But still...
"Revenge is wrong," she said in a low voice.
"You're angry?" Now Vin was the one to look shocked. His expression turned hard. "He deserved it. He deserved worse."
Vin's expression scared her. He didn't look like the good-hearted man she'd come to know in Tuscany. He looked like the ruthless billionaire she'd fled in New York.
She felt tension building in her body. She put her hands on her baby bump and felt the muscles of her belly harden. Like a contraction. She took a quick breath. "You could have...just left him alone."
"I have the right to protect my family."
"We aren't in danger! We're thousands of miles away!" She took another deep breath, trying to will her body to calm down, to relax. If she could, then maybe these contractions would stop. "It was revenge, pure and simple."
"What do you want, Scarlett?" His black eyes flashed. "Should I have bought the man a pony, tucked him in with milk and cookies, thanked him for the way he threatened my wife and child? Is that what you think?"
"I think-" Her breathing was becoming increasingly difficult. She was beginning to feel shooting pains radiating from her lower spine with increasing frequency. Then-
She sucked in her breath as she felt a sudden rush, a sticky mess. She looked down at her cream satin wedding dress in dismay. At the expensive black leather seat below it.
She whispered, "I think I'm in labor."
"You-" His hard voice abruptly changed in tone. "What?"
"My water just broke."
Scarlett felt scared. Really scared. She looked at her husband. Vin stared at her, his dark eyes shocked.
Then his jaw tightened. "Don't worry, Scarlett." He grimly changed the gears of the Ferrari. "I'll get you to the hospital."
He stomped on the gas, and they thrust forward on the highway as if shot by a cannon. If she'd thought the car was going a little too fast before, now it went on wings, flying past the other cars like a bullet.
She braced herself, gripping her seat belt with one hand and her tightening belly with the other. Yet strangely, in this moment, her fear was gone.
Scarlett looked at her husband's silhouette. Through the opposite window, she saw the darkening shadows of the Italian countryside flying past in smears of purple and red. And though she had been so terrified a moment before, she suddenly knew Vin, so capable and strong, would never let anything bad happen to her or their baby. He would protect them from any harm. Even death itself...
She glanced behind them. "We lost the bodyguards."
"They'll catch up."
Scarlett held her belly as she gasped out with the pain of a bigger contraction. She felt Vin automatically tense beside her. Then she made the mistake of looking behind them again. "Oh, no-"
Vin glanced in the rearview mirror and saw flashing police lights. Scarlett saw him hesitate. She knew he was tempted to keep driving, even if every single policeman in Italy chased them.
But with a rough curse, he pulled abruptly off the autostrada.
The police car parked behind them. As Vin rolled down his window, the young policeman came forward, speaking in good-natured Italian. Vin interrupted, pointing at Scarlett in a desperate gesture. The man's eyes widened when he saw her sticky wedding dress, as she gripped her belly and nearly sobbed with the pain.
Five minutes later, a police car was clearing their path with siren and flashing lights as their car roared south to the nearest hospital.
Standing in the bright morning light of their private room in the new, modern hospital, Vin cradled his newborn son in his arms, staring down at him in wonder.
"I'll keep you safe," he whispered to the baby, who was gently swaddled in a soft blue baby blanket. "You'll always know I'm watching out for you."
Vin looked up tenderly at his wife, who was also sleeping. Labor hadn't been easy. She'd been too far along in her contractions to get any kind of epidural.
So her only option had been to just get through it, to breathe through each wave of agony that brought her closer to their baby being born. With each contraction, Scarlett had held Vin's hand tight enough to bruise, looking up at him pleadingly from the bed. He'd tried to stay strong for her, to hide his own anguish at seeing her pain. All he could do was hold her hand and uselessly repeat, "Breathe!"
Now Vin looked at Scarlett in wonder. She'd been so strong. He'd never seen that kind of courage. As she slept, he saw the smudged hollows beneath her eyes, dark eyelashes resting against her pale cheeks, subdued red hair spilling on the pillow around her.
He looked back down at their baby's tiny hand wrapped around his finger, and another wave of gratitude and love washed over him.
"Happy birthday," he said to his son, smiling as he touched his small cheek with his fingertips. "I'm your papà."
The baby kept sleeping.
Outside the hospital room window, Vin saw a beautiful October morning, a bright blue sky. He blinked, then yawned, stretching his shoulders as much as he could without disturbing the baby. What a night it had been.
Sitting down in a chair beside the hospital bed where his wife slept, Vin held the baby for an hour, watching over them. He brushed back his baby's dark, downy hair, marveling at the tiny size of his head, his fragility. Vin could never let anything happen to his wife. Or his child.
His son would have a different childhood than he'd had. Vin's own earliest memory in life was of crying himself to sleep after his nanny locked him in his bedroom when he started crying loudly for his mother. His mother hired servants based on their cheapness, not their reliability or kindness, and he was often left to their care for weeks while she enjoyed time with her latest boyfriend in St. Barts or Bora Bora.
Except on those rare nights Vin's grandfather came to stay, no one ever comforted him when he heard a scary noise in the darkness or was frightened there was a monster under his bed. Vin had learned that the only way to survive was to be meaner than any monster. The only way to survive was to pretend not to be afraid.
But now, holding his son, Vin felt real fear. Because he knew that if this tiny baby was ever hurt, it would destroy him. It made him wonder how his own mother could have cared so much more for her momentary pleasures than her own son.
Vin took a deep breath. He'd be nothing like her. His son would always be his priority. From now on, that was his only duty. His only obligation. To keep his wife and child safe. He'd have to build an even bigger fortune, to protect them from worry or care. Vin's heart squeezed. He had a family to protect now. And he would. With his dying breath.
"Vin."
He looked up to see Scarlett's tired eyes smiling up at him. She held out her hand, and he immediately took it.
"Look at our son," he said softly. "The most beautiful baby in the world."
"You're not biased," she teased.
He shook his head solemnly. "It's not opinion. It's fact-" he smoothed back the soft edge of the baby blanket "-as anyone with eyes could see. He'll be a fighter, too."
"Just like his father."
It didn't sound like criticism, but praise; and hearing that from her made him catch his breath. The golden light of morning flooded the bed and the white tile floor, casting it in a haze as their eyes locked for a long moment. Then, leaning forward, he gently kissed her.
When he pulled away, her green eyes were luminous. Then they turned anxious. "But, Vin, what about your meeting? The deal with Mediterranean Airlines?"
Vin's jaw dropped. He'd forgotten. He'd totally forgotten about the meeting that was so important it had been circled in red on the calendar of his mind. He looked at the clock on the wall. He'd been so determined to get to Rome, and here he was, in a hospital just north of the city. The time was nine fifteen. The meeting had started at nine.
"Maybe you can still make it," Scarlett said. "Give me the baby. We can have Larson or Beppe meet you outside. You still-"
"No." His voice was quiet, but firm.
"Are you sure?" He could see the desperate hope in her eyes that he would stay, even as she said, "I know what this deal means to you. You should go."
He wondered what it cost her to say that. Being abandoned in an Italian hospital outside Rome, exhausted and still recovering from her physical ordeal, with an hours-old baby, couldn't be what she wanted. But she encouraged him because she wanted him to have what he desired most.
But for the first time, something compelled Vin more than his business, or money, or even power.
He couldn't leave his wife and their newborn son. Not now. Not after everything he'd just seen Scarlett endure. Not when his baby was still so tiny and fragile and new.
His place wasn't in a boardroom in Rome. His place was right here, keeping watch over the ones who depended on him far more than any employees or stockholders. The ones who really mattered. His family.