“Well…” Theresa shrugged bravely. “This is more than he signed up for.”
“Oh, please.” Lisa rolled her eyes disdainfully. “This is exactly what he signed up for. He wanted you pregnant, remember?”
“I remember.” Theresa nodded forlornly.
“Look, far be it from me to defend the guy,” Rick intervened reasonably. “I mean you know I can’t stand him after the way he treated you. I would have cleaned his clock ages ago if you hadn’t called me off, Terri…but quite honestly the man looked downright pitiful just now. Not your typical ruthless Sandro.”
“I’ve seen a change in him lately too, Theresa,” Lisa said.
“Please.” Theresa shook her head. “He’s the same as he’s always been. He wants out of this marriage and so do I.”
“Theresa…” Lisa murmured in her most reasonable voice.
“Lisa, don’t defend him. You don’t know what he’s done…” And suddenly it all came out: how he’d blackmailed her to prevent her from divorcing him, using Lisa’s loan as his leverage. “He probably gave you that loan so that he would have some kind of future hold over me if I ever stepped out of line!” Rick and Lisa exchanged a meaningful look before Rick shrugged, seeming to answer some unspoken question from Lisa.
“Theresa.” Her cousin still clasped one of her hands tightly. “I know about that.”
“You do?” She was shocked. “How? How long have you known?”
“Sandro confessed all the last time you two came by. Remember? He wanted to talk to me alone?” Theresa nodded dazedly. “For whatever reason, he doesn’t want or need that leverage anymore. He offered to write off my debt entirely. I refused but I get the feeling that he’s going to do it anyway.”
“That’s what he wanted to talk about that day?” Theresa gasped incredulously.
“Yes, and he made me swear not to tell you about it but I suppose these are extenuating circumstances.” Lisa nodded and Theresa frowned in concentration.
“I don’t understand any of this…why would he do that?” she asked in confusion before her face cleared up and she laughed at her own stupidity. “Well, he doesn’t really need the leverage anymore, does he? Not when I’m doing exactly what he wants? But to clear the debt before the baby’s born still doesn’t make sense…unless…”
“Is this a private conversation or can anyone join in?” Rick interrupted her musing drily and she blinked up at him. “I think you’re overanalyzing. From what Lisa tells me he was desperate to cancel that debt. She thinks, and I’m inclined to agree after what I just saw, that he wants a clean slate with you but doesn’t really know how to go about it.”
“Well, I live with him and I know you’re both wrong,” she maintained stubbornly, shoving all those Scrabble and chess nights to the back of her mind determinedly. She tried not to think about the companionable meals and the silent support that he had lent her at every doctor’s appointment. “He’s in love with someone else. I’d say another woman, only in this case, I think I’m probably the other woman.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Rick asked furiously.
“He was in love with her before my father forced him into this marriage. She’s the woman he wants to have a family with. I’m the one who screwed up his life, Rick, not vice versa. Once I have this baby we’ll go our separate ways and both be happier for it.”
“This is so messed up.” Rick shook his head in disgust. “What about the baby and you? Don’t you count for anything?”
“I would hate it if he stayed out of some outdated sense of duty. I think I deserve more than that, don’t you?”
“Absolutely,” Lisa whispered, squeezing Theresa’s shoulders reassuringly before sitting down on the chair beside the bed and leaning toward Theresa. “So you felt the baby move?”
Theresa’s eyes lit up with remembered joy.
“It was amazing.” She nodded and both Rick and Lisa went misty as they verbally recalled Rhys’s first movements. “After the fright I got, it was such a relief to feel him moving around in there.”
“Is he doing any wriggling now? His auntie Lisa wants to meet him.”
Theresa shook her head with a slight laugh.
“He’s all quiet right now.” She rested her hand on her stomach. “I can’t believe I have to stay in bed for a week.”
“Yeah, that’s a bit crappy.” Lisa nodded sympathetically. “So glad I wasn’t confined to the bed at any time during my pregnancy.”
