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‘And you want to marry me.”
‘This is what I have been saying.”
‘Salvatore, do you believe the baby was yours?” He was silent so long, she thought he was refusing to answer but then his breath hitched in a strange way and she pushed herself up to see his face.
His eyes glistened suspiciously, his jaw looked hewn from granite. ‘Si. I believe the baby I killed was my own.”
She gasped unable to accept he harbored the thought.
‘Salvatore adore. You are so wrong.You did not kill our baby! The chances of miscarriage in the first three months are a lot higher than most people realize. The doctor told me that in the hospital. Losing the baby was not because of anything either one of us did.”
‘My doctor told me stress could cause miscarriage. My rejection stressed you.” A single tear escaped and rolled down his temple.
He turned his head as if to hide it from her, but she cupped his face, brushing the wetness with her thumb.
‘Please believe me, losing the baby was not your fault.”
‘This is not how I see it.”
‘But you are wrong” She was shouting, but the big stubborn idiot refused to see reason.
‘Actions have their consequences. I have accepted this.”
‘oh, Salvatore.” She didn’t know what to say to make him believe her, so she just hugged him, wrapping her arms and legs around him.
‘lt wasn’t your fault. It was meant to be and neither of us could have changed it.”
She’d needed to know that, that she had not done something to cause the miscarriage. ‘Lots of women are way more stressed than I was during that time and carry their babies to full term. You have to accept that.”
‘I wanted to be a father, Elisa.”
Yes, she knew that now. His fury had been at believing she was pregnant with another man’s child she was trying to pawn off on him not at the prospect of fatherhood.
‘Salvatore there have not been any other men. I don’t know why my father believes what he does, but you’re the only lover I’ve ever had.”
Silence met that and she waited realizing a great deal hinged on his reaction to her words.
She might never have his love but she had to have his respect or there was no way she could marry him. And she realized now that not marrying him would hurt more than tying her life to a man who wanted her as desperately as he did. But if he did not believe her, did not trust her, there was no future for them. No matter what a pregnancy test might tell them in a few weeks’ time.
‘you were a virgin?” At least it was a question and he did not sound incredulous at the thought.
‘yes ” you were twenty-four.”
‘I know how old I was.”
‘This is not usual.”
‘I spent my childhood living with a woman who treated sexual intimacy like cheap candy. She never formed lasting bonds with her lovers, but I tried. I wanted to be part of a family. I’d started school before I finally figured out that Shawna didn’t want a family. Not even a daughter. Her lifestyle put me right off sex. I didn’t even want boys heavy petting with me when I dated in college.”
‘you did not date until college?”
‘shawna sent me to an all-girls dormitory school. Papa approved and I didn’t get an opportunity to meet boys. If I had, I would have shied away from anything like that. I was scarred, Salvatore.”
His hands were rubbing in soothing circles on her back.
‘What do you mean?”
‘I equated sex with the pain of being an unwanted child, with the bitterness of loss. It wasn’t until I met you that I even felt passion for a man.”
