Page 116 of Sins of the Son

Cesare tucked a second blanket over my lap. “Are you sure you are warm enough?”

I gave him an indulgent smile. “You have a blanket wrapped around my shoulders and my lap and I’m sitting on one.”

He disappeared, and I heard the trunk open and close. He returned seconds later with yet another folded blanket that he placed under my feet. With a nod of satisfaction, he pulled on the seat belt and reached around me to buckle it before closing the car door for me.

He got in on the driver’s side and slowly pulled away from the hospital.

I leaned over and rested my head on his shoulder. “We’ve barely started dating and you’ve already turned me into a criminal. You Cavalieris are a bad influence.”

He turned his head and kissed the top of mine. “Checking you out of the hospital is hardly a criminal offense, and don’t forget, I was the one who kept watch when you shoplifted that DVD of Pride and Prejudice back when we were in school.”

“If we aren’t doing anything wrong, then why am I checking out in the middle of the night?”

“They can’t take care of you as well as I can,” grumbled Cesare.

I snuggled deeper into my insane number of blankets and closed my eyes.

The doctors told me that a few minutes longer in that cave and I would have surely died. Cesare saved me just in time. While I got better each day, I still tired easily and had some lingering headaches and brain fog, but overall, in time, I was told I should make a full recovery.

It had been a miserably traumatic week. I still hadn’t processed everything that had happened.

Almost dying.

Renata being responsible for all of it.

The baby.

I pressed my palm to my abdomen.

It was still too soon to know anything for certain. I had to make an appointment with an obstetrician tomorrow to run more tests. Even then, the doctors warned me since the pregnancy was in the first trimester, I could still miscarry.

Cesare and I were determined to hold on to hope.

It was strange. I hadn’t even known I was pregnant, hadn’t even suspected it.

A few weeks earlier, I would have thought the world was ending if I had learned I was having a baby with Cesare Cavalieri. Now, all my love and energy were concentrated on willing our baby to survive, to fight and pull through.

I was so relieved to be going home with Cesare.

He hadn’t left my side the entire week. Sleeping in an uncomfortable chair the nurses had dragged in from the waiting room for him. While the nurses were reluctantly fine with leaving the light on in the room for me, it had been a constant battle over leaving a window open.

The nurses and doctors feared the cold winter weather was unhealthy for me in my fragile state and that superseded my night terror fears. So, each night Cesare would open the window, and each night when both of us were asleep, they’d try to close it, and Cesare would wake up and open it again.

It was a constant battle of wills.

Until tonight.

Tonight, he showed up with a stack of blankets and a plan. He bundled me up and checked me out of the hospital. Declaring that what I really needed to recover was to be home, among family.

Family.

I had one now.

A real one.

After waving to the ominous-looking security guards who were now posted at the base of the mountain on the edge of Cavalieri land, we entered the drive that led to the winery.

As we drove closer to the villa, Cesare cut off his headlights and slowed the car down.

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