by Nina Singh
“I’m so sorry!” A harried-looking woman with a large backpack took hold of the little girl. “She moves so fast sometimes.”
“It’s all right,” Laney responded with a weak smile.
“Thanks for the catch,” she said after the mom and tot had left, not moving out of his hold. Was it his imagination or had she gone quite pale suddenly? The circles under her eyes grew darker and her lips appeared to turn blue.
Something was very wrong.
Her next words confirmed it. “I don’t feel too well all of a sudden.” She barely got the last word out as she slumped against him.
* * *
Laney’s vision turned black just as her knees went weak. Thank heavens Gianni was there. She felt him gently lift her up and carry her to a bench against the wall.
“Laney? Honey?” Gianni’s voice reached her ears as an echo. “I want you to try to take a really deep breath and then do it again and again. Can you try for me?”
She did her best to follow his direction. It seemed to help, if only a little. She managed to find her voice enough to make an attempt at telling him what she needed him to do for her.
“My OB. Contact. My phone.”
Through the fog clouding her brain, she realized her attempts had worked. She felt Gianni reach into her cross-body pocketbook and pull out her cell phone.
“They have an office at Mass General,” she heard him say.
Yes! He knew what to do. With the relief that realization brought, Laney continued to try to breathe as Gianni had instructed. As if observing through a tunnel, she felt herself being carried out of the building and into one of the taxis that always loitered around the harbor side.
She had no idea how much time had gone by when she opened her eyes to find herself lying on a hospital cot in a sterile brightly lit room with an IV in her arm. Gianni sat next to her, holding her hand.
“Guess I picked a rather inconvenient time to take a nap, huh?”
Gianni’s head snapped up. He smiled at her. “Hey there, sleeping beauty. How do you feel?” he asked in a soft, gentle voice.
“Right now, I feel rather lucky that you were at the aquarium with me. Does Mabel know where we are?”
“I took the liberty of texting her after finding her contact information on your phone. I just told her you were with me. Not to look for you.”
Not only had he caught her fall and rushed her to get help, he’d thought to notify her cousin so Mabel wouldn’t be roaming the aquarium looking for her in vain. Gianni Martino really knew how to come through in a crisis.
A knock on the door preceded the entrance of her regular OB doctor. Laney shifted to try to sit up but then gave up given the effort it took. “Hey, Dr. Zhao.”
“Hello, there,” the petite woman with the sensible top bun greeted her, then took Laney’s wrist to check her pulse. “Feeling better?”
“Yes. But I’m scared, to be perfectly honest. Is the baby...?” She couldn’t complete the sentence. An icy dread of fear ran through her veins at even the possibility that something may have happened to her child.
“The baby appears to be fine.” She lifted her stethoscope. “Strong and steady heartbeat.”
The relief that surged through Laney’s core had her shaking. Thank the heavens. Gianni’s grip on her hand tightened and she heard his audible sigh.
Their baby was okay. “What happened?” she asked the doctor through dry lips.
“All signs indicate that you were simply dehydrated,” Dr. Zhao answered. “The IV is taking care of that right now. Your vitals are good. Getting better as the fluid does its thing.”
“Thank you.” Laney felt the tear that had built up in her one eye slowly roll down her cheek.
“We’re just going to keep you here for a while longer, about half an hour or so. Just for observation.”
That sounded fine with her. It would take her about that long to recover from the scare alone.
Dr. Zhao continued, “I’m going to have Tina come in and strap a Doppler on you, so we can listen to the fetal heartbeat before we let you go. Just to be on the safe side.” She pulled out a notepad from her lab-coat pocket and started scribbling. “I’m writing down the sports drinks I recommend. Of course, water works just as well. Just make sure to keep drinking. And I’d like you to come back in a couple of days. Just to follow up.”
Laney wanted to hug the other woman. How could she have let herself get dehydrated? She could have really gotten hurt back there at the aquarium. If Gianni hadn’t been there to catch her, she could have easily fallen and hit her head.
Gianni. She looked over at him as the doctor left. He looked visibly shaken. She’d given them both quite a fright. Any doubt she may have had about whether he cared about this baby was now soundly put to rest. If only she could be as sure he cared for her, as well.
“I’m really sorry,” she told him as yet another tear fell.
He rubbed her cheek with the back of his hand. “Hey, you have nothing to apologize for. Well, maybe except for making me hang out in the smelly penguin exhibit for so long.”
She managed a small smile at his lame attempt at humor. “Sorry about that, certainly. And also for scaring you.”
He gently tussled her hair. “All that matters is that you and the little one are all right, cara.”
The endearment hovered in the air between them. He hadn’t called her that since Italy. The physician’s assistant chose that moment to knock and enter. She pushed a cart into the room as she greeted them.
With an impressive efficiency and hands that were rather cold, the other woman wrapped a strap around her middle. She hooked the other end up to a rather archaic-looking machine.
