Page 38 of Last Comes Fate

Xavier turned back to me so slowly that I thought he might be ossifying in motion. He watched me for a long time before glancing back at the house once or twice.

“Hmm,” was all he said. And then turned and continued down the sidewalk.

I followed him, as confused as ever. What was going on? Had he completely forgotten that I’d turned him down? Did he even care?

I was a quiet shadow to his looming steps until we’d crossed Tenth Avenue and Hudson, then zigzagged over to a streetlight in order to cross the West Side Highway and walk to one of the lonely piers that stuck out over the river and granted a view of New Jersey. The roar of traffic now competed with the sound of water sloshing against the pilings of the pier.

But Xavier’s deep voice still topped every noise when he spoke again. “So, what now?”

He turned to lean against the pier’s railing, casually balanced on his elbows while he raised a brow and examined me sardonically.

I frowned. “What do you mean?” It was obvious the question was loaded, but I rambled on anyway. “Joni is meeting us at the house with Sofia in about an hour, probably. Tomorrow, more work. Four more weeks, the echocardiogram, another scan. I’ll probably need to notify the school about taking maternity leave at the end of May. They won’t really care—the kids are basically useless after Memorial Day anyway. After that—”

“I’m not talking about your bloody schedule, Francesca,” Xavier cut in sharply.

I broke from my contemplating and sighed. “I didn’t think so. But Xavi—”

“I’m talking aboutus, Ces. I’m talking about our family.” He turned and gripped the rail so violently that his knuckles turned bright white. “In seven months, there’s going to be another baby.”

“Oh, I amwellaware of that,” I returned. “Believe me, much more than you are at this point.”

“I doubt it.”

“Do you, now? Well, Your Grace, let me tell you—you havenoidea what’s coming. Between not sleeping more than forty-five minutes at a time, cleaning up more bodily fluids than you can possibly imagine, and having to decipher twenty different cries for a being who won’t be able tospeakfor at least a year or more, it’s going to be a literal shitshow that will make you happier and more miserable than you have ever been in your life. Even I’m going to be blindsided, and I’ve already done this once before.”

Xavier worried his mouth a bit, taking it all in. “But this time, you won’t be alone,” he said stubbornly.

“I wasn’t alone last time either,” I cut back. “I was at Nonna’s, actually. I had a whole family around me. Sisters and my grandmother to step in when I needed them. Thank God one of us knew what we were doing.”

My voice warbled at the end. For the first time, I realized I was scared to do this on my own. The way things stood, Xavier and I would likely be living in different places, but it would be months, maybe years, before he would really be able to take both kids on his own, if I was even comfortable with that. I wouldn’t have Nonna’s capable hands at my disposal or my sisters as impromptu babysitters, or my brother ready to pay the mortgage so I could take a little extra maternity leave.

It was just going to be me.

And I wasn’t the slightest bit prepared for that.

“Well, this time, you have your baby’s actual father.” Xavier’s voice was starting to cut, the timbre rising like a threatening tide. “Who, if you’ve forgotten, can give you everything you need if you just accept it instead of being so stubborn. You can do whatever you want here, babe. Take the house. Go back to school. Just give me a bloody chance.”

“Xavi, I already said no—”

“And I said I don’t care if we get married,” he broke in. “I just want to make things right. Let me try to make things fucking right!”

“Then stop pressuring me and give me some space!” I cried. “Stop yelling at me. Stop trying to give me the world. All I ever wanted was you, Xavi!”

“I tried to give you that, but I wasn’t fucking good enough, was I?” he said bitterly, as cutting as the wind on my cheek.

I swallowed. Suddenly my face hurt. “No, I—” I shook my head. I didn’t know what to say.

Xavier sighed and rocked back and forth on his heels for a moment. His chest moved up and down as he took several deep breaths. When he spoke again, his voice had calmed somewhat.

“Look,” he started. “Maybe I’m never going to be the man you want me to be. I can’t be the dukes in those bloody novels. I don’t ride a white horse. I can’t sweep you off your feet. I’ll never rescue you from a tower.”

Part of me wanted to smile. He was so close to those things—he really had no idea. True, he had no white horse. His favorite in Kendal was brown, actually. He had never technically swept me off my feet, but he’d picked me up more times than I could count. I had no tower from which to be rescued—but in a way, he had saved me from my landing in a shabby little row house.

As if any of that mattered at all, though.

“The thing is,” he continued, the South London edge of his accent sliding into his speech like a cool breeze, “that’s just fiction, isn’t it? They’re not real. But I am, Ces. I’m here, and I’m bloody well not perfect, but I’m real, and I fucking love you and Sofia. More than this life, more than the next.” He swallowed, as overcome with his emotions as I was. “But me and them fancy heroes, we got one thing in common. They never give up the chase, babe, and neither will I. I will come for you, and I will burn for you, and I will wait for you for the rest of my days if I have to. Because, Francesca Zola, we were created to love each other. I don’t know much, but I know that. I’ll always know that.”

By the time he was done speaking, my head was swimming. I didn’t know whether to kiss him or slap him. He talked so good, but every part of my brain was screaming at me to wait.

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