A Ring for Vincenzo's Heir(21)

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.