Two a.m. and Alessia was still wide awake. There was so much going through her head, so much to process, that sleep was impossible.
What a day. What a month. Part of her wished desperately that she could wind back time to Marcelo and Clara’s wedding reception and gag her own mouth. But that was only a small part of her because wishing to reverse time meant wishing the life in her belly out of existence and she could never wish for that. That fledgling life was already a part of her and a growing part of her heart had already attached itself to it.
Switching her bedside light on, she reached for the business card she’d laid by her book. Her heart in her mouth, she lightly traced a finger over the numbers printed on it.
Impulse, much like the ones that had made her call out to him and swing herself over the balustrade into his balcony, had her grab her phone and dial the number.
It was answered on the third ring.
‘Alessia?’ His voice was thick with sleep.
Blinking with surprise that he’d guessed it was her, all she could say was, ‘Yes.’
‘Are you okay?’
She closed her eyes as the deep, smooth timbre poured into her ear and sent tingles racing through her, and gave a long, soft inhale. ‘Gabriel...?’
‘Yes?’ he said quietly into the silence.
She drew her knees to her chest and took a deeper breath. ‘You do know it’s a huge risk that you’re taking?’
‘What is?’
‘Marrying me. The pregnancy is at such an early stage...the most dangerous stage.’ Her voice dropped even lower. ‘My mother had three miscarriages between me and Marcelo. It’s why there’s such a big age gap between us. I’ll do everything I can to bring our child safely into the world but sometimes nature has other ideas. Are you prepared for that? That our marriage might be for nothing?’
This time the silence came from him. When he answered, his voice was the gentlest she’d ever heard it. ‘I am marrying you for our child’s sake, Alessia, but it is you I am committing myself to. Whatever the future holds for us, it is a commitment I am making for the rest of my life.’
Tears filled her eyes, and she had to squeeze them tightly to stop them falling. ‘I’m sorry for waking you.’
‘Don’t be.’
Her voice was barely a whisper as she wished him a goodnight.
CHAPTER SIX
ALESSIA’SWEDDINGDAYarrived in a blaze of glorious sunshine. Wearing only skimpy silk pyjamas, she stepped onto her balcony and welcomed the rays sinking into skin that had felt so cold when she’d pulled herself out of the earlier nightmare.
‘Good morning, Alessia.’
Startled, she whipped her head to the adjoining balcony. Gabriel emerged to stand at the balustrade, coffee in hand. Her stomach flipped, her heart setting off at a canter at the sight of him. All he wore was a pair of low-slung black shorts that perfectly showed off his taut abdomen and snake hips, his bronzed, muscular chest bare and gleaming under the sun, hair mussed and the stubble on his face grown so thick it should rightly be called a beard.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked dumbly, unable to scramble the wits together to stop herself from staring. She swore he grew more devastatingly handsome each time she saw him.
A faint curve of a smile. ‘I flew in last night.’
‘No one told me.’
He raised a hefty shoulder and took a sip of his coffee. ‘I dislike being late. My immediate affairs were all in order so I thought it prudent to arrive early. It meant there were less things that could go wrong today. You’d already retired for the night when the decision was made.’ His eyes narrowed, deep lines forming in his brow. ‘You look tired. Are you still not sleeping?’
With the memory of that awful dream, which had come after it had taken her hours to fall back to sleep after the previous one, still fresh in her mind, she shook her head. ‘Bad dreams.’
She’d been chasing her mother through the castle screaming for her, but her mother had been deaf to her cries. Then she’d found herself in the old, disused banqueting hall. Gabriel and Amadeo had been in there, dining together, but they’d been deaf and blind to her too.
She’d had much worse dreams before but this was the only one she’d woken from sobbing.
There was a brief flare of concern. ‘Anything you wish to share?’
‘It’s bad luck to share a dream before midday unless you want it to come true.’