The Ultimate Risk

by Chantelle Shaw

  ‘I’m not due to give birth for another six weeks. Maybe the bleeding will stop, as it did before, and I can carry the baby for a little longer,’ she begged the doctor when he told her she would have to undergo a Caesarean immediately.

  But he shook his head, his face grave, and the last thing she remembered was Lanzo squeezing her hand and saying huskily, ‘Everything will be all right, cara,’ as she was wheeled into Theatre.

  ‘Gina …’

  Lanzo’s voice sounded distant, and strangely muffled. Gina tried to open her eyes. Her lids felt as if they had been stuck down, but she finally managed to lift her lashes—and the first thing she saw was his tense face.

  Her brain slammed into gear. ‘The baby!’

  ‘A girl. You have a daughter, Gina.’

  Even though her head was muzzy, she registered what he had said. She had a daughter—not we.

  She licked her parched lips, feeling horribly sick from the anaesthetic. ‘Is … is she all right?’ He hesitated, and her heart stopped. ‘Lanzo?’

  Lanzo heard the fear in her voice. ‘She is fine,’ he quickly sought to reassure her, ‘but she is small … tiny …’ Unbelievably tiny. The image of the little scrap of humanity he had seen briefly when a nurse had taken him to the special care unit was burned on his brain. ‘She is in an incubator.’ He hesitated once more, and then said gently, ‘And on a ventilator to help her breathe, because her lungs are under-developed.’

  Dear heaven. Gina swallowed, joy swiftly replaced by frantic worry. ‘I want to see her.’

  ‘You will soon, cara. But first the doctor is here to check you over.’

  An hour later Lanzo wheeled Gina along to the special care baby unit.

  ‘Why are there so many wires?’ she asked shakily, blinking away the tears that blurred her eyes.

  The moment she had first seen her little girl she had been overwhelmed with emotion. A tidal wave of love had swept through her, and now her hand shook as she touched the plastic side of the incubator. She longed to hold her child—but, as Lanzo had warned her, the baby was tiny. She seemed swamped by the nappy she was wearing, and surrounded by the tubes that were helping to keep her alive.

  ‘But you’re here, my angel,’ Gina whispered, her eyes locked on her daughter’s fragile body and mass of downy black hair. ‘You are my little miracle, and I know you are going to make it.’

  The paediatrician had talked of the potential problems that faced a premature baby born at thirty-four weeks and weighing under four pounds. Gina’s face twisted when she recalled his warning of the high risk of infection and respiratory distress. The stark truth was that her daughter could not breathe without the ventilator that was giving her oxygen. In these early days her life would hang in the balance, but Gina refused to contemplate the worst.

  She stared at her heartbreakingly delicate daughter, enclosed in the protective plastic bubble that was keeping her warm, and screwed up her eyes, determined not to allow the tears to fall. Crying wouldn’t help, she reminded herself fiercely.

  Lanzo could not bring himself to look at the child in the incubator. His one glance earlier had reinforced his belief that the skinny, wrinkled scrap had little chance of survival. He stood silently beside Gina, and the sight of her trying to hide her obvious distress evoked a dull ache inside him. He wanted to protect her from the pain of loss that he knew from bitter experience was almost unendurable.

  ‘Try not to feel too deeply, cara,’ he advised in a low tone. ‘It would be better if you did not get too attached.’

  Gina turned her head and looked at him blankly, unable to comprehend his words. Understanding slowly dawned, and she recoiled from him. Emotions swirled through her, the strongest of which was incandescent fury.

  ‘Don’t get too attached? She is my child—part of me—and part of you too, only you don’t have the guts to face up to fatherhood,’ she told him with withering scorn. ‘Do you think that if I don’t love her it will hurt less if she …?’ She struggled with the words. ‘If she doesn’t make it? Is that what all this is about, Lanzo? I know your fiancée died, and your parents at the same time, and I don’t doubt that must have been devastating for you—but you can’t cut emotion from your life like it’s a cancer that has to be removed.’

