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He looked like he’d been awake for days. She wanted to go to him and put her hand on his face, to assure herself that he was okay. Even if she was maybe not okay herself.
Victoria was sitting in a hospital bed, suffering from God knew what, and still. When his dark blue gaze found hers and held, her whole body tightened and between her legs, she felt a rush of that same delirious heat.
In case she wondered if thinking she was in love with him had been a temporary madness in the villa.
“I don’t remember what happened,” she said softly. “I was on the stairs...?”
“Thank you,” Ago said to the nurse, taking command of the room with his usual swiftness. “That will be all for now.”
The nurse was nodding as he spoke. “I’ll let the doctor know that Mrs. Accardi is awake.”
She hustled out, closing the door behind her, and Ago took his time looking back at Victoria. He stayed where he was, standing there against the far wall, and she knew, somehow. That he’d been here. However many hours or days, he’d been here. With her.
Right there in that chair he stood beside.
“The press are already trying to batter down the doors outside,” he said, but not in that dark way she would have expected. It seemed at odds with how rugged and rough he looked. “No need to give them more fodder, I think. I much prefer the stories they make up, if I’m honest. They are always far more entertaining.”
Victoria blinked. “Did I hit my head? Is that what this is? Am I in a coma, dreaming that Ago Accardi would make light of the fact that the paparazzi are onto him?” It took her a moment to think about what that must mean. “Does that mean they know about me?”
“Oh yes,” Ago said, and though there was something she didn’t recognize in his voice, it wasn’t the grim censure she would have expected. “It’s been quite a palaver, these last few days. While you have been napping, Victoria, every tabloid in Europe has been competing to tell the most lurid version of how and when we met, whether you ever intended to marry my brother, and who, indeed, is the father of your baby. If I’m honest, I think they’ve all missed Tiziano’s former indiscretions. They’ve taken to this one with sheer delight.”
Too many questions flooded her head, and Victoria shook it without thinking. Then she froze, waiting to feel some kind of pain. She had a fleeting memory of that awful headache—
But there was nothing. She didn’t feel quite like herself, perhaps. But there was no pain. Not even those cramps she vaguely remembered from Christmas night.
“Ago,” she said quietly. “I don’t understand what’s going on. Why am I here? What happened? Are we absolutely, one hundred percent certain that the baby is all right?”
“I have asked that very question myself,” he told her, with the great seriousness she expected of him. It was comforting. “Of every prenatal specialist in this hospital and all of the United Kingdom. And as far as anyone can tell, the baby is fine. It’s you who had them concerned.”
She was aghast. “I didn’t hurt him, did I?”
“No,mia mogliettina, you did not hurt him.” Ago’s voice was something like soft, and that confused her. “But he came very close to hurting you.”
“That’s fine,” she said, frowning down at her bump, and rubbing the hard jut of her baby’s head in sheer relief. Such relief she could feel herself begin to tear up. “I can make it another couple of months or so.”
“About that.”
She looked up again to find him moving toward her, coming to sit in the chair beside her bed. And then he stunned her by reaching over and taking her hand in his.
“You have only ever asked me for one thing, Victoria. Do you remember?”
Victoria felt her lips part, and inside, the strangest wave of emotion move through her. Though still, the last thing she could remember was walking down the stairs in the villa. And then knowing that he was behind her, as inevitable as the coming of the dawn.
“I asked you for something?” She tried to smile in her usual serene way, but found she couldn’t. “That doesn’t sound like me.”
“You should have no qualm in the world ever asking me for anything,” he told her then, with a sudden flash of passion. The sort of passion she would anticipate hearing only when he was deep inside her. But he wasn’t. “You should not only ask for anything and everything, Victoria. You should expect that your husband will do whatever is necessary to give you anything you ask, and more. That is the very least of what you should expect from me.”
Her heart leapt wildly in her chest, and once again, she felt as if there was some kind of hand at her throat. But this time, she couldn’t tell if she wanted to break this tension between them, or lean into it.
But it didn’t matter, because he was still talking. “You asked me for your freedom, and you shall have it.”
“Oh,” Victoria said, with her hand in his. Lost somewhere in that deep blue gaze of his.Freedomwas the last thing on her mind. “Um. Thank you?”
He held her hand tighter, but she liked that. “I only ask one thing. The doctors have said that they would be happier if you remained on bed rest for the remainder of your pregnancy. I am hoping you will allow me to make this as easy on you as possible. Only until the baby is born.” Ago’s throat moved and she understood that this was hard for him. “After that, you may do as you please. With my blessing.”
Victoria was certain that she was dreaming now. Then again, his hand held hers and she could feel his heat. His strength. She could see the intensity on his face. And besides that, there was the bright sheen of honesty in his gaze.
It was her undoing.
