The baby. The baby.
The pulse of blood pushed out of her, sapping her strength and hope. Only one person had the power to stop this. Only one person could help her. The phone wobbled in her hand as she pressed his button.
“Vico!”
* * *
Vico stared across at his sleeping wife.
Her cheeks were whiter than the hospital sheets covering her. The soft gilt of her blonde eyelashes lay on those cheeks. Her body was still, only the slight lift of the covers when she breathed proved she lived.
A close call, the doctor had stated.
Si, too close.
For the rest of his life, he would remember the pleasure at seeing her number on his phone when she’d called. She’d reached out to him, he’d thought. She’d made the first move, he’d gloated. This had been what he wanted, needed, after the brutal ending to their lovemaking.
However, the moment of triumph had turned quickly, hadn’t it? His pride had been cut into nothing when he’d heard her scream. Why had he stubbornly stayed away from her rather than finding her and bringing her home? If he’d been there with her from the beginning, he could have calmed her, helped her, held her.
Instead, his pride meant his wife was alone at the time of crisis.
Gloating pleasure lay like a thick slime of disgrace coating his core for all eternity.
The baby was fine, the doctor had continued. For now, he’d cautioned.
Si, for now.
The doctor didn’t understand. He didn’t know the damage Vico Mattare could do to a child. Not even Lise knew. He’d managed to do some damage already, hadn’t he?
A gurgle of pain clotted his throat.
The memory of her when he’d finally reached her would lay like a silent indictment on his heart for the rest of his life. The ambulance he’d called had arrived mere minutes before he’d screeched to a stop in front of her imposing house.
The one she’d run to, to get away from him.
The one he’d left her in alone.
The one she could have easily lost their child in.
He’d leapt from the car, running down the walk as the open door filled with her being wheeled out by the efficient, bustling team of medics. The long black buckles tight around her belly. The IV drip attached to her arm. The breathing mask slipping over her mouth as they hustled her to the waiting ambulance.
Barely conscious. Her fragile hands covered with her blood. Her skin as pale as parchment.
Vico concentrated on sucking in a breath and letting it out.
The scrape of his inhalation seared his lungs.
Riding in the ambulance to the hospital, helpless as the medics attempted to stabilize her, would rank as the worst moment of his life. Surely, it would. He could not possibly be asked to live through a torture like that one more time. He would not survive it.
Things needed to change, the doctor had added.
Si, things did need to change.
Things such as a man losing his temper and yelling at his employee like a raving lunatic. Things such as a husband treating his wife with contempt and cruelty. Things such as a savage taking his woman with all the finesse and skill of a crazed animal.
Things like that.
He lurched out of the uncomfortable chair he’d spent the night and day in, and paced to the far wall. A fairly good copy of a Gainsborough landscape hung on it. The dappled sunlight lit the country road with gold. The line of oak trees graced the lane with shadow. The road wound through the valley, disappearing over the hill. In the distance, stood a sturdy manor. Quiet and peace and home.
He should let her go.
Go back to Taverwood Grange, her childhood home. Go back to peace and quiet. Go back to her mother who clearly loved her and clearly despised him. Esther Helton had made that abundantly clear when she’d arrived at the hospital.
If there was one gentlemanly bone in his body, he should let Lise go.
Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he turned and looked at her silent, motionless body.
He couldn’t do it.
Which proved she’d been right about him from the very beginning.
He was no gentleman.
No, what he was, most certainly, was craven. A coward of monumental degree. A cad who cared far more for his own heart, his own soul’s survival, than either his wife’s or his child’s.
He slumped on the wall. His hands were cold ice inside his pockets.
There was no use in yelling at himself. It would change nothing. Just as all the yelling and cursing he’d done over the years had been meaningless and worthless in changing the fundamental ugliness in the pit of him. If he had managed to live with that particular guilt for fifteen years, he’d somehow manage to live with this one on top of it.
Her hand moved on the coverlet, her lashes fluttered.
Vico snapped forward, catching his breath.
Eighteen hours.
Eighteen hours he’d spent pacing the hallways, waiting. Then trying to console her fretting friends and frantic mother as they waited for news. Then sitting in this damnably uncomfortable chair waiting for her. Waiting for her…