by Dianne Drake
Dante didn’t know yet. Which was why she was here, to tell him. Oh, it would have been easy enough to stay quiet about it, to be conveniently evasive for the next eighteen years or so, and end up being like the women in the romance novels who had secret babies. But she wasn’t the kind of woman who would do that. Dante’s child was growing inside her. He was a marvelous father already, and he had the right to know he would soon be a father again.
Today she would tell him, then let him make his choices as she’d already made hers.
Laying her hand on her still nearly flat belly, she smiled. She truly loved this choice.
Telling Dante was the right thing to do, she told herself all the way to the race course. Her plan was to tell him he was going to be a father in four more months, then let the rest of it happen as it may. After that time in the shed, and the way he’d turned away from her, she felt certain he would be glad to be rid of the tie to her. He’d told her he loved her, and she didn’t think he’d lied about it. Dante wouldn’t do that. But he’d pulled away from her like almost everybody else in her life had done, which was why she’d made the choice she had—to keep her child.
Her choice. And nothing in her life had ever made her happier.
She rubbed her belly again, trying to feel the swell of it through her cotton sweater. She wanted to get fat, wanted to see her body puff out in ways some women moaned about.
It was an amazing thing, really. She hadn’t even known she was pregnant. And her a doctor. She’d thought it was stress. Thought she was working too hard. Thought…well, she wasn’t sure what else she’d thought, but when she’d bought that little home pregnancy kit and tested herself just six weeks ago, her life had definitely changed. Now it was about to change again, and she was scared.
Buck up, she thought as she climbed out of the taxi an hour later. You can do this. She had everything. A marvelous job at Aeberhard, Max as a wonderful mentor and friend, Dante’s son…”You can do this,” she whispered, as she walked towards the entrance. Bahrain. She’d come a long way to do this and there was no turning back now.
As thousands of spectators flowed to the race track, sweeping Catherine along with them, she was amazed by the sheer size of the event. People everywhere packing in, people with Dante’s name on their lips. She heard it, heard their admiration for him.
Admittedly, this track was impressive—the ten-story VIP tower she could see off in the distance, all the sponsor’s signs, the sleek design of the seats. The race course had been built in a rolling desert, right alongside a camel farm. Today Sakhir, one of the largest of Bahrain’s thirty-six islands, was fairly buzzing with activity, and Catherine felt the excitement tingling around her all the way to her seat. She paused for a moment before she sat down to listen to a small crowd chanting Dante’s name.
“Dante! Dante! Dante!”
Admittedly, she felt a swell of pride over that. The man she loved…the father of her baby was beloved. People flocked in from all around the world to see him.
Yes, it had taken her a while to gather the courage to come. Even after she had decided to make the trip, there had been no tickets available, no hotel rooms. An easy excuse to back out. But Max had pulled some strings. He knew someone who had the right connections. So now here she was, getting ready to watch Dante drive. She hadn’t had a change of heart about that. Not in the sense that she’d become a fan of any sport where there were so many risks. But something had happened when she’d discovered she was pregnant, carrying a son—she’d had a gradual awakening. This baby inside her might be like his father. Gianni was. And for the Baldassare family, heredity had a strong hold. Coming here was coming to terms, was loving Dante, but most of all was loving her baby. To love meant to support and by doing this she was learning how. All this would be part of her son’s life. Or his entire life. To love was to support. At long last, it was time.
Would it make any difference in her relationship with Dante? Honestly, she didn’t know. But for now, one thing at a time. Telling Dante about his child was the priority.
“Ma’am,” a man standing in the aisle of the grandstand said, gesturing to Catherine. He wore a security guard’s uniform, and briefly she wondered if she’d come to the wrong seat and he was there to take her away
“Would you come with me?”
She looked around, first over her left shoulder, then her right, positive he must be speaking to someone else. But he wasn’t. “Excuse me,” she said, immediately checking her ticket to make sure she’d come to the correct seat. She had. “This is my seat,” she said, holding out the ticket for him to inspect.
He nodded. “I understand, but I still need you to follow me.”
Reluctantly, Catherine stood, then followed the man out of the grandstand, where he had a small motor cart waiting to take her somewhere else. “My passport is in order,” she said.
“I’m sure it is,” he replied.
“Then can you tell me where you’re taking me? And why?”
He smiled but didn’t answer, and by the time he stopped the motor cart in an area well away from the roar of the crowd, Catherine was nervous. Until she saw Gianni. He was already running to her by the time she’d climbed out of the cart, and she had barely bent down for his embrace when he jumped into her arms. “Papa let me sit in his car!” he cried. “He said I can drive it someday!”
Gianni was her baby’s brother. It had just occurred to her that this little boy she’d come to love totally would be her son’s older brother. There was so much of Dante in him and she had no doubt there would be so much of Dante in her child. “When did this happen?” she said, as Gianni pulled her by the hand along a line of garages for the race cars. This bloodline—it did frighten her. But it was part of her now.
“This morning. He said he had all kinds of surprises for me, and that was to be the first one.”
