by Miranda Lee
She had let him think she’d been unfaithful.
She had denied him knowledge of his own child.
Who could predict how he’d react?
Some days, she was sure he would understand. Others, she was afraid he wouldn’t. She’d thought it would be so easy to admit everything once they were here, on this beautiful island in the midst of a sea as clear as fine green glass, tucked away from the world in a magnificent house on its own long, pristine, private beach. Just the three of them: she and Dante and Samantha. No housekeeper. No maid. No nanny or chauffeur. Just she and the man she loved and her little girl.
Their little girl.
Except, Dante didn’t know that yet because she was a coward, because she was terrified of what he’d say, what he’d do when he knew she’d deceived him in the worst way possible—
“Bellissima, what’s wrong?” Tally’s eyes flew open as Dante brushed his lips over hers. “You were whimpering in your sleep, cara. Were you having a bad dream?”
“I … I … Yes. Something like that.”
Smiling, he kissed her again. “You’ve been in the sun too long. That’s the problem.”
Now. Tell him now!
“Dante.”
“Hmm?” He bent to her and kissed her again, parting her lips and slowly slipping the tip of his tongue into her mouth. “You taste delicious.”
So did he. Oh, so did—
“Dante.” Her breath caught. His mouth was at her throat, her breast, nipping lightly at the rapidly beading tip through the thin cotton of her bikini top. “Dante …”
“I’ll bet you taste even more delicious here,” he whispered as he slid his hands behind her, undid the top, his eyes shining brightest silver as he exposed her breasts. “Let me see if I’m right.”
Tally cried out, arching against him as he drew her nipple into the wet heat of his mouth; even as he began easing her bikini bottom down her thighs, she felt it starting to happen, the shimmering heat building inside her, the hot rush of desire as he stroked her dampening curls, put his mouth to her until she was begging him, pleading with him, to take her.
Slowly, so slowly that she thought it might never end, prayed it might never end, he entered her. Filled her, stretched her, moved deep inside her while he whispered to her in Sicilian, words she didn’t know but somehow understood, and she thought, I love you, Dante. I’ve always loved you. Only you.
And shattered like crystal in his arms.
AFTER, HE CARRIED HER into the house, past the room where Samantha lay sleeping, to their bedroom and their canopied bed overlooking the sea.
Gently, he lay her in the center of the white sheets, came down beside her and drew her into his arms. Tally put her face in his neck and sighed.
“I love it here,” she said softly.
“I’m glad.”
“The house is so beautiful. And the sea … I’ve never seen a sea this clear.”
Dante smiled as he stroked his hand gently up and down her spine. “There’s a beach on the Mediterranean where you can stand knee-deep in the water and watch tiny fish swim by like flashes of blue and green light.”
Tally tilted her head back so she could see his face. “Is that where you lived with your nonna? In a town by the sea?”
“Nothing so postcard-perfect, cara. I grew up in Palermo, on a street that was already old when Rome ruled the world.”
“It sounds wonderful. All that history—”
“Trust me, Tally. There was nothing wonderful about it. Everyone was dirt-poor, except for us.” He gave a self-deprecating laugh. “We were poorer than that.”
“Then, everything you have today—you built it all, from scratch?” She smiled. “The amazing Mr. Russo.”
He grinned, lifted her so that she lay stretched out along his length.
Well,” he said, “if you want to call me that—”
Tally rolled her eyes, brought her mouth to his and kissed him. “Don’t let it go to your head,” she said softly, “but you really are. Amazing.”
Dante framed her face with his hands. “What’s amazing,” he whispered, “is you.”
That brought her back to reality. “Dante,” she said carefully, “Dante, do you remember what I said the other night? That we have to talk.”
“I agree. We do.” His eyes grew hooded. “But not right now.”
