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It was almost as if he was embarrassed or something.
He stepped up to me, slung his hands around my body, and looked deep into my eyes. “Stellina, I haven’t spent a single night in our room without you.”
My heart pitter-pattered to a stop. “You mean since I went to the hospital?”
He stayed silent, then exhaled. “I mean since we left for Verona.”
I inhaled, held my breath, then exhaled.
Somehow his confession—unwilling as it was given—loosened something inside of me, some deep-seated doubt that still lingered despite his actions and words in the hospital. Despite him choosing me over our baby.
“Then where did you sleep?”
Another sigh. “I didn’t come back here. I stayed in Verona until…”
“Until you went to Boston on a brawl?”
“It wasn’t so much a brawl but a fair fight, which your father won, fair and square.”
I smiled. Somehow the cavalier way he mentioned it made me love him more, not less. “So now what do we do? Those clothes will hardly fit me anymore.”
Those two weeks I had to stay in the hospital had turned out to be a blessing in disguise. With all the anti-nausea medications, I could finally eat and drink again. And since the Falcone family were big on Italian bread, olive and cheese platters and incredibly delicious desserts, gaining weight turned out to be incredibly easy.
“I got a little snack for you.” A voice behind us made Gabe turn us both around to face his mother without him taking his hands off of me.
And wonder, oh wonder—in her hand there was a platter full of delicious Italian pastries.
Gabe immediately snatched one, took a bite, then offered it to me.
When I shook my head, he leaned in, and with his mouth touching my ear, he growled, “Either you eat, or I feed you. But you will not fucking starve yourself again.”
I sighed, leaned farther into him, then took a bite.
“So, there’s something I wanted to show you,” Gabe’s mother said. “Gabe, could you just go somewhere else for a while?”
“Why?” Gabe tightened his arms around my body.
How I loved his possessiveness. How I loved it that he wasn’t cold or aloof anymore. Instead, he took every opportunity to touch me, hold me, or kiss me.
“Seeing the bride in her wedding dress before the wedding is actually bad luck. But if you don’t care, I don’t care,” his mother said, sat the platter down, then crossed the room to one of the racks.
“Wait.” Gabe gave me a quick kiss. “I’ll see you in half an hour.” Then he loosened his embrace and marched toward the door.
“As a kid, he was the most superstitious one of all,” his mother said with a chuckle.
Then she presented me with a beautiful white dress. “It’s just an offer, and I’m completely okay if you want to go out shopping tomorrow to get a new one, but I think you might really like it.”
I stared at the dress, then at Maria, then I broke down into tears and hugged her.
This was exactly the kind of mother-daughter stuff I thought I would never have. And even though it was just a gesture—because no way would my visibly pregnant body fit into this sleek dress—it was immensely precious to me. “Thank you.”
“Try it on.”
“It won’t fit.”
“I promise it will. Come on.”
I agreed and went into the bathroom. Got rid of my clothes, then slipped the white sheath over my head.
