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All right. She’d lie here for a few minutes. Then she’d go rescue the baby from a man who knew nothing about babies.
She awoke and knew that hours must have gone by.
Experimentally she stretched her limbs. She hurt a little but nowhere near as much as before.
Cautiously she sat up. Got to her feet. Her legs felt a little like undercooked pasta, but nothing major seemed wrong except that she needed to pee, desperately, and there wasn’t a way in the world she was going to ring for Dante and ask him to help her with that.
She made it to the bathroom, sank down on the toilet, sighed with relief as she emptied her bladder. She flushed, gave the huge walk-in shower a longing glance but decided not to push her luck. Instead she washed her hands and face, used Dante’s brush on her hair, automatically opened the drawer that had always held a couple of packaged toothbrushes, tried not to think of how many women had opened this same drawer in the past months, unwrapped a brush and cleaned her teeth.
She looked in the mirror.
Not great but it would have to do.
Dante’s soft terry robe hung, as it always had, behind the door. She put it on over the T-shirt, paused in the bedroom to get a pair of panties and set out in search of her baby.
The enormous two-story penthouse was quiet. What time was it? It was light outside, but barely.
Was it night or was it day? Amazing, how she’d lost track of the hours.
She went down the wide, curved staircase, a cautious hand on the carved banister. Her legs had gone from feeling like undercooked spaghetti to spaghetti al dente. A good sign, surely…
Was that a sound? A voice? She paused at the foot of the stairs.
Yes. There was bright light at the end of the wide corridor she knew led to Dante’s big, if rarely used, showplace of a kitchen. Slowly she made her way there, her bare feet soundless against the cool marble floor—and stopped at the entrance, eyes widening.
The voice she’d heard was Dante’s. Barefoot the same as she, wearing jeans and a T-shirt that clung to his muscled torso, he sat in a high-backed swivel stool at the granite counter, Daniel in the curve of his arm.
The baby was staring up at him and sucking contentedly at a bottle of formula.
The two of them looked as if they’d been doing this kind of thing forever.
“Hey, buddy,” Dante said, “you’re doing a great job. That’s the way. Drink it all down. I know it isn’t what you’re used to but it’s good for you just the same. It’ll put hair on your chest, you’ll see.”
Gabriella’s eyes filled with tears. She leaned back against the wall, determined not to let Dante see her until she got herself under control. Seeing her lover—her once-upon-a-time lover—and her son like this was almost more than she could bear.
And yet she knew better than to read anything into the scene.
Dante was an intelligent, capable man. Faced with a problem, he would always attempt to solve it: she was sick; the baby needed to be cared for; he’d taken charge. He was good at that. Still, it was hard to see the two of them together without feeling almost indescribable joy.
“Okay, pal. What happens next?”
The baby gave an enormous burp. Dante laughed. “Well, that answers that question.” Another huge burp. Dante grinned. “That good, huh? Hey, I’m a steak-and-potatoes guy myself but whatever floats your boat works for me. So, okay. Your belly’s full. You don’t look the least bit sleepy. You need a trip to the john? I’ll bet you do. Well, let’s give it a try—”
Gabriella took a breath and stepped briskly into the kitchen. Dante turned toward her, eyebrows lifting.
“Hey.”
“Hey, yourself.” She smiled. “Thank you for feeding the baby.”
“Nothing to it,” he said with just a touch of macho pride. “The doctor recommended this brand of formula and I had the pharmacy send up a case.” He frowned. “But what are you doing out of bed? You were supposed to ring the bell if you needed me.”
She held out her arms for the baby, who gave her a loopy grin.
“I know. But I thought a little exercise might do me good.” The baby kicked its arms and legs.
Gabriella smiled as she reached for him. “Besides,” she said softly, “I missed you.”
Fool that he was, Dante at first thought she was talking to him. She wasn’t, of course, she was talking to Daniel. He realized it just in time to stop from saying that he had missed her, too.
But, dammit, he had.
It was a long time since she’d been here.
He’d always loved it when she’d stayed the night. It hadn’t happened often. She’d almost always refused to do it and he—well, he’d never been big on having women spend the night in his bed.