Laney held her breath until the machine came to life. Then the steady singsong sound of her baby’s heartbeat rang through the air. It had to be the sweetest rhythm she’d ever heard.
As the PA left, she looked up to find Gianni staring at her in wonder. Without a word, he walked over to her bedside and gave her a soft and gentle kiss on the lips.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
GIANNI DIDN’T KNOW whether to jump up in joy or sink down into the floor. The past hour or so had been the most harrowing of his lifetime. His nerves had been shot, his every muscle tight with apprehension until he’d heard the doctor’s reassurance. Then he’d felt the flood of relief in every cell of his body.
Now, listening to his baby’s heartbeat as it sounded through the air was an experience he couldn’t compare to any other. He’d known he wanted this child from the moment Laney called him that day at his accountant’s office. But he hadn’t realized just how much until the real fear that something might go wrong.
What a punch to the gut.
And Laney, he had to make sure she was better taken care of. From this moment, he was going to do everything he could to ensure it. If that meant finding a way to be with her more often, then so be it. Starting today.
“You don’t have to stay, you know,” she said to him, lifting the top part of the bed using the controller. “I’m feeling much better now. I can find my way home.”
As if he’d leave her side. Not for anything in this world. Besides, he may never tire of listening to the steady thud of his child’s heartbeat. The sound of it brought home just how real all of this was. In a way that hadn’t hit him before. “You’re not getting rid of me. Don’t even think about it.”
She smiled, and the desire to walk over and kiss her, really kiss her this time—not some chaste little peck on the lips—had him clenching his fists to resist the urge. He was relieved to see she did indeed look much better. The color had returned to her face, her lips no longer a frightening shade of blue. He was going to run out and buy her cases and cases of sports drinks as soon as he had the chance.
“In fact,” he added, “I’d like to come back with you to the appointment.”
The half hour went by quicker than he would have thought. Gianni secured another cab while Laney made her appointment at the front desk.
“Are you warm enough?” he asked. “I can ask the driver to turn the heat up.”
“Gianni, it’s about ninety degrees outside.”
“Then I’ll ask him to turn his AC down.”
“I’m not cold. But thank you. And you didn’t have to ride with me to my place.”
She really didn’t get it. He wasn’t merely seeing her home. He intended to stay with her as long as she would let him. “I told you back at the hospital, I’m not leaving your side.”
She gave a small shrug. “Suit yourself. But I don’t plan on doing anything but taking a long hot shower and then crawling into bed for the longest nap I’ve ever taken.” She accented the statement with a wide yawn and a long stretch of her lower back.
“I’m afraid not. That won’t work.”
“Come again?”
“First we’re going to make sure you get something to eat. You missed lunch. We just got you hydrated. I won’t risk malnutrition.”
She laughed loud enough that it echoed through the back seat. “I’m hardly starving. But you’re right. I could eat. My exhaustion was just winning out over my hunger.”
“Do you have enough food in your apartment?”
“You know, you would have made a good nurse.”
“I can think of a few people I’d like to jab with a needle from time to time.”
She chuckled again and he realized, not for the first time, just how much he enjoyed her laughter.
* * *
She must have given him an even bigger scare than she thought. After setting her up on the sofa and covering her up with a plush afghan, Gianni was in the kitchen throwing together what he called a satisfying, nutritious lunch that both she and the baby would enjoy.’
It was so hard to keep her eyes open but the aroma coming from the kitchen was definitely an incentive to stay awake.
“You know, you don’t have as much food here as you led me to believe.”
She knew she had plenty. Just not enough that might satisfy a healthy Italian male who worked out regularly by throwing and receiving punches.
“I have all the basics.”
“Life is about more than just the basics, cara.” There it was again, that word. Dear, beloved.
She knew she couldn’t look too deeply into the endearment. It was just an expression...one he probably didn’t even realize he was using.
Gianni walked into the living room a few minutes later, carrying a tray he set down on the coffee table in front of her. Her mouth watered at the sight of the food. He’d made an omelet that was so loaded it was overflowing at the fold. Next to the plate sat a perfectly browned piece of toast slathered in so much butter it looked downright wet. A tall glass of water with lemon wedges had just the amount of ice cubes she liked.
“Aren’t you having anything? I could share—”
He didn’t even let her finish. “That’s all yours. You need to eat. I had a sandwich as I cooked.”
Laney gave him a serious military-type salute and picked up the fork. “Yes, sir.”
A burst of flavor exploded on her tongue as soon as she took a bite. Cheese, vegetables, myriad spices she wasn’t even aware she owned.
The man was an artist. A girl could get used to this. But that was the whole problem in a nutshell. It would be all too easy to get used to having Gianni Martino around.
She thought of the look on his face when she’d first woken up in the hospital, the way he’d held her hand and squeezed it tighter as the doctor had walked in. Just the source of comfort and strength he’d been for her when she’d faced her deepest fear.
