parts of him, and how much she wanted to know all of him. If only to soothe him in this mood as he did for her.
Like asking her to talk about a good memory with Nadia when the present overwhelmed her.
“Of what?” he said, his eyes flickering between hers.
“Of not doing it right. Of…not being enough, for them.”
Of not being enough for you. That she might wake up one day and be thrown out again by him because he’d discovered that she was nothing to him.
“That you worry about getting it right is proof enough that you will,bella. And if you do get something wrong, you’ll love them enough that it won’t matter.”
“And you know this how?” she said, throwing his question back at him.
“My parents.” No elaboration, nothing.
The two words stood in the small space between them like minor explosives. Ticking away, on and on. Nyra had never been so scared of what she might say that would set them off.
“Adriano—”
“And when you do get something wrong,” he said, cutting her off, “I will be there to tell you that you’re doing it wrong.”
“How predictably arrogant of you,” she said, grinning. She knew those explosives would go off at a later time if she didn’t push it. But she was too greedy, too gone for this easy intimacy that was just as raw as making love.
His smile was a baring of teeth while his gaze drank hers in.
“Wait, I almost forgot,” she said and shot to her feet. Too fast. A sudden dizziness claimed her and she swayed.
Hands on her hips, he steadied her. His eyes were nearly wild with panic, an expression she’d never seen in him. No, it had been the same when he’d declared that their marriage was over in front of everyone.