“Dante. Please—”
“Please what?” He cupped her hips, eased her to her knees above him. “Please, this?” he whispered, and she felt the tip of his erection kiss her labia. “Tell me and I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever you want, inamorata. Anything. Everything …”
Then he was inside her, and words had no meaning. All that mattered was this. This …
This.
AN HOUR LATER, Dante eased his arm from beneath Tally’s shoulders, touched his mouth lightly to hers, slipped on a pair of denim shorts and went to check on Sam.
The baby woke just as he peeked into her room. When she saw him, she grinned, said “Da-Tay” and held out her chubby arms. Dante grinned back, picked her up and gave her a kiss.
“Hello, bambina. Did you have a good nap?”
“Goo’nap,” she said happily.
“I’ll bet you need a diaper change.”
“Di-chain,” Sam gurgled, and Dante laughed.
“You’re a regular little echo chamber, aren’t you?”
“Eck-chame,” Sam said.
Dante laughed again, put her on the changing table and replaced her wet diaper with a fresh one. Then he carried her through the house, into the kitchen, put her in the booster chair at the table while he filled a sippy-cup with milk. She liked it warm so he heated it in the microwave oven, tested a drop on his wrist, screwed the top on, plucked her from the booster, went out on the porch and sat down with her in his arms.
She could handle the sippy-cup herself and he knew it, but he liked holding her, liked the warm weight of the baby, her sweet smell, the little noises of delight she made as she fed.
He liked caring for Samantha in general. Well, maybe not the poopy-diapers part, which he’d done when he heard her babbling softly to herself early this morning. Why wake Tally when he could change the diaper himself, even if it had been a rather interesting learning experience?
The truth was, he’d never imagined himself with a baby in his arms. Oh, he’d figured on having children someday. A man wanted children to carry on his genes, his life’s work, but his thoughts had been of faceless miniature adults and a faceless perfect wife. Now, of course, he knew better.
He wanted a little girl exactly like Sam.
A wife exactly like Tally.
Dante caught his breath.
And, just that easily, came face-to-face with the truth.
He loved Tally. He loved her daughter. He had his family already, right here, the baby in his arms, the woman he adored in his bed.
He rose to his feet, ready to rush to the bedroom, wake Tally with a kiss, tell her what was in his heart—
No. He wanted this to be just right. All the romantic touches he’d always scoffed at. Candlelight. Flowers. Champagne.
The travel agent had given him the name of a respected island family that lived nearby. He waited until Sam finished her milk. Then he kept her safely in the curve of his arm while he made some phone calls. When he was done, he’d arranged for a babysitter, reserved a secluded table at a five-star restaurant on the beach, and ordered a ten-carat canary-yellow diamond in a platinum setting from the delighted owner of the island’s most exclusive jewelry shop, with instructions to have a messenger bring the ring to the restaurant promptly at nine that night.
He was about to order flowers when Sam giggled and said, “Mama!”
Dante looked up and saw Tally.
“Hey,” she said, smiling.
“Hey,” he said softly, smiling back at her.
“You should have woken me.”
“Your hear that, kid? Your mother doesn’t think we can handle the tough stuff on our own.” He
paused. “Tally?”
“Hmm?”
I love you. I adore you. I want to marry you and adopt Sam, raise her as our very own daughter …
“What on earth are you thinking” she said, with a little laugh. “You have the strangest look on your face!”
“Do I?” He cleared his throat. “Maybe it’s because—because what I was thinking was that I want to celebrate Christmas this evening.”
Tally laughed. “Christmas is two days away!”
“You don’t think I’m going to permit a little detail like that to stop me, do you?” Smiling, he came toward her. Sam held out her arms and he handed her to her mother. “In fact, I’ve already made plans for us tonight.”
“What plans?” Tally said, hugging her daughter, putting her face up for Dante’s kiss, thinking how right all this was, being here together, the man she loved, the child they’d created together. “What plans?” she said again and knew that tonight, no matter what happened, she would tell him everything.