“What was the second one?” she enquired, looking around to see if she could catch sight of Dante. She wasn’t going to tell him until after the race, and while she truly did believe what she’d said months ago, that Dario wouldn’t have stepped into his car had he been distracted by the argument he’d had with Dante, she wasn’t about to risk distracting Dante with this news. To be honest, she didn’t know how he would take it. He was so wonderful with Gianni that she imagined he would be excited. But there was a chance he would hate having a permanent tie to her.
So that news would wait.
“There isn’t a second one yet. Papa said it would be waiting for me after the race today.”
“So why did that security guard bring me here?” she asked, as they made their way through a cluster of reporters with video cameras and microphones to one particular garage where there seemed to be more activity than in any of the others.
“I think Papa wanted to see you,” he said quite innocently.
“He knew I was coming?”
Gianni shrugged. “Maybe that was my second surprise.” He smiled. “You’d be a good surprise, but I was hoping for a puppy.”
Catherine laughed. She dearly loved Gianni and she prayed his new little brother would be just like him, Baldassare enthusiasm, Baldassare risks, and all. “Well, if Dante doesn’t get you a puppy, and he’ll allow you to have one, perhaps I’ll find you a puppy, if that’s OK.”
Gianni’s response to that was to call out to one of his friends in the crowd that he was getting a puppy, then run off, leaving Catherine standing there wondering what to do next.
“Lost?” the familiar voice came from over her shoulder.
She spun around to face him. “How did you know I’d be here?” she asked, trying not to sound breathless. But she was. She loved this man and after so many months of thinking nothing could ever come of it, she was finally willing to see what could happen. Another choice, solely hers. And if he said no, if anything other than the son they shared was not to be, it would not be because she’d stood off to the side and let it.
“I have my ways,” he said, chuckling. He e
yes raked over her, head to toe, then back up again.
“Max?” Now it made sense. His connection to get her a ticket and a room had been Dante. The dear old sneak! “Am I part of Gianni’s surprise, by any chance? Were you and Max planning this?”
“Let’s just say Max and I have kept in touch.”
Suddenly she wondered how much they’d kept in touch, how much Max had told him. About the baby?
“To be honest, I’m surprised you’d want to come to a race, the way you feel about such things. I’d thought about getting you to Tuscany later in the season, but never to a race track.”
“I, um…I had some time off,” she lied. “I’ve always heard Bahrain was a lovely place to visit, and—”
“And as it happens, I have a race here that coincides with your holiday. Amazing how life works out, isn’t it?”
Actually, it was, and he didn’t know the half of it. Unconsciously, Catherine ran her hand over her belly. “I wanted to see,” she admitted. And that was true. She did. As the mother of a Baldassare, she needed to know. Needed to start her adjustment to the rest of her life.
“Look, about that day in the shed…”
Catherine held up her hand to stop him. “There’s nothing to say, Dante.”
“I shouldn’t have…”
She shook her head. “Think about your race. Right now, that’s all there is.”
“Will you be here later? So we can talk?”
“I’d like that.”
Dante nodded, then bent to give Catherine a polite kiss on the cheek. “I’m glad you’re here,” he whispered in her ear.
“Me, too,” she said, almost shyly, wondering if she dared hope for anything.
As it turned out, Catherine sat with Marco in the better seats. Along with Cristofor and all three of Dante’s sisters, his mother, his grandfather, some uncles, cousins and about a dozen other Baldassares she’d yet to put names to. They were an exuberant bunch. Loud, happy. Cheering Dante on, waving flags, jumping up and down every time he passed their seats. The way she should be, the way she wanted to be.
At first she was reserved, watching the cars speed by so fast she barely had time to focus on them. The roar of the engines fascinated her, she had to admit. The whines as the cars changed gear for the various curves, and this course did have some sharp ones, according to Marco, was amazing. Marco had mentioned that coming out of turn six and going straight into turn seven was a challenge, but she couldn’t see that from where they were sitting, which was probably a good thing, because even as Dante passed by on the straightway in front of her, her heart always leapt to her throat.
Several times, as he held the lead, and another car got into position to pass him, Catherine did shut her eyes. But several times she kept them open too, wondering whether if she and her mother had gone to support her father in his various endeavors, it might have made a difference. Dante had so much support, so much love here…
So she watched, sharing binoculars with Marco, being coached by him on finer points of the sport she did not pretend to understand, until at one point the whole Baldassare family jumped up screaming and shouting. Then she heard it announced. Dante Baldassare had won the race. That’s when she jumped up, with the rest of them, waving the Baldassare flag Marco had handed her, screaming, in English, the same things Dante’s family was screaming in Italian. Catherine thought about her father for a moment, as she’d thought of him so often these past months. She did understand now, as her child was waiting to come into the world. It was about loving and protecting that child the best way you knew how. What her father had always done.
Lifting her flag above her heard, she looked up at the blue skies overhead. Part of her cheers were for him, too.
