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He imagined a child leaning on his shoulder, the way Olivia was currently leaning on Kendall’s
And he felt an ache in his gut.
Adriano’s life had been full of compromises since the day of his diagnosis. He’d given up his favorite foods, the activities he liked best, even his sense of self.
But here, at last, was something he didn’t think he could stand to give up.
CHAPTER13
AMY
Would it be another three-day stretch before she heard from Adriano again? Or perhaps even longer?
Amy knew there was plenty she could be doing. Even with the drug they’d found, there was still research to be done, and she was here in part to help with that. She ought to be spending her days at Romano Labs if Adriano was going to refuse to see her—and she would do that.
Still, she couldn’t help feeling as if her time was being wasted. Why had she needed to come to Italy if Adriano wasn’t going to be an active participant in his own medical care? What was the point of her being in the country at all if he was just going to ignore her?
As it turned out, though, she had been wrong to worry.
She was reading in the kitchen when she happened to glance up and saw him crossing the lawn between the main house and the guest cottage, headed for her front door. She jumped up as if she had been burned and looked back and forth for a minute, wondering what this could be about. Was he going to tell her off? Shove the paperwork she had left him back in her face? Was he going to tell her he’d rethought the whole agreement and was ready for her to go back to Colorado?
She was surprised by how disappointed that thought made her feel—she wasn’t ready to go home. Hadn’t she just been thinking how pointless it was for her to be here in the first place? And yet now that she was, she found she really wanted to see this through. She wanted to find out how effective this drug could be.
This was the study that might change the whole future landscape for Barks-Howard’s patients. Amy’s life’s work was about to be vindicated. She wouldn’t give up just because her patient was a little stubborn.
She opened the door braced for an argument.
But the first words out of his mouth were, “Will you take a walk with me?”
Amy was taken aback. She’d expected to be sent packing.
“I guess so,” she said cautiously. She was desperately curious to find out what this might be about, but she was fairly sure that whatever it was, she wasn’t going to like it. There were few things Adriano had said or done so far that shehadliked.
She followed him out of the house and along a packed dirt path that she’d noticed on her second day in Lake Como. It had caught her attention at the time because everything else around here looked so expensive. The path that led from the guest cottage to the main house was fancy stonework. The floors in the main house were marble, and the guest cottage had what looked like expensive wood floors. There was nowhere else on the property where anyone would be walking on dirt.
So what was this path?
Adriano set a quick pace, and she didn’t ask him any of her many questions at first. She did notice that he seemed to be in good spirits today. He had plenty of energy, and that was a good thing.
Even when she was in a bad mood with him, Amy wasn’t able to turn off the part of her that thought like a doctor. She was always monitoring his health.
“I owe you an apology,” he said after some time.
She looked at him, surprised. Hedidowe her an apology, but she really hadn’t expected to hear him say it so easily.
But maybeeasilywas the wrong word. He wasn’t making eye contact, and his face was pinched, giving the impression that he was struggling to get the words out. She decided to stay quiet and let him speak.
He stood a few feet in front of her, facing away from her. “I shouldn’t have thrown you out of my office the way I did,” he said.
“You had a phone call.” She immediately regretted saying that—why was she making excuses for him?
“It was just a quick work call. I had asked you to go before that. We both know the phone call wasn’t the reason.” He buried his hands in his pockets. Now he did turn to face her, and she was surprised when he made eye contact.
“I want you to know that I appreciate everything you’ve done so far,” he said. “Coming all the way over here, interrupting your work schedule so you could be available for me—I know that’s a lot to ask.”
“You are paying me for it,” she pointed out. In fact, he was paying her more than she would have been earning working at the hospital, and by a good margin.
“I know that,” he said. “But even so, it’s asking you to sacrifice your time. It’s asking you to give up months that could be spent working on your personal career development.”
