Caroselli's Accidental Heir (15 page)

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Lucy—”

“I don’t even know what to say to you.”

“You need to know that it’s not about the money. It was
never
about the money.”

“I’m just supposed to take your word for it?”

“Well,” he said calmly, as if this whole thing was just some silly understanding. “I would have hoped that by now you would trust me, but if you need definitive proof, I have it.”

Fourteen

T
his should be good, Lucy thought. “So prove it.”

“I can’t. Not yet.”

How stupid did she look? “Not yet? What is that supposed to mean?”

“I can prove to you that I am telling you the truth. I just can’t do it right now.”

That was the dumbest thing she’d ever heard. With effort she sat up. “Why not?”

“I’m already in the doghouse. If I break a promise now, I’ll never live it down.”

“A promise to
Nonno,
” she said, the empty space in her soul growing larger by the minute. Trumped by
family
once again.

“No. Not
Nonno.
”

“That surprised her a little. “If not
Nonno
, then who?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Why not?”

“The act of telling you who I made the promise to would in itself be breaking the promise. Does that make sense?”

“None at all. You realize that our marriage is on the line here.”

“I do. I still can’t say.”

What was she missing? Who would Tony be so loyal to that he would put his marriage in jeopardy? And what could he possibly say that would prove he wasn’t interested in the money.

“Think about it,” he said. “The act of telling you who I made the promise to would in itself be breaking the promise.”

He was getting at something, but she had no idea what. “You’re going to have to give me more than that.”

He shrugged. “I can’t.”

She concentrated, trying to clear her head, determined to figure this out. Who would he have made a promise to? And what did it have to do with him being in the doghouse. What could he say to her to prove it wasn’t about the money?

Something clicked, and she gasped, then a laugh burst from chest. “Oh, my God. We’re having a girl.”

Tony’s smile said it all.

A little girl.

And he knew all this time.

He pulled her into his arms and held her. What was she was always saying about giving people the benefit of the doubt? Instead she had rushed to a conclusion and made herself miserable for no reason at all.

After all they had been through, she should have trusted him.

“I’m such an idiot,” she said.

“No, I should have told you about the money,” he said. “But I made a promise to
Nonno—
”

“And your family always comes first. Yeah, I know.”

He cupped her face. “No. You come first. You and the baby.
Always.
” He pressed a kiss to her lips. “I love you, Lucy.”

“You could have told me. You can trust me.”

“I screwed up. I didn’t want to be
that
guy.”

“What guy?”

“The one who deep down knows he doesn’t deserve the woman he loves, and figures that if he tells her the truth, she would never forgive him his profane stupidity.”

Forgive him? It was what she loved most about him.

He pressed a kiss to the top of her hand. “Lucy, I was a mess when you left. And yes, I made some pretty lousy decisions, like not telling you the truth immediately. I screwed up. And I’ll screw up again, because apparently, that’s who I am.”

She could live with that.

“There’s something that’s been bugging me,” he said. “How did you know that I was getting married to Alice. Who told you?”

“A friend.”

“Who?”

“The email was signed, ‘from a friend.’ I didn’t recognize the address.”

Tony laughed. “Are you saying that you don’t know who sent it?”

She bit her lip and shook her head.

“That was some leap of faith on your part.”

Or sheer stupidity. Either way, everything turned out like it was supposed to.

She wrapped her arms around him, holding on tight. “I’m sorry I didn’t trust you. It won’t happen again.”

“No, it probably will. Because that’s who
you
are.”

She hated to admit it, but he was right. It was in her nature not to trust people. It was etched deep in her soul. “I’m sorry. I’m trying.”

He touched her face. “Hey, it’ll take time, but we’ll get there. Both of us. It’s not supposed to be easy. Right?”

No, it wasn’t, and presently, they were only making it harder on themselves. “From now on, if there’s a problem, we come to each other first. I don’t care what it is.”

“Agreed,” he said.

Her back throbbed and she arched against the pain.

“Lay down,” he said. “I’ll rub your back.”

She curled onto her side around a pillow.

“Is it your sciatic nerve acting up again?” he asked, gently kneading the muscles, and after a minute they began to loosen and uncoil.

“That’s a sharp, intense pain, like a hot poker in my butt cheek. This is a dull ache. Like a spasm.”

“So it’s a spasm that comes and goes?”

She looked at him over her shoulder. “Isn’t that what makes it a spasm? The coming and going?”

“How often have you been getting these spasms?”

“I’m not sure. I wasn’t really keeping track.”

“Maybe we should.”

“It’s just a backache.”

“Are you sure?”

“Labor is sharp and intense, and in the front. What I feel now is more like a dull ache across my lower back.”

“I remember my cousin Jessica saying that she had back labor with her kids.”

“It’s too early.”

“You’re thirty-eight weeks. That’s considered full term.”