His smile tilted. “It’s a surprise. A good one,” he added softly, “one I hope will make you happy.” He put his arms around them both, the woman he loved and the child he would make his.
The child that should have been his, if he hadn’t been so stupid and self-involved.
He felt the dull pain of regret settle over him.
If only Sam really were his. He loved her but sometimes—sometimes it hurt to know that Tally had lain with another man. That someone else had joined with her to create this beautiful little life.
“Dante,” Tally said softly, “what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” He cleared his throat. “I was just thinking about tonight.”
“You looked—you looked sad.”
“Sad?” He smiled, forced the dark thoughts away. “Nonsense,” he said briskly. “I’m just making sure I’ve thought of everything. Sam’s babysitter. Our dinner reservations.”
“Are we having dinner out?”
“We are. At that place on the beach.”
Tally gave him the look women have always given men who are too dense to understand life’s basic rules of survival.
“That place? But I don’t have anything to wear! You said we’d only need swimsuits. Shorts. Jeans. I can’t go there in jeans, Dante!”
He thought she could go there in what she wore now and still be more beautiful than any woman in the place, but this played right into his hands. He still had things to arrange. The flowers for their meal and for the house when they returned to it later. Candles for the bedroom. More champagne, to drink on the beach once she had his ring on her finger.
“I agree,” he said solemnly. “That’s why you’re going to take my credit card, taxi into town and buy whatever you need for tonight.”
“But—”
He silenced the protest with a kiss.
“Find something long and elegant. Something so sexy it will make every man who sees you want me dead so he can claim you for his own.” He kissed her again and she leaned into him, the baby gurgling happily between them, and half an hour later, holding Sam in his arms, both of them waving as the taxi and Tally pulled away, Dante knew he was, without question, the luckiest man alive.
HE MADE THE BALANCE of the phone calls, arranged for the delivery of white orchids, white candles and bottles of Cristal. The last call went to his attorney in New York, where he left a message asking him to research the state’s adoption laws and to determine the quickest way to effect an adoption.
“I think that about does it, Sammy,” he said, grinning at the way Samantha looked when he called her that. It wasn’t elegant, but he liked it.
Then he turned all his attention on the child who would soon be his.
He took her into the pool, rode her on his shoulders in the warm water as she laughed and clutched at his hair with her fists.
He held her hand as they walked along the beach, helping her pick up shells, making a show of putting them into his pocket for later while surreptitiously letting ones that were too small for her safety fall to the sand.
He made himself a cup of coffee, handed Sam a sippy-cup of juice and shared an Oreo cookie with her, chuckling as he imagined what all those who trembled at his presence in a boardroom would think if they could see him eating the chunks she handed him, baby drool and all.
Late afternoon, with the sun high overhead, he sat on the palm-shaded patio, Sam playing at his feet. She gave a huge yawn.
“Nap time,” he said.
Sam, who was, of course, brilliant for her age, puckered up her baby face and yowled.
“Okay, okay, forget I mentioned it.”
The baby smiled, yawned again, put her head down and her rump up, and promptly fell asleep on the blanket at his feet. Dante yawned, too, picked up the magazine he’d been leafing through, wondered if Tally—his Tally—would be as happy as he wanted her to be when he proposed tonight.
She would—wouldn’t she?
She loved him—didn’t she?
He hadn’t really thought about it until now. Yes. Of course she loved him. The way she sighed in his arms. Smiled into his eyes. The way he caught her watching him sometimes, that little smile curving her lips—
What was that? A dark shape, near his foot.
“Dio mio!”
Sam woke up screaming as a thing with eight legs raced across her outflung hand. Dante scooped the child into his arms, stomped on the ugly black thing and saw the bite marks of its fangs on Sam’s tender wrist.
“Sam,” he said, “Sam, mia figlia—”
Her shriek of pain rose into the air. Even as he scooped her into his arms, Dante saw the flesh around the bite start to swell. He paused only long enough to tie a scarf around her arm above the bite and to pick up the dead spider, place it in his handkerchief and tuck it into his pocket.
