Yes...she was good at keeping secrets all right...
‘Are they full term?’ the paramedic asked.
It felt as though Georgia was struggling to pull her gaze away from his but couldn’t quite manage it.
‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘They’re nearly five weeks early.’
And there it was.
The ground seemed to be slipping away from beneath Matteo’s feet as he found the answer to all those unanswered questions.
This was why Georgia hadn’t told him.
Maybe it was also why he had shied away from allowing her to.
Because, even in the midst of the miracle of new life, it felt as if something important had just died.
* * *
The maternity ward of this old Edinburgh hospital was never really quiet.
Even in the earliest hours of this new day, there were sounds to be heard. The squeak of wheels or soft-soled shoes in the corridor, a phone ringing somewhere or a cry from a hungry baby.
That sound generated an odd tingling sensation in Georgia’s breasts and took her straight back to the miracle of feeding her babies for the first time, less than an hour ago, up in the neonatal intensive care unit.
She wanted to be there now. Had asked that she be allowed to stay beside their incubators all night, but the staff had been kind but firm. She needed to rest. She could come back as soon as she’d had a few hours of sleep and, in the meantime, her babies would have the very best of care.
She didn’t need to worry. Her babies were both healthy—just small enough to need their breathing monitored for a day or two. So she’d left them—those two tiny bundles, one with a soft, woolly blue hat and one with a pink one.
Not that there was any chance of sleeping just yet, despite an exhaustion like nothing she had ever experienced before. Propped up against her pillows, Georgia was floating on the sea of this huge new life, trying to catch and process everything that had happened in the last, tumultuous hours.
The fear that had come with that unexpectedly early and precipitous birth.
The fact that Matteo had delivered his own children.
The bombshell of him having to find that out in what was probably the worst possible way.
But all those things paled in comparison to the knowledge that she was now a mother. That her precious babies were healthy.
Her babies...
This room felt incredibly empty. The need to get up and go back to where they were was so strong that Georgia actually pushed the covers back on her bed and began to move, as she turned her head to look towards the light coming through the open door of her room.
Two things made her freeze.
One was the painful cramping in her belly.
The other was the silhouette of a silent figure standing in her doorway.
For a long, long moment, they simply stared at each other. As her eyes adjusted to the contrast in light, Matteo’s features became clearer and Georgia’s heart sank like a stone as she saw how tight they were.
As frozen as her body felt right now.
He stepped closer. Just as far as the end of the bed. Into the gentle light from her bedside table.
And now she could see his eyes and that made it all so much worse because he looked absolutely...devastated.
His words, when he finally spoke, were quiet. Calm even. He was just announcing a fact.
‘You lied to me.’
‘Not directly...’
A soft snort from Matteo made her ashamed of even going there.
‘You told me you were already pregnant the night that we were first together.’
Georgia swallowed hard. ‘Technically, I was. At the end...’
‘Stop this.’ The flicker of real anger in his eyes sent a chill down Georgia’s spine. ‘I don’t want to hear any more of your half-truths. You lied to me, even if it was just letting me believe something that wasn’t right, and you know it. Unless...’ He was closing his eyes as he spoke. ‘Unless there was someone else at Rakovi? And you didn’t know for sure who the father was? Is that what this cover-up was all about?’
‘No.’ That he could even think that was astonishingly painful. ‘There was no one else, Matteo. It was only you. It could only have been you.’
And she wasn’t only referring to the fathering of her babies. Matteo was the only man she could ever feel like this about. Love this much...
His eyes snapped open. ‘So these babies are mine, then.’
It had been painful enough when he’d been speaking with his eyes closed. This was way harder, being unable to look away from him and having to absorb his pain on top of her own.
‘Yes, Matteo. They’re yours.’
‘You’ve been lying to me every minute of every day that I’ve been with you, then, haven’t you?’
How could she even begin to try and explain why? Or to tell him that she’d just been waiting for the combination of the right moment and enough courage? That she loved him...
He wouldn’t want to hear any of it. Not now.
It was too late.
‘I’m...sorry,’ she whispered.
Another huff of sound came from Matteo. The note of something like despair in it took her down to a new low.
‘You’ve stolen something from me that I can never, ever get back.’ There was a moment’s silence where she could see that Matteo was fighting for control. ‘The knowledge that my first baby was being born. My first children...’ His control slipped and his voice cracked. ‘I held those babies as they took their first breaths and...and I didn’t know that...that they were mine...’
There was nothing that she could say. He was right. She had stolen something so huge it was unforgiveable. It made no difference at all now that she hadn’t intended to. That even a few hours more would have changed everything.
The silence was unnerving.
‘Have...have you been to see them?’
‘Not yet. I had to come here first. To find out the truth.’