  She took a shuddering breath. ‘You are a coward. You might act the daredevil—taking part in dangerous sports like skydiving and powerboat racing—but you don’t fear the risk to your personal safety. The real danger is to feel emotions—to put your heart on the line and take the chance of being hurt again, as you must have been when you lost your family. But that’s a risk you’re not prepared to take. Your baby is fighting for her life, and you refuse to feel too deeply because you don’t want to deal with messy emotions like love and maybe …’ her voice shook ‘… loss.’

  Lanzo looked as though he had been carved from granite, but before he could respond a nurse pushed aside the curtain that had been drawn around them to allow some privacy, and announced that she had come to take Gina back to bed.

  ‘I’m sure you must need some pain relief so soon after the Caesarean,’ she said, smiling sympathetically when she saw Gina’s drawn face. ‘Then I will help you to express your milk, so that we can give it to your baby through the feeding tube until she is strong enough to feed from you herself.’

  ‘I don’t want to leave her,’ Gina said thickly. She was determined to ignore the painful throb of her stitches and stay at her baby’s side.

  ‘You need to rest,’ the nurse told her firmly. She smiled cheerfully at Lanzo. ‘And her papà is here with her.’

  The silence screamed with tension.

  ‘He’s just leaving,’ Gina said dully, and did not glance at him again as the nurse pushed her wheelchair out of the SCBU.

  CHAPTER TEN

  LANZO raked a hand through his hair, shocked to realise that he was shaking. Gina’s outburst had forced him to accept some bitter home truths, and he felt raw and exposed, as if she had peeled away layers of his skin.

  He could not deny any of the accusations she had thrown at him, he acknowledged grimly. A coward? Dio, yes—she had been right to call him that when he had turned his back on her for most of her pregnancy and insisted that he did not want to be a father to their child.

  He turned his head slowly towards the incubator, and felt his heart slam against his ribs when he found his tiny daughter gazing at him with big, deep blue eyes that were the image of her mother’s. His breath caught in his throat as he took a jerky step closer to the incubator, and as he studied her perfect, miniature features the trembling in his limbs grew worse.

  Utterly absorbed, he barely noticed the arrival of a nurse until she spoke. ‘You can touch her,’ she said softly. ‘Put your hand through the window of the incubator—see?’

  She was so tiny she would fit in his palm. Her skin was so fragile it was almost translucent. But she felt warm and soft, her chest rising and falling almost imperceptibly with each breath of life she took.

  An indescribable sensation was unfurling deep inside

  Lanzo. He gently stroked his daughter’s tiny hand, and unbelievably she opened her minute fingers and curled them around his finger, her eyes still focused on his face as she clung to him.

  Santa Madre, he was breaking apart. His throat was burning as if he had swallowed acid, and he tasted salt on his lips. Tears ran into his mouth.

  ‘Here.’ The nurse smiled gently and handed him a tissue. He couldn’t stop the tears seeping from beneath his lashes, and he scrubbed his eyes with the tissue just as he had done when he had been a small boy who had grazed his knee and run to his mother for comfort.

  He had cried after the fire—at the funerals of his parents and Cristina. But his grief had been agony, and he had learned to bury the pain deep inside him. For fifteen years he had locked his emotions away, but now, as he stared at his frail little daughter, it was as if a dam had burst and the feelings he had sought for so long to deny cascaded through him.
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br />   Gina had called the baby her miracle, but she was his miracle too—a tiny miracle who had unfrozen the ice around his heart. He did not have a choice of whether or not to love her, because love was seeping into every pore of his body—and he knew without even giving it conscious thought that he would give his life for his child.

  ‘What do you think her chances are?’ he asked the nurse gruffly. ‘Do you think she will be okay?’

  She nodded. ‘I’m sure of it. She’s a fighter, this little one. I’ve worked with premature babies for many years, and I sense she has a strong will.’

  ‘She gets it from her mother,’ Lanzo murmured, and sent up a fervent prayer of thanks that his daughter had inherited her mother’s feisty nature.