“Tony, I am not in labor. I’m not ready.”

“I don’t think it works that way.”

Jeez, would he give it a rest. “Less talking, more rubbing,” she said.

“Like I haven’t heard that before,” he teased.

She smiled and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the room was dark, and Tony lay wrapped around her, sound asleep.

* * *

Tony slept like the dead. He woke sometime around three-thirty, and when he reached for Lucy the mattress beside him was warm, but empty. Assuming she was in the bathroom, he drifted back to sleep. He woke several hours later, as the initial, pinkish glow of dawn leaked through the partially open blinds, and discovered he was alone again. Only this time her side was cold.

How long had she been up?

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes he rolled out of bed and tugged on a pair of jeans and went looking for her. She was in the kitchen sipping a cup of tea and pacing.

She looked exhausted.

“Good morning,” he said, and she stopped moving only long enough to kiss him. “Back still hurting?”

“It’s driving me crazy,” she said wearily. “I think you may be right.”

“You think it’s labor?”

“That or kidney stones. I tried timing the pains, but they’re all over the place. Two minutes, then fifteen.”

“How long have you been up?”

“A couple of hours,” she said, looking tired and miserable. “But even when I was in bed, I couldn’t sleep. Every time I doze off, it starts to hurt again.”

“You should have woken me up.”

“There wasn’t much you could do. And you need your sleep. If this is labor it’s probably going to be a long day. And at least she waited until after we were married.”

He could have at least kept her company. “Come here. Lean forward and rest your elbows on the counter.”

“Hey!” she said when he lifted her nightshirt up. “What do you think you’re doing back there?” He started rubbing her lower back and she collapsed in an exhausted heap against the cool marble. “On second thought, I don’t care, just keep doing it. That feels heavenly.”

He rubbed gently, feeling the muscles tighten under his fingers as another contraction started. That one passed, and only a few minutes later another started. They kept up like that for a good forty-five minutes, and according to the stopwatch on his cell phone, occurred every twelve to fifteen minutes. The doctor had told them that with a first baby not to come in until the contractions were a steady five minutes apart. He’d also warned them that first labors could last for days.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked Lucy, wishing he could make the pain disappear. Make her stop hurting.

“You could call the hospital,” she said, wincing against another contraction, her breathing slow and shallow. “Tell them we’ll be there soon.”

“It could still be a while,” he said.

“I don’t think so. Either my bladder just gave out, or my water just broke.”

* * *

When they got to the hospital, Lucy was dilated to only two centimeters. And after three hours of pacing the delivery ward, Tony and his mom taking turns walking with her, she’d progressed to only three centimeters.

The nurse gave her an injection to speed things up, and instantly the contractions went from six minutes apart to two minutes and according to the monitor they had strapped her to, almost doubled in intensity. Up until that point she had refused an epidural, or any sort of pain medication. Three contractions later, she was begging for anything to take the edge off.

It was an all-new ball game now. He was excited and scared and anxious. But mostly he was proud of Lucy. If she hadn’t been his hero before, she sure would be now. As far as he was concerned, any woman who gave birth deserved a medal. He had seen a show some time ago about a man who, through the use of small electrical nodes, was able to accurately recreate the pain of labor. He used the method on himself, to prove that men had the same, if not a higher threshold for pain than women.

He lasted three hours, and then had to give up.

Men, Tony believed, were inherently wusses, but they were also ridiculously prideful. He didn’t doubt that when it came to pain, Lucy had a will of steel.

“I hope she’s going to be happy as an only child,” Lucy said coming down off a particularly hard contraction. “Because there is no way in
hell
I’m doing this again.”

“Every new mom says that,” Sarah told her, swabbing her forehead with a cool rag. Lucy’s hair was soaked with sweat and sticking to her forehead. “But everyone forgets.”

Tony kissed her forehead, smoothed back her damp hair. “Lucy, you are doing an amazing job. I’m so proud of you.”

“I just want the pain to stop,” she said, looking tired and miserable.

“It will,” he promised. “Just hang on a little while longer.”

Several contractions later, when the nurse came in to check Lucy’s progress, Lucy begged her for an epidural. She had been a real trouper up to that point, but Tony could see that she was exhausted.

“Let’s check your progress first.” She checked Lucy’s cervix, which looked so uncomfortable it made him cringe. “Breathe through it, honey,” the nurse said.

When she was done, Lucy pleaded, “Can I have drugs now?”

“Sorry, hon, but you’re fully dilated. It’s time to get ready to push.”

Fifteen

T
he baby weighed in at a respectable seven
pounds two ounces, and was born with a shock of long, jet-black hair. She had
Lucy’s eyes and Tony’s nose.

Oh, and she had a penis.

“I still don’t believe it,” Tony said from the rocking chair
beside her bed, where he cradled their sleeping son. Far as she could tell, he
hadn’t stopped chuckling since the doctor called out, “It’s a boy!”