Not to find out how she was?
Did that mean he didn’t care any more?
Had this revelation changed everything between them to that extent?
The emotion of everything that had happened today and what was happening now were becoming too much. A heavy weight that was pressing down on Georgia and making it hard to breathe. The fear that she was losing Matteo was the final straw and she had no resources left to fight the painful prickling behind her eyes.
She never cried.
But right now a huge, fat tear was slowly trickling down the side of her nose. She should be caring for those babies.
With Matteo by her side.
It was never going to happen, though, was it?
‘I can’t trust you.’ The words were weighted with sadness. Disappointment. Heartache. ‘You’re the mother of my children and the woman I love but...but I can’t trust you. You told me that you loved me... But maybe you lied about that, too.’
Georgia rolled her head from side to side, denying his assumption, but Matteo wasn’t looking at her now. He was turning away.
And then she rewound the words she had just heard a little further. He could still say he loved her? A tiny flare of something like hope flickered in the darkness of her fear.
‘Please don’t go... Stay...’
Matteo shook his head. A single, sharp movement. ‘I can’t. I need time to think.’ He stepped towards the door. ‘And...I need to go and meet my children.’
Georgia nodded slowly. ‘Of course.’ She rubbed at the unfamiliar moisture on her face and started to slide off the bed. ‘I’ll come with you.’
She needed to be there when Matteo was with their babies. To share his first moment with them knowing he was their father.
Because it was huge. As big as their first moments in the world.
‘No.’ The single word was like a physical blow. ‘I don’t want you to come with me. I... I can’t think straight when I’m near you. I need to do this on my own.’
She pulled in a shaky breath. ‘Will you come back...later?’
The question seemed to surprise Matteo. He paused but didn’t turn around as he reached the door.
‘I don’t know.’
The room had felt empty before, because her babies weren’t with her.
It felt infinitely more empty after their father had left.
Another tear rolled down Georgia’s face. And then another.
Maybe he would never come back...
She sank back onto her pillows, wrapping her arms around one of them because she really, really needed something to hold.
Exhaustion was bleeding into the darkness of this empty room and softening the edges of the awful aching in her heart.
She could escape all of it, couldn’t she? At least for a little while. She just needed to give in to this crippling tiredness. And maybe...when she woke up...she might even find it had all just been a nightmare.
* * *
They knew who Matteo was as soon as he arrived at the neonatal intensive care unit and introduced himself.
Somehow, that astonished him.
Georgia had been lying to him for so long and yet she’d announced the truth to the world by officially naming him as the father of these children? That she had was confirmed by the labels on the incubators he was led towards.
Bennett/Martini: Twin One and Twin Two.
Not that this public confession made any difference.
Not when she’d had a million opportunities to tell him and she had chosen not to. Matteo was still reeling. Trapped in the darkness of what felt like an ultimate betrayal.
‘You can hold them,’ the nurse told him. ‘They’re only in the incubators to make use of the apnoea alarms. Sit here and I’ll take them out for you.’
Matteo sat in the comfortable armchair and the nurse lifted one tiny bundle and then the other, to place the twins in his arms.
‘I’ll leave you alone to get to know each other for a bit.’ She smiled. ‘But do you want me to take a photo first?’
‘Not yet...’
He knew he wouldn’t be able to smile. He might even have tears rolling down his face if the wash of emotion he was feeling right now was anything to go by.
This was...
Like nothing he could identify.
He could relate to it, of course. Like when he’d held Arlo shortly after his birth and had experienced that wave of love and pride for the new member of the Martini clan.
But this was so different.
These were his very own children.
He had just stepped into his long-held dream of being a father.
No. He hadn’t stepped. He’d been pushed in such a dramatic fashion it felt like he’d been hit by a truck he hadn’t seen coming.
But that didn’t seem to be making any difference right now. He was here and...and it was...amazing...
He could feel the weight of each baby nestled in the crook of each arm. He could see their little button noses and wisps of dark hair from beneath the blue and pink hats. He could hear the adorable snuffling sounds and soft squeaks of tiny humans who were getting used to their new existence of living and breathing on their own.
They were only a couple of hours old.
And it didn’t seem to matter so much now that he hadn’t known he was their father as they’d entered the world. A lot of fathers missed the actual delivery of their children, especially when they arrived unexpectedly early. He could have known and then missed the moment by something as simple as being caught in a traffic jam. Georgia hadn’t stolen something irrevocable from him because it wasn’t making any difference to this bonding process. To this genesis of being someone totally new.
A father...
The love he felt for these tiny beings was swamping him.
It was the most beautiful thing in the world but...but there was a fear there as well.
The fear of something bad happening to them.
