"Why?"
"Because if I loved you, then I'd been lying to myself for five years and telling real whoppers since Joyce and Fantino's wedding."
Annette climbed back into the bed, letting Carlo pull her right onto his knees so they were practically eye level. He tucked the blankets around her with solicitous care.
"You're always so attentive, doing stuff like that. I just thought you werethatguy, you know?"
"That guy?" he asked, leaning in a little to inhale her scent.
He did that sometimes. She did the same thing. No other man she'd ever met smelled quite like Carlo and it wasn't just his cologne.
"You know, the good guy. The honorable guy. The man who will marry the mother of his baby even if he doesn't trust her to keep her promises."
"But I do trust youbèdda mia."
"Yes, I believe you, only when we got married, I was sure it was all about the baby."
"Our baby is a gift, but our marriage was all about you. It has always been all about you."
"Not for anyone else. Never for anyone else."
"Your family do not deserve you."
"ButFamigghia esti famigghia," she said, quoting the Sicilian saying. Family was family. "If they can be decent, even if they aren't ever loving, I'll allow them space in my life and that of our child."
"And if they are not, I will destroy your father and see them bankrupt."
"I think you're kidding. Youarejoking, aren't you?"
Carlo just shrugged. "I did not wake you to talk about your family."
"You didn't wake me at all. Our baby did that." Then the baby kicked and she gasped. "Here…" She grabbed Carlo's hand and placed it against her hard abdomen, though it was still a pretty small baby bump. "Feel."
"I can feel her," Carlo said with awe.
"Isn't it amazing?"
He just nodded, his eyes shiny.
This man. He did her in with emotion. "You said you had something to say to me, when I woke up to pee," she reminded him.
"Ah, yes. I wanted to wake you so badly, I think I willed our daughter to move onto your bladder."
Annette laughed and shook her head. "Whatever you say."
"I say that I love with all that is within me for all of this life and beyond."
For a moment, she was so overcome, she could not speak. "That's a lot of love," she said finally.
"There is no man who loves another more than I love you," he assured her in all seriousness.
And Annette just soaked it in. All that love, all that assurance. "I love you. I always have. I am so sorry I ran five years ago."
"I am so sorry I was such an ass that you felt the need to run."
"Next time you’re an ass, I'll stand and fight."
"You're so sure there will be a next time?"