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She picked up the picnic basket to move it to the ground so she could sit back down.
A sharp pain lanced through her stomach.
Amy gasped and stumbled against the rock, grabbing it for support. It felt as if a vise was tightening inside her.
Her heart thudded with fear. Was something wrong with her babies?
Or was it possible that she was going into labor?
Either way, she was terrified.
She was out here in the middle of nowhere, alone, with no way to contact anyone for help. And as far as she could tell, Adriano wasn’t coming.
CHAPTER22
ADRIANO
“You know that she’s asked to see you, Mr. Canali,” Tony said, his voice quiet and reasonable.
“I know that’s what she said,” Adriano growled.
He had been so angry these past few months. If he was brutally honest, he knew that his anger was only at himself. There was no one else to blame for the situation he had gotten himself into—the situation he had gotten them both into.
He had been so excited at first. It really had felt like a dream come true to be having babies with Amy. He had real feelings for her, though he hadn’t wanted to act on them or even make them part of the conversation while she was still pregnant. It wouldn’t have been fair to do that to her. She had to be allowed to focus.
But after the pregnancy was over, he had felt he might talk to her about whether she wanted to make what was between them a real relationship. It was an intimidating thought, but an alluring one.
And then the Barks-Howard’s treatments had kicked into high gear.
When he’d first been diagnosed, it had been possible for Adriano to pretend that things were normal from time to time. He had been able to pretend that he wasn’t sick, that he was still the same man he had always been. Having those opportunities to pretend had kept him sane. It was possible to think about the future—about things like fatherhood—when his whole life wasn’t taken up with needles and pills, sickness and side effects.
There had been a few terrible months where that hadn’t been the case.
The medication had made him feel sick all the time. He’d done his best to go on with his normal life, but eventually he had had to sequester himself in the house. He’d lost weight because he couldn’t always bring himself to eat. His skin had become dull and gray. He hadn’t lost his hair—thank goodness—but he hadn’t felt like himself for a very long time.
Eventually, he had begun to adapt. His body had gotten used to the drugs. Amy had told him that would happen, but it had been hard to have faith in that while he’d been as sick as a dog.
When the sicknesshadpassed, he’d come to a shocking realization.
He had completely neglected Amy for nearly two months.
He had hidden in his room, not wanting her to see him—not wantinganybodyto see him. He had only come out when he was required to, for his medical scans or his IV sessions. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to go over to her cottage at all.
And he had known, in that moment, that in order to fix things he needed to go to her at once. He’d known that the only possible solution to the fix he’d gotten himself into was to knock on her door and admit that he had been wrong to focus on himself and neglect her and the pregnancy.
He hadn’t been able to bring himself to do it.
Instead, fear had claimed him. What if this stretch of time had made her realize what a bad idea it was to have babies with someone who had a terminal illness? What if she was regretting the whole thing?
And that had led him to another thought, an even worse one. What if those thoughts wereright?
What if he should never have started this? There was absolutely no guarantee that the medicine was going to work. Maybe he would still die in ten years—maybe even sooner. Before his children were ten years old. Maybe he would leave her alone with this family she hadn’t planned on.
How could he have doneanyof this? How could he have been so irresponsible?
He hadn’t been able to bring himself to go and knock on her door that day. And with every day that passed it had only gotten harder.
“I don’t know what she would want to see me for,” Adriano said.