Matteo had always been protective of the people he loved but this new determination to guarantee safety was so fierce it was painful.
Did Georgia feel like this, too?
Of course she did.
She had probably felt like this from the moment she’d known she was carrying these babies.
He’d seen the fear in her eyes that night, hadn’t he? When he’d surprised her by arriving to be Luke’s best man at his wedding.
She hadn’t wanted him to know the truth because...
Because she’d lived her whole life being afraid of her own father.
Would he break his own iron-clad rules of not being dishonest if he thought it could be the guarantee that would keep these precious babies safe?
Yes. In a heartbeat.
And Georgia had been right, hadn’t she? Technically, she hadn’t told a lie. She had done what he might have done himself, if he’d believed he was protecting these babies.
She had been prepared to walk away from the love they had found for each other, if that had been what it took to keep her babies safe.
Did that mean he could forgive her?
Did he love her that much? As much as the love he was feeling for his first-born children?
An image of Georgia filled his mind. Sitting on that bed looking so pale and exhausted.
Looking as afraid as she’d been when he’d first arrived back in her life.
Crying...
She never cried. He should have taken her into his arms as soon as he’d seen that tear trickling down her face but, instead, he’d only been thinking of himself.
Of how hurt he was by the deception. How angry he was that he’d had the most important moment in his life stolen from him.
Matteo bent his head, to place the softest kiss ever on the forehead of his son. And another one for his daughter.
Nothing had been stolen from him. He had, in fact, received the biggest gift he could ever get.
He turned his head to catch the glance of the nurse.
He was ready to have that photograph taken now.
Then he was going to take the image back down to the maternity ward and show it to Georgia.
And he was going to tell her that he understood. That he had already forgiven her.
He just had to hope that she loved him enough to forgive him for his selfishness now. That there was a way they could get past it all and make this brand-new family what it could be.
Perfect...
They knew who he was on the maternity ward, too, but the nurse who intercepted him wasn’t about to make things easy.
‘Georgia’s finally asleep,’ she told him. ‘Please don’t disturb her. It’s really important that she gets some rest.’
‘I won’t disturb her,’ he promised. ‘Let me just sit in her room with her so I can be there when she wakes up.’
But the nurse shook her head. ‘Go home. Get some rest yourself and come back in the morning. It’s not that long to wait.’
It felt too long.
Matteo stood in the corridor of the ward, reluctant to leave by pushing his way through the swing doors. Not that he intended to go home. He would wait in the seating area near the elevators.
He still had his phone in his hand and it was a comfort to look at that image that had just been recorded of him holding those bundles that were his babies. His smile said all that needed to be said about how he felt. About how much love he had to give.
He could send the image to Georgia, couldn’t he? Even if he wasn’t here the moment she woke up, she could see that image and she would know that he was coming back.
Maybe she would even believe that he had already fo
rgiven her.
But the text wouldn’t send.
Oh...of course. He’d put his phone on airplane mode so that it couldn’t interfere with any hospital equipment like IV pumps.
He flicked it back, but before he could try sending the image again he heard the sound of an incoming text. And a buzz that indicated a missed call.
Two missed calls...no, make that four...five?
What on earth was going on?
He went to voicemail and waited. Had his family somehow known what he hadn’t known? That he’d become a father?
No. His sister’s voice was anything but happy.
‘Matti? Where are you? Why aren’t you answering your phone?’
The stifled sob he could hear sent a chill down Matteo’s spine.
‘You need to come home. Mama’s in hospital...we think that she’s had a heart attack...’
It was easy to push those swing doors open now.
Not just to leave the maternity ward but to do so at a run.
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘YOU’RE GOING HOME? Already?’ Kate sounded shocked on the other end of the line.
‘The twins are doing really well. Everybody’s happy that they’re ready to go home. Sean’s coming later this afternoon to collect us all.’
‘But the house won’t be ready.’
‘It is. I ducked home for a while yesterday and took all the stuff out of the garage. And I’ve got the car seats and lots of clothes here. We’re all set.’
‘Where’s Matteo?’ Luke was on speakerphone with Kate. ‘He’ll be able to help.’
‘In Italy.’ Georgia had to squeeze her eyes tightly shut. Her hormones were all over the place now and it seemed that she was going to make up for all those years of never crying. ‘His mother’s in hospital, apparently. He sent a text message from the airport. A very brief one. I don’t know what’s wrong with his mother or anything.’
Luke was laughing. ‘Yeah...he’s always treated text messaging like a pager from work. Succinct information with no frills and nothing personal.’
‘Yep.’ The message was burned into Georgia’s brain by now.
Heading to Italy. Mother in hospital. Back when I can. Need to talk.
Twin Surprise for the Italian Doc Page 14