‘Yes.’
Could it be so simple?
Flora wanted to be brave. She wanted to be herselfforherself in every moment. In this one and the next. She liked the woman she’d been in London, and she liked the woman sitting next to him on the sofa now.
Raw and honest. That was what they’d been with each other since they’d met. Physically in London. Emotionally in the middle of the sea. And he hadn’t flinched. Hadn’t looked away from the person she had presented to him. He wasencouragingher to be herself.
She leant forward, reached out and took the test in both hands. She glanced up at him. He wasn’t smiling. Wasn’t hurrying her to turn the test over. He was waiting. Because he knew what it would say and so did she.
She turned it over. ‘I’m pregnant.’
It wasn’t tears this time, as she’d expected. And it wasn’t fear making every hair on her body stand to attention. There was a quiet joy in her chest. In her heart. She handed him the test but he didn’t reach to take it. He looked at her as she looked at him.
They locked on to each other’s eyes.
Looked at each other.
‘We’repregnant,’ she corrected, and couldn’t help the smile.
‘So we are,’ he agreed. His voice was low. Deep.
The bomb had detonated and yet the shards weren’t piercing her skin. She was not collateral damage. She felt determined. Empowered. Safe to explore what she was feeling. And she was feeling everything. And the man beside her was giving her time to feel. Explore those feelings. Define them.
His stillness was a weighted blanket. His confidence soothed her...and it all came to her in a flood. The need to protect her child. To raise it with love and hope. The way her parents had raised her.
The Bicks. It made sense now, their over-protectiveness. They’d done it all because they loved her. Because they’d claimed her as theirs and shewastheirs. She was Flora Bick, the daughter of farmers. And she loved her parents. Did they get everything right? No. But they did it all from a place of love. For her. Their daughter. The kind of love she already felt so deeply—so quickly—for the baby in her belly.
Her baby.
‘I need to call my mother.’
He nodded and reached into his inside pocket.
‘Call your mother,piccolina.’
He handed her the phone, and with trembling fingers, she took it.
‘What happens next?’
He shook his head. ‘No.’
‘No, what?’ And then he did what she hadn’t expected. What she hadn’t seen coming. He touched her. With both his hands. He cupped her face, held it steady, and looked at her.Reallylooked. And she felt seen. With all her flaws on display. And still he held her.
Raffaele thrust his fingers deeper into her hair. ‘Be present,’ he told her. ‘Inthismoment. Not the next. Talk to your family.’ His fingers pressed into her neck. ‘Thenwewill talk.’
And she wanted them to. Because they needed to figure out what came next. What they wanted to come next. What she wanted to come next.
Did she want to focus on the baby? The baby’s needs for the future? Or did she want this moment to be aboutthem? Future parents. Once lovers. They were bound now by the biggest secret of all. They were going to become an unexpected family...
Only one way to find out...
She leaned in until she felt the heat of his breath on her mouth. One more inch and her lips would meet his. A tremble raked through her. She closed her eyes...
He shifted, feathering his lips against her forehead. And then, before she could analyse what that type of kiss meant, he was standing.
She met his eyes. Tried to figure out what she saw there.
‘Call your family. Tell them that you are safe, you are warm, and you are pregnant with my child,’ he said, and held her gaze for a moment too long. It steadied the hands that still trembled. ‘But tell them you won’t be coming home.’