Heart racing, he ran for his car.
HE PHONED THE HOSPITAL when he was two blocks away. Two physicians and a nurse were waiting outside the emergency room. The nurse tried to take Sam from his arms but he refused to give her up.
“I’m staying with her,” he said, and neither the doctors nor the nurse doubted his determination.
They led him into an examining room. Sam clung to his neck, sobbing. He soothed her with words he barely knew, things he’d heard people say to weeping children, things he’d once wished his nonna had said to him when he was small and he’d skinned his knee or bloodied his nose, except this wasn’t a bloody knee or nose, he thought, as he dug in his pocket and produced the ugly corpse.
The nurse grimaced; one of the physicians barked out a command, and Dante’s heart turned over when the nurse appeared with a tiny needle and reached for Sam’s hand.
“Shh, bambina,” he whispered, “everything will be all right.”
But Sam was past listening. Her little body arched; Dante cursed as a convulsion tore through her.
“Do something,” he snarled.
“Wait outside,” the doctor snapped.
Dante flashed him a look the man would never forget. “I will not leave my baby,” he said.
He didn’t. Not until Sam finally opened her eyes and looked at him.
“Da-Tay,” she whispered, and for the first time since his mother had left him, Dante wept.
IT TOOK TWO HOURS and a dozen calls to the house by the sea before Tally answered the phone.
She was, as Dante had anticipated, frantic.
“Dante! Dear God, where are you? Where is Samantha? I came home and the place was empty and—”
He interrupted. Told her everything was fine, that they were at the hospital, in the emergency room. Lied and said he’d let his worry over a little bug bite get out of hand. He didn’t want her to know the truth until he could take her in his arms and hold her and she could see for herself that the crisis was over.
He was waiting at the big double doors of the emergency room when she came flying through them.
“Where’s my baby?”
Dante caught he
r in his arms. “She’s fine, cara.”
“Tell me the truth. My baby—”
“Tally.” He held her by the shoulders, brought his eyes level with hers. “I would never lie to you. Never.”
She nodded, though he could feel her tremble in his embrace. Slowly, carefully, he explained what had happened. When she swayed, he gathered her against him, rocked her gently until she pushed her hands against his chest and looked into his eyes.
“Where is she?”
He kept his arm around her, let his strength seep into her as he led her to Sam’s room. The room was private; so was the nurse who sat beside the baby in the white crib, peacefully sleeping. The danger was past but the IV was still in her arm.
Tally bent over the crib and put her hand on her daughter’s back. Tears fell from her eyes.
“My baby,” she whispered, “oh, my sweet little girl! I could have lost you.”
“Your husband did all the right things, Mrs. Russo,” the nurse said softly. “Without his quick thinking, things would have been much worse.”
Tally looked at the woman. “But he isn’t—”
Dante slid his arm around her shoulders. “Let’s let Sam sleep, cara. Come into the hall and we can talk.”
Bewildered, Tally followed him from the room. “She thinks you and I are married?”
“I don’t know the laws here, cara. But I remember reading about a child somewhere who died because a hospital wouldn’t provide emergency treatment without the permission of a parent.” He clasped her shoulders. “I wasn’t going to run that risk. Not with our little girl.”
Tally swallowed hard. Our little girl. Our little girl.
“Don’t look at me that way, cara. I had no choice. Our Samantha—”
It was her fault, all of it. She had denied Dante knowledge of his child, denied Sam her father. And now, dear God, and now Sam might have died if Dante hadn’t thought quickly—
“Tally.”
She looked up at him. His face was drawn. He had gone through so much today for a child he didn’t know was his, a child he loved.
“Tally.” Dante paused. “I know my timing is bad but—cara, I want to marry you. And I want to adopt Sam. I want to be her father.”
Tears swam in Tally’s eyes. “Oh, Dante …”