The Marriage He Must Keep

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_286258db-bad1-5c6e-b4d2-83c5739a8510)

SCORE ONE FOR state-run hospitals, was Octavia’s first clear thought as her muddled brain came back from the anesthetic and worked out that Primo had no access to her son.

While he had followed her ambulance, she had clasped the female paramedic’s hand, a kind of desperate fury gripping her. “Primo is not my husband. Not the father. Do not allow him near my baby. Tell the hospital to keep him out of the delivery room. I will hold you responsible if something happens.”

She still felt irrational for saying it, but she just didn’t trust him. Not after the way he’d moved into the mansion as if he owned it and had taken such great pains to make her miserable while he was there.

Despite his premature birth, her son was thankfully doing well. He was being kept in an incubator for observation and the nurse was about to take Octavia to the nursery to feed him.

The staff here was nice, treating her with more warmth and kindness than she’d seen in months. And Alessandro was on his way. He should be here soon, Primo had begrudgingly told her as he’d paced her room.

Because it was a boy? Octavia tried not to feel bitter. Her father would be pleased, she supposed. Oddly, she discovered that she no longer cared what the men in her life expected of her. There was only one male to whom she wanted to answer and that would be on her own terms as his mother.

Still, part of her fluttered with a mixture of excitement and anxiety, knowing she’d finally see Alessandro again. He hadn’t been here since Christmas and that had been a very brief few days. They hadn’t even shared a bed, let alone the physical loving she’d been craving. Her condition had cut that off months ago.

Primo was telling the truth about one thing, she supposed. Alessandro not only thought she was fat and unattractive, but was taking his pleasure elsewhere.

So she shouldn’t be feeling like this: as conflicted as she’d been in the weeks leading up to their wedding, when she’d been tormenting herself with worry over their wedding night. Would he think she was pretty? Would she please him?

With a pang in her heart, she recalled how silly it had been to stress about that side of things. Lovemaking had turned out to be the least of her concerns. Once they got past her virginal inhibitions, she’d adored making love with him, discovering things about herself and the fit of man and woman that astonished her.

But sex—or rather, lack thereof—had become yet one more way Alessandro had been showing her how little she interested him these days. It made her feel needy and pathetic that she ached for his attention, both in bed and out.

She’d learned long ago to roll that lonely emptiness into a wall of aloof indifference, though. She just wished she could feel aloof or indifferent at his impending arrival. But she couldn’t.

“Mrs. Ferrante,” the nurse, Wendy, greeted her as she brought in the empty wheelchair she’d fetched. “Let’s take you to your little man.”

Primo made no move to help Octavia and she was grateful, even though her emergency surgery had annihilated her abdominal muscles and the anesthetic still had her feeling nauseous and weak.

He did follow them from the room to the door of the nursery, though, obviously under the impression he could enter with them.

Wendy, bless her, said, “I’m sorry. Parents only in the nursery.”

“Octavia,” he prompted firmly.

“You’ll have to meet Alessandro and show him where we are,” she replied innocently.

The hospital wasn’t that big. Alessandro was a resourceful man. He’d find her just fine, but Wendy was buzzing them into the nursery with her security card and the bright, warm room washed over Octavia like a hug of welcome. Beyond the windows, beams of morning sunlight broke the gray clouds hovering over London, sending angelic rays onto the rooftops and giving Octavia a lift of hope for the first time in ages.

“He’s been calling for you,” the heavyset nurse inside the nursery said. Her name tag read Hannah. “I’ll fetch Miss Kelly while you’re in here to keep an eye on this one,” she said to Wendy, nodding at the only other baby in the room.

“The calm after the storm,” Octavia said as she gingerly moved herself into one of the padded rocking chairs. “The emergency room was a zoo when I arrived last night.”

The chaos had been alarming, adding to what was already a frightening situation. Tears of relief stung her eyes as she finally felt as if she could relax and hold the baby she’d been so worried for.

