Page 105 of Made in Love and Blood

Carina kissed the soft spot under his ear, saying at the same time, “You are the most beautiful man I have ever known, and I love you, too.”

As she stepped back, he tried to make sense of her returning right back to the island to continue the perusal of the set up for tomorrow.

“That’s it?” he asked, almost amused.

“You knew I loved you every day from the moment I said I do. And you know why, too. I’ve already told you.”

You saved me. Her voice, slightly younger then, still echoed in his memories.

“The appointment went well,” she added, shooting him a small smile over her shoulder. “Seven weeks tomorrow. I saw the flutter. Like the heart, you know?”

He immediately found a chair.

And sat right down.

“The appointment,” he echoed.

He’d really thought...

He didn’t ask—

Carina turned slowly, her arms folding. He looked up at her and knew without her needing to say it that she understood their miscommunication regarding the pregnancy. The only communication they had about it since he found out.

“I’d have never done that to you,” she told him then.

Salvatore clasped his hands together, chewing on his bottom lip until he could speak. “I wasn’t gonna do to you what he did, Carina. I wasn’t gonna tell you a fucking thing, but I—”

“You wanted me to keep it.”

He nodded once.

Hell, she asked.

“I can’t even fucking imagine what life is going to look like when I’m a seventy-year-old father to a sixteen-year-old, but I think about them everyday. Whoever they’re going to be; I thought about them. But I was not going to say a thing unless you did.”

“And whatever my choice was mine, regardless,” she finished for him.

“I am not him.”

“I know, baby.”

Salvatore chewed again, tasting blood. “So, seven weeks?”

“I already know the names, boy and girl. You will not change them, for the record.”

“Girl?” he asked.

Her eyes glittered. “Dove.”

She’d always loved that name.

“And a boy?”

“SJ, but you know what for. You’re not really freaked out about the age thing, are you?” she asked. “Although, to be fair, I cried today when they called it a geriatric pregnancy. I’m thirty-seven and a half. Please. So, there’s that. Fun.”

He laughed.

It felt crazy good.