“God, if only…she was like a little dynamo, I had to force her to slow down,” Rick recalled with a shudder.
“Do you think I could stay with you for the next week or so?” Theresa asked hesitantly, and Rick and Lisa both frowned before nodding.
“Of course,” Lisa said. “But why?”
“Sandro’s going to Italy for a week and before this happened I had every intention of staying in my own home but—”
“If you think I’m going to Italy with you confined to a bed, you can damned well think again,” Sandro’s gruff voice suddenly interrupted from the doorway and three heads swiveled toward him. He looked…strange. His hair was disheveled, his suit wrinkled, and his tie loosened. He was also clutching a wilted bunch of flowers in one hand and a gaily wrapped square box in the other. Added to that he had an incongruous bunch of foil helium balloons trailing behind him. It was the latter that caught and held everybody’s attention. They were colorful, some were downright garish, and most of them either read Happy Birthday or Happy Anniversary and one woefully out of place dolphin had the legend “Yippee for SUMMER” emblazoned across its side, a very optimistic sentiment considering that it was July and the middle of winter.
“Sandro, bro…” Rick managed in a voice that only barely trembled with laughter. “Did you go raiding all the wards in the hospital for those?”
“These were all the seriously understocked gift shop had,” Sandro grumbled, obviously sensitive to Rick’s mockery, which raised Theresa’s brows because she had never heard her self-assured husband sound so defensive before.
“Thank you, Sandro,” she said before Rick could come back with anything else. “I love helium balloons.”
“I know you do,” he said fiercely, surging forward until he elbowed Rick aside and stood staring down at her intently. “I know that you like helium balloons and pink gerbera daisies. I know that you like praline truffles.” He shoved the gift-wrapped box, which probably contained praline truffles, and the wilted pink daisies into her arms. “I do know things about you, Theresa. I’ve been learning.”
“Um…” Okay? Right, so he remembered the conversation they’d had months ago when she’d accused him of knowing nothing about her. He’d obviously been paying attention during their evenings together but what on earth was he trying to prove with this? “Thank you.”
It was all she could think of to say, and she saw both Rick and Lisa wince and watched Sandro’s shoulders droop slightly before he nodded.
“You’re welcome,” he muttered in a devastatingly unemotional voice as he took a step back from the bed. “I’ve postponed my trip to Italy. I want to make sure that you get the rest you’re supposed to.”
“Okay.” She nodded.
“Good.” He seemed to be at a loss for a moment, looking unsure of his next move, before he reached out to stroke one soft cheek. “Are you feeling better?”
“Fine,” she whispered. “A little tired.”
“Righty-o…” Rick sing-songed. “That’s our cue to vamoose.”
“Oh, but I didn’t mean…” Theresa was appalled that they thought she was hinting for them to leave.
“No, you didn’t.” Lisa smiled down at her. “But you are tired and you do need your rest. I’ll leave the clothes right here.” She dropped a small canvas bag onto the visitor’s chair. “Call if you need anything.”
After a flurry of hugs and kisses they were gone, leaving her grim-faced, silent husband behind. Theresa sneaked a glance up at said grim-faced, silent husband and was suddenly attacked by a fit of irreverent giggles. Now that nobody was around to witness it, she felt free to laugh at the image he presented. He looked like an underdressed, forlorn clown with those balloons clutched in his hand.
“What?” he asked, the grim façade melting away in the face of her amusement.
“It’s just…those balloons, Sandro.” She snorted, trying to control the giggles. His own devastating grin lit up his face.
“I know, right?” He shook his head sadly as he tied the balloons to her bedpost. “A hospital without a single ‘get-well-soon’ balloon in sight. Craziness.”
“Thank you for them anyway. They always brighten up a room.”
“I remember you saying that when you talked about a friend’s tenth birthday party. You wanted some for your own…” But she hadn’t even had a party that year, much less balloons. She didn’t even know why she’d confessed that sorry tale to him. There was an awkward silence while he stood hovering by her bedside.