“I heard,” Wendy responded as she gathered up the fussing baby from the incubator labeled Ferrante and loosely wrapped his diapered form in a blanket. “That’s why Dr. Reynolds isn’t in to see you yet. She had these two deliveries back-to-back, then they asked her to assist with that tourist bus crash that came in right before you two. She was here very late. Everyone was on their toes for hours. One of you was actually sewn up by our cosmetic surgeon so Dr. Reynolds could run to the other. Yes, we hear you, Mr. February,” Wendy said as the baby in the other incubator grew more insistent.

Wendy came across to her, but something in the other baby’s cry gave Octavia a stab of fretfulness. It was disconcerting, but Wendy distracted her, waiting with her baby, saying, “You’ll want to take your arm out of the sleeve of your gown.”

Octavia did, feeling immodest as she bared her breast, even though it was only her and the nurse in this very warm room. The baby Wendy offered her was clearly distressed and famished.

Goodness both babies had a pair of lungs. As Wendy placed her son in her arms, his warm weight filled Octavia with a rush of protective emotions. He was wiggly and endearing, very handsome with a shadow of silky black hair showing from beneath his little blue-and-white-striped cap. His eyelashes and eyebrows were so faint they were barely there, his nose a button, his disgruntled expression almost laughable.

But...

A strange chill went through her.

“That’s what we’ve been calling them. Mr. January and Mr. February,” Wendy chattered on. “Since they were born barely an hour apart, but in different months. Do you have a name picked out? Let him find your nipple,” she prompted.

“I was waiting for my husband to finalize his name,” Octavia replied in a murmur, but broke off as the baby’s arm waved and his little face rooted against the swell of her breast. He was adorable, so cute in his determination. He rather stole her heart in a way, but drawing him to her breast felt wrong.

Oh, dear God, was this what had happened to her mother? She’d finally birthed Octavia, a live baby, and had wanted to meet the basic needs of her daughter, but failed to feel a wash of true, maternal love?

Octavia’s world crashed in on itself. She was such a failure. An utter failure. First as a child, then as a wife. Now as a mother. No wonder no one loved her. She was incapable of feeling the emotion herself.

Tears rushed up to cling to her lashes. She blinked hard. One fell onto the scrunched-up face of the infant. She wiped it away, trying to find something in his tiny features that would provoke that feeling she had had during her pregnancy. The one that had told her this baby was connected to her. Indelibly.

But it didn’t come.

This was wrong. The boy grew more frantic, his high-pitched cries breaking her heart, but there was nothing of herself in him. Nothing familiar. He looked wrong. Not bad or repulsive or ill or damaged. Just...wrong.

He arched his little back and let out demanding, furious squawks.

“The first time is always awkward,” Wendy assured her, reaching to assist. “You’re not the first to cry. Just let him—”

“No,” Octavia said, asserting herself with more strength than she had realized she possessed, but this was the oddest sensation she’d ever felt. She wanted to help this baby. He was obviously hungry and distraught and so helpless. She wanted to feed him, but the words just came out. “This isn’t my baby.”

* * *

Alessandro hadn’t slept. He’d piloted his private jet himself and sped through a mess of winter weather to arrive in London as quickly as possible. It was exactly the sort of recklessness he would lecture anyone else against, but he was here and that was the result he had sought.

On landing, he picked up the message that his son was born. He was being kept in an incubator as a precaution since he was a few weeks premature, but he was otherwise healthy.

Good news, but Primo had said nothing about Octavia, which Alessandro suspected was deliberate. Couldn’t Primo see there was a place for jocular games and this wasn’t it? Alessandro loved his cousin, but Primo was compelled to taunt and make power plays at every turn. When would he grow up and quit swiping at him for a decision made by their grandfather?

Stepping onto the curb next to his pensive cousin, Alessandro demanded, “How is she?”

“How am I to know?” Primo dropped his cigarette and stamped it out, then gave Alessandro’s security detail a look that was difficult to interpret. Like he viewed the bodyguards as an affectation, making Alessandro bristle.

“She doesn’t talk to me,” Primo continued. “Didn’t tell me she was hemorrhaging. I suppose the surgery went well enough, since she’s alive, but it’s like she didn’t want to make it to the hospital in time. This hospital is a joke, by the way. She put herself and the boy at risk. Honestly, Sandro, I told you I