“You liked the race?” Dante asked, stepping out of the shower in his hotel suite. He was dressed in well-worn jeans and a white cotton shirt. Barefoot. Wet hair. So handsome he took her breath away.
“It was…exciting,” she admitted. “In places. Better than I thought,”
“My father told me you watched a good bit of it…” he smiled “…with your hands over your eyes.”
“It scares me, Dante. You know that.”
“But I’m glad you came. It meant a lot to me, having you there.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d want me here,” she said. “After the way we parted, and after what I’ve been reading about you.” Catherine nodded almost shyly. “I know I don’t have a place here, but I had to come.”
I’m glad you did,” he said simply. “Max said you went home for a while?”
She nodded again. “I had some things I needed to figure out. Some questions I needed to ask my mother.”
“About your father?”
“About my relationship with him. I thought it might help my relationship with you if I understood my father better.”
“Do you think I’m like your father?”
“Not at all. But it’s taken me some time to realize that, because he lived such a big life, too.”
She looked around at the suite. It was large, plush, with French antiques, all white and gold and expensive. Catherine chose a tiny chair near the door, from where she could make a quick escape if she embarrassed herself any more than she already had by coming here. Her ankles were swelling a bit now, the heat of the day finally getting to her, and she was tired. “Excuse me,” she said, as she lowered herself onto the gold and white upholstery. “It’s been a long day.”
“Are you OK?” he asked, starting across the room in her direction.
“Water, please,” she gasped, exhaustion overtaking her. Her head was starting to spin a little.
Dante left the room, then returned moments later with a glass of water. But rather than handing it to her, he held it to her lips. “Why did you come, Catherine?” he asked. “After all these months with no contact from you, without you returning my calls or answering my emails—and I did try to contact you—why did you come?”
She was almost too tired to tell him. She wanted to, needed to, but this wasn’t the way she’d pictured it in her mind. In that scenario she was strong, resolute. But right now she was limp. And Dante’s son, even though he wasn’t so far along yet, was giving her a few good kicks. “Could I use your restroom?” she asked, instead of answering him.
Once in the bathroom, Catherine splashed some water on her face, then looked at herself in the rococo-gilt mirror. She looked like hell. That’s the only way she could describe herself. Messed hair, red, sunburnt face, puffy eyes…hell. And she felt like hell, too. Possibly the best thing to do would be to tell him the news, then get out of there. Go back to her room, go to bed, and deal with it all tomorrow after he’d had time to absorb the facts.
“You OK in there?” Dante called.
She opened the door and came face to face with him. “I’m…” She felt faint again. “I’m fi—” She shut her eyes for a moment as her world started to spin around, and the next thing she knew she was in Dante’s arms, on her way to his bed.
The next thing she knew after that was that it was the middle of the night, and Dante was sleeping in a chair near the bed. His head had dropped to his chest, his feet were propped up on another chair, and all she could think was that she hoped her son looked exactly like that.
“You’re awake,” he murmured, sitting straight up in the chair.
“How long did I sleep?” she asked, looking at the clock next to the bed.
He glanced over at the same clock. “Fourteen hours now.”
“It’s morning?”
“Almost.” He turned on the light by the chair and pushed the hair back from his face.
“And you slept there all night.”
“Some of it. I started out…”
A rolling wave of nausea came over her and she bolted from the bed and ran for the bathroom. Morning sickness. She still got it this late in her pregnancy. Normal, according to her doctor. Only an adjustment of her hormones.
Once inside, she vomited into the toilet
. Twice. Her usual. Then she rinsed out her mouth and laid her hand on the doorknob. It was time. No putting it off now. Pulling open the door, she found Dante standing there like he had last night. Only this time the expression on his face was unreadable.
“The question you asked me last night,” she said, pushing past him. “Why I came to the race?” She plodded back to the bed and dropped down on it. “I came to tell you I’m pregnant. And to be honest, I don’t know if that comes as a shock to you, or if Max has already told you.”
“Pregnant?” he asked, his face totally devoid of expression.
She studied him for a moment, expecting a reaction. But nothing. Stupid her. Somewhere in her delusional mind she’d played out this scenario so many ways. He was happy, he was angry. He would pull her into his arms and profess undying love, he would open the door and tell her to leave. But never had she expected nothing from Dante. He was a man who reacted. He came from a family who reacted. Yet he was not. “Pregnant,” she said, fighting to adopt the same lack of expression he wore. “We weren’t careful that night in the shed and—”
“No abortion,” he said flatly. “Or adoption. I know you don’t want children, but I do. I want this baby, Catherine. Even if you don’t.”
“What?” She choked in surprise.
“I said, I want this baby. You don’t have to raise it, you don’t have to be responsible for it. I will. But, please, don’t get rid of it.”
“Dante, I wouldn’t—” She shook her head. “I want this baby! In my whole life I’ve never wanted anything as badly as I do this child.” This child, and Dante. “Why do you think I’d even consider—?”
“Because you told me there’s no room in your life for a family. That you didn’t want a typical family life or children. You said you got out of your marriage before you did something foolish, like having a child.”