Page 51

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Adriano jerked out of the mindless stupor his climax had left him in when he felt something flutter under his fingertips. Raising himself on his elbow, he realized it came from…Nyra’s belly. He quickly turned on the ceiling lights at the lowest setting.
His heart threatening to jump into his chest, he spread his palm softly, reverently. And then it came again.
That movement. The babies, one or both, was kicking.
“Nyra?” he said, to the softly dozing woman in his arms.
Her mouth was lax, her hair sticking to her temples with sweat. He had tired her out with his demands, after an already exhausting day. Although, she’d egged him on, saying they had to make up for the past and the future.
A flood of tenderness burst in his chest as she fluttered her eyes open and gave him a weak smile.
“Hmmm?”
“The babies…”
She placed her hand, palm down, next to his, the tips of their fingers touching. Wonder filled him, at this new sign of the life they’d created. In the blink of an eye and a shattered breath, it went from a vague pregnancy to two real people. “Yeah, they can get quite rowdy in there. In fact, I worry if they don’t make themselves known every couple of hours.”
“Does it hurt?”
She yawned and covered her mouth. Something that looked like sheer, indescribable joy shone in her damp eyes. “No. Sometimes it tickles, sometimes it’s so sudden that I’m awake and alert. It’s like they’re playing football in there. At night though, it’s a lot. So I just sit up and talk to them.”
“Talk to them?” he said, wonder in his throat.
She shrugged, trying to push up against the bed into a sitting position. He gave her a hand and gently pulled her upright.
“Yeah. I do it for me. Just telling them how much I love them. How eagerly I’m waiting to meet them. And how loved they are…” She wiped the lone tear tracking down her cheek. “Everything in the same vein pretty much.”
He bent down and kissed her belly. Her fingers in his hair felt like an extra benediction. And then he whispered everything that came to him on a wave of such pure, unconditional love as he’d never felt.
Nyra’s fingers drifted over his shoulders and she vibrated under him. With curiosity, he guessed. When he looked back at her, her smile was so broad that it should have illuminated the entire room and the dark surface of the lake beyond.
“What did you say to them?” she said, her voice a thready whisper.
“That they’re very lucky to have you as their mama. And that I would do my best to love them just as much.”
She sniffled and brought their laced fingers to her mouth. Slowly, she kissed his knuckles, more tears running down her cheeks. “I don’t think you have to try, Adriano. I think you already love them as much as I do.”
“Your confidence is very much appreciated, Nyra,” he said, putting an arm around her.
She ran one hand over his chest and wrapped one arm around his back. “You doubt yourself? Even though all your siblings adore you.”
He heard the hesitation in her voice. “I don’t want to simply do my duty by these two. I want to love them. I need them to know that they’re cherished and wanted.”
“And you think that’s not possible for you,” she stated far too matter-of-factly. But she couldn’t help how her dismay punctuated each word.
“I’m sure you have gathered by now that my parents aren’t exactly what you call nurturing,bella. If anything, they’re the opposite. And when you grow up, wishing your parents were different, wondering what you had done wrong to receive not the least bit of care, you create a shell around you. And the last thing I want is for my own children to feel that shell. To think I’m incapable of the emotion I never got to taste.”
Her arm tightened around him and she buried her face in his neck. “You won’t. Anyone who worries so much about getting it right will inevitably will,” she said throwing his own words back at him.
He smiled, and yet it felt as if there was viselike clamp around his chest. “There has been a revolving door of my parents’ lovers through my life. Some far kinder and more caring than they themselves have ever been to me. Like Bruno’s mother. She was my nanny.”
Her soft gasp against his neck urged him on. Even as he stiffened at what else he had to say. But he would say it. He had to. “I’ve even caught them at it a couple of times. Involving some foolish, innocent party just to take petty revenge on the other. And what I felt was beyond contempt. And when I saw those photos of Nadia…” His chest rose and fell and with it the woman draped over him.
He braced for her to jerk away or to shut him up or shrug it off. But her heart thundered against his, as if trying to reach out.
A cold shudder moved through him. “I reacted so badly. I…was not myself. I became that boy who was so hurt that I wanted to lash out and hurt in return. I lost the common sense I pride myself on. In that moment, I forgot everything I knew about you. I didn’t have to know about your past or your twin or any of that to know that you would never do that. That you would never…just as much as I would never do that to you.”