  Gina managed to contain her emotions until she was back in her private room and had obediently swallowed the painkillers the nurse had handed her. But once she had been left alone to sleep the tears came—great, shuddering sobs that she tried to muffle by pressing her face into the pillow.

  Her hormones were all over the place, she told herself when the storm finally passed, leaving her with a headache and hiccups. One of the things she had learned from life was that crying never solved anything, so she blew her nose and gingerly lay back on the pillows, wincing with the pain from her Caesarean wound. She needed to sleep and regain her strength so that she could care for her baby—because they were on their own now. No doubt Lanzo had left the hospital after the terrible things she had said to him. She had always known she was going to have to be a single mother, and for her baby’s sake she had to stop feeling sorry for herself and get on with it.

  It was early evening when she woke up, and she was horrified that she had slept for so long. The Caesarean had left her feeling as though she had been flattened by a truck, and she was relieved when a nurse told her it was too soon for her to try to walk yet, and wheeled her down to the special care baby unit.

  She hadn’t expected Lanzo to be there, sitting close to the incubator, his eyes never leaving the baby. He was still dressed in the jeans and black jumper he’d worn when she had been admitted to the hospital twelve hours earlier, and she had a strange feeling that he had been there all the time she had been asleep. He looked round when the nurse parked the wheelchair next to the incubator, an expression in his eyes that Gina could not define. She bit her lip, not knowing what to say to him, and he seemed to share her awkwardness for he quickly dropped his gaze to the book of baby names she had brought with her.

  ‘I thought you had chosen a few possible names?’ he murmured.

  ‘None of them are right for her.’ Gina’s heart melted when her daughter gave a little yawn. It hadn’t really sunk in until this moment that she was a mother, and a fierce wave of protectiveness swept through her. ‘We can’t keep on calling her “the baby".’

  ‘What about naming her Andria?’ Lanzo suggested. He hesitated, and then added softly, ‘It means love—and joy.’

  She threw him a sharp glance, but his green eyes were focused on his daughter and his thoughts were unfathomable. Hand trembling, she reached into the incubator and stroked the baby’s silky black hair. ‘Andria … it’s perfect,’ she whispered. Now it was her turn to hesitate. ‘What was your mother’s name?’

  ‘Rosa.’

  ‘Oh—that was Nonna Ginevra’s second name.’ Her eyes met his in a moment of silent agreement.

  ‘Welcome to the world, Andria Rosa,’ he said deeply, and to Gina’s shock he put his hand into the incubator and placed it over hers.

  Her heart jerked. She did not understand why he was here when he had been so insistent that he could not be a father, and especially after the things she had said to him, she thought ruefully. Dared she hope that he had had a change of heart? She was too afraid to ask, but a sense of peace settled over her as they sat in silence, two parents watching over their newborn daughter.

  As the nurse had predicted, Andria Rosa was a fighter. She grew stronger day by day, and her cry became shriller. Gina did not mind. The sound of her daughter’s voice filled her with utter joy and thankfulness for her miracle baby.

  Every day brought a new landmark: the day Andria came off the ventilator, the first time Gina managed to walk to the SCBU rather than shuffle along in agony from her Caesarean scar, the first time she was able to hold her baby in her arms without all the tubes that had been keeping her alive, and breastfeeding her for the first time.

  Gina recovered quickly, and was discharged ten days after the birth. Going back to the apartment without her baby was the one occasion when she wept, but Lanzo drove her to the hospital every day, and invariably stayed with her and their daughter in a private room.

  ‘I know you must be busy with work.’ Gina finally broached the subject she had been skirting around for days. He had been so adamant that his only role in their baby’s life would be to provide financial support, and she was confused by his continued presence in Andria’s life. ‘You don’t have to stick around,’ she told him bluntly. ‘You made it clear that you never wanted to be a father.’

  A nerve flickered in his jaw, and he stared down at his daughter sleeping peacefully in his arms for long moments before he spoke. ‘I honestly believed I did not want a child,’ he admitted in a strained voice. ‘You were right to accuse me of being a coward. I chose to live my life on my terms—selfishly only pleasing myself, refusing to allow myself to get too close to anyone—because it was easier that way, less complicated, and with no danger of ever being hurt.

  ‘But then you conceived my baby, and for you it was the miracle you had believed would never happen. At first I was angry—determined that I would have no part in the child’s life apart from to honour my financial responsibility. And then Andria was born.’ He exhaled heavily. ‘A tiny scrap who fought so hard to cling on to life. I feared that if you loved her you would be heartbroken if she lost her battle. I was trying to protect you,’ he said, a plea for understanding in his voice as he met her startled gaze.

  ‘You shamed me,’ he told her roughly. ‘You rounded on me like a tigress defending her cub, scornfully refusing the idea of withholding your love from our baby. You knew there was a danger she might not survive, but you loved her more—not less. You were not afraid to risk your heart, and I was humbled by your bravery, cara.’

  There was so much more he needed to say to Gina, Lanzo acknowledged, so many things that were only now becoming clear to him—emotions that he could no longer deny. But after so many years of burying his feelings in the deepest, darkest reaches of his soul he was finding it hard to reveal what was in his heart.

  She pushed her long hair back from her face, and his gut clenched as memories of running his fingers through the fall of chestnut silk assailed him. ‘I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying,’ she mumbled, and Lanzo knew he could not blame her for sounding guarded after the way he had been.

  ‘I’m saying that I want to be part of our daughter’s life. I am her father, and I intend to devote myself to fulfilling that role—caring for her and protecting her.’ His voice rasped in his throat as he thought briefly of how he had failed to protect Cristina. He pushed the thought away, determined to focus on the future. ‘And most important of all loving her.’

  Shock robbed Gina of words. She sensed Lanzo was waiting for her response, but she did not know what to say. Throughout her pregnancy she had prayed he would have a change of heart and accept his child, but now that he had she could see many problems ahead. Presumably access arrangements would have to be made, perhaps with solicitors involved, and decisions taken on where she and

  Andria would live. Maybe Lanzo would want them to live in Italy, so that he could visit regularly, but she had expected to be a single mother and had planned to return to Poole so that she’d have the support of her family.

  Andria stirred, and made the little snuffling sound that Gina instantly recognised as the sign she needed feeding. Her breasts felt heavy with milk, and she held out her arms when Lanzo brought the ba
by to her, maternal instinct taking over so that everything else faded from her mind but the intensity of love she felt for her daughter. One thing was certain: she would never agree to be parted from her child—which meant that if Lanzo wanted to be part of Andria’s life he would have to be a continued presence in her life too.

  The future was impossible to envisage, and so she stopped trying and focussed her attention exclusively on the little miracle in her arms.

  They took their daughter home five weeks after her traumatic birth. Now weighing a healthy six pounds, Andria still seemed scarily tiny, but her demanding cry proved that there was now nothing at all wrong with her lungs. She was as pretty as a doll, with her blue eyes and mass of black hair, and Gina was utterly besotted with her.

  Instead of taking the baby to the apartment, Lanzo explained that he had arranged for them to fly straight to the Villa di Sussurri in Positano.

  ‘We’ll have to buy a crib, and a pram,’ Gina fretted, wishing that she had discussed living arrangements with Lanzo. She could not stay in any of his houses as a long-term guest. Andria needed a permanent home. But at the moment she did not even know whether she should plan to buy a house of her own in England or Italy.

  ‘Everything has been taken care of,’ Lanzo assured her.

  ‘Daphne is already at the villa, and is desperate to meet the new addition to the family.’

  But they weren’t a family, Gina wanted to point out. Nothing was sorted out between them about how they were both going to be parents to Andria. And now a new problem had sprung up, she thought dismally as Lanzo lowered himself into the seat next to her on the jet, after checking that Andria was securely strapped into a special baby carrier. For the past weeks she had been enveloped in the haze of hormones that accompanied new motherhood, and her sudden acute awareness of Lanzo was unsettling.