“I definitely saw girl parts on that ultrasound,” Tony had
insisted, while the doctor assured him that he definitely had not. Because
despite popular belief, human fetuses did not spontaneously change gender.

“I guess it was a good thing you didn’t tell me,” Lucy said.
“Or I fear our son would be wearing a lot of pink.”

“You realize that if Rob and Nick don’t have a son someday,
this little guy will single-handedly have to carry on the Caroselli name.”

“Only if he wants to,” Lucy said. “Our son is going to be
exactly who he wants to be. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Tony’s mom had been with them for the birth and shortly after,
Tony’s dad joined them, beaming at his third grandchild. The flowers—and the
visitors—started to pour in a steady stream after that until the room was filled
to capacity. Someone passed around chocolate cigars, and everyone sipped on
sparkling cider. They were loud and nosy and all-around nuts, but she loved
them. They had sucked her in, made her part of the family, just as Tony said
they would. She was one of them now.

Rob showed up alone, and after a quick peek at the baby, who
was sleeping in his father’s arms, he sat on the side of the bed. “On behalf of
my wife, I’d like to apologize to you, Lucy. It was terrible what she did.”

Honestly, she was beginning to think Carrie had done her a
favor. She forced Lucy to realize how important it was to trust Tony. “You don’t
have to apologize. Everything turned out okay.”

“For what it’s worth, she feels horrible. She’s been having a
rough go of it lately and she lashed out.”

“We all make mistakes,” she said.

It was shaping up to be another perfect day. Then
Nonno
showed up.

Though Lucy had every right to be angry with him, she was too
happy, and too content to ruin this special day. Sadly, he would never be more
to her than Tony’s grandfather. But she could live with that. As long as she had
Tony, and their son, she didn’t need anyone else.

Gradually people cleared out until only Tony’s parents and
Nonno
remained.

“I’d like a private word with my grandson,”
Nonno
told Tony’s parents.

They left to get dinner.

“I have something for you,”
Nonno
said, turning to Tony. “In the pocket of my shirt.”

Tony pulled out a folded slip of paper. “A check?”

Nonno
nodded.

Tony unfolded it and his mouth fell open. “Oh my God
,
this is a check for ten million dollars.”

“It is.”

“I can’t take this,” he said, handing it back. “Absolutely
not.”

“It’s your severance.”

Tony blinked. “Severance for what?”

“Your loyal years at Caroselli Chocolate.”

“Wait a minute. Are you saying I’m
fired?
”

“As of today.”

“But—” Tony paused, shook his head and laughed. “How did you
know I wanted out?”

“I make it my business to know. There’s a reason I consider you
the most loyal of my grandsons. And I know what’s good for you.”

Tony opened his mouth to argue—or so she assumed—but he laughed
instead. “It was you, wasn’t it? You were the ‘friend’”—he made quotes with his
fingers— “who sent Lucy the email. You told her to come here so I wouldn’t marry
Alice. Somehow you knew about Lucy. And the baby. Didn’t you? You got us back
together.”

“You have a vivid imagination, Antonio.”

“Actually, I’ve always considered myself fairly practical, like
my grandfather. In fact, if I were to bribe my grandsons with thirty million
dollars, I would probably assume that once they fell in love and married they
would no longer want the money. ”

According to what Tony told Lucy, that was exactly what had
happened. Had he planned this from the start? Was Tony implying that his
grandfather never intended to give his grandsons the thirty million dollars?

“Young people,”
Nonno
said, with a
shake of his head and a twinkle in his eye, but he wasn’t fooling either one of
them. And she and Tony both knew that he wouldn’t cop to it in a million
years.

Shortly after that
Nonno
complained
of being tired, so Tony walked him down to the car. When he came back, he
cuddled with Lucy and the baby on the bed.

This is it, she thought, this was what it felt like to be truly
happy.

“You know,” Tony said, “I always resented that
Nonno
felt it was his place to tell everyone how to
live, but look how happy we are. Rob and Nick are, too. I guess he knew what was
best for everyone after all.”

“I don’t care what he knows or doesn’t know. All that matters
is that we’re together,” she said.

“You know the scariest part about this? At ninety-two years
old, he orchestrated this entire production, and in the end he got exactly what
he wanted.”

“He did,” she agreed, “but I think you’re missing the
point.”

“What point?”

She smiled and kissed him. “So did we.”

* * * * *

If you liked Tony and Lucy’s story, pick up the other books in
THE CAROSELLI INHERITANCE
trilogy
from
USA TODAY
bestselling author Michelle Celmer.

CAROSELLI’S CHRISTMAS BABY
CAROSELLI’S
BABY CHASE

All available now from Harlequin Desire!
Keep reading
for an excerpt from THE LAST COWBOY STANDING by Barbara Dunlop.