There was no denying it. She was falling for him. Head over heels, impossible to deny, tumbling with no hope of righting herself.
If only the man in question felt the same way in return.
* * *
Gianni lifted the tray off Laney’s lap when she was finished and carried it back to the kitchenette of her apartment. “I believe you’ve earned your nap now, madame,” he told her upon his return. It was clear she was struggling to keep her eyes open.
“I have one phone call to make and then it’s off to dreamland I go for the next few hours.”
“What’s this important phone call? Anything I can take care of for you?”
She shook her head. “I need to call the club and let my manager know I’m not going to make it in tonight.”
What he would have preferred to hear was that she would be telling them she didn’t plan on making tonight, tomorrow and for the foreseeable future. But that was probably too much to ask. At this point in time, anyway. “Will that leave them shorthanded?”
“I don’t think so. We shouldn’t be that busy with two major concerts in town.”
He sat down next to her as she reached for her phone, waited while she made the call and finally hung up. “All taken care of.”
“For now.”
“Yes. I’ll eventually have to do more hiring. Especially once all the college kids head back to school. I have several working for me over the summer who won’t be around much longer.”
A tendril of apprehension curled through his middle. After the scare today, he didn’t want to think about Laney overdoing it and risking her or the baby’s health. Owning and operating any business took a lot of time and effort, let alone a popular nightclub like the Carpe D.
“Don’t you think that’s a problem?” he asked her. “Finding qualified service workers is tough enough under the best of circumstances.”
“I’ll have to move quickly to hire and get them trained. But I do still have several months.”
He stood and started to pace the room. He couldn’t believe how blasé she was being about this. “What happens when the baby gets here?”
She shifted and tucked her knees underneath her. “Well, for one, I plan on taking some time off, obviously.”
“And then what?”
“Then there are several very reputable nanny agencies in the area.”
He didn’t want to overstep. But it was a fair subject. He had to know her exact plans moving forward. The baby was his too, after all.
“You plan to continue as is, then? You don’t feel anything needs to change until the baby is born?”
“I don’t think I follow where you’re going with this.”
“I would hate to have another replay of this afternoon. You can’t let yourself get run down. Nothing matters but taking care of yourself now.”
She tilted her head and gave him a questioning smile. “I was only dehydrated, Gianni. And my doctor is making sure to monitor me closely. You heard her yourself.”
“I still think you should slow down. Take it a bit easier now that you’re expecting.”
There was one obvious way to do just that. She could go ahead and sell to his father. He knew firsthand what a lucrative offer was waiting for her if she only cared to look. Even if Gianni himself had walked away from the whole fiasco out of respect for her wishes. But that was then. Everything was different now. There was a child to consider.
And if she took him up on his marriage proposal, she could devote all her time in preparation of the upcoming birth.
“I can tell you have something you want to say, Gianni. Go ahead and say it, please.”
Despite the question, her tone told him she wasn’t ready to hear any of it. He had to pick a better moment. “It can wait. You’ve had enough of a day already. We’ll talk some other time.”
She sat up straighter. “No, I’d rather get it out in the open.”
“Don’t you want to take your nap?”
“I find
I’m not all that sleepy anymore.”
Rubbing a hand down his face, he tried to summon the right words to make his argument. Marrying him and taking his father up on the sale offer was the ideal solution to their current scenario. When the time was right, he’d do all he could to help her open up again elsewhere. With a club that was newer and better.
“All right, if you insist.” He walked over and sat on the coffee table in front of her. “You still have an option you might not have considered.”
Her eyes narrowed on him in suspicion. “What would that be?”
“You can still sell. My father’s offer stands.”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “I see. I take it that’s what you would recommend I do, then.”
“It makes sense, Laney. It would give you time to adjust to the new reality and get ready for the baby. Think about not having to worry about staffing, or drink orders or handling large crowds. You could just relax and focus on our child.”
“So you’re trying to convince me to sell because you’re concerned about our child?”
He nodded. “Of course. And out of concern for you, as well.”
“And that’s the only reason? Your concern for us?”
The way she emphasized the word sent warning bells ringing through his head. “Why else?”
“Perhaps you could tell me.”
For a moment, he was simply confused at what she was getting at. But then realization dawned and he couldn’t believe what she suspected. Exactly how little did she think of him? “You think I’m telling you this in order to acquire a building?”
Her lips tightened before she answered, “Aren’t you? Isn’t there a well-known theory that says the most obvious conclusion is usually the correct one?” She pushed her bangs off her forehead. “I can’t believe I’ve been so naive.”
“Laney. You can’t possibly think I don’t have your best interests at heart here. Yours and the baby’s.”
But she didn’t even appear to be listening. Her jaw suddenly dropped and she stared at him, her mouth agape. “Oh, my God. Is that the only reason you proposed? How nice and tidy. You get legal rights as a father...your family’s business gets the property they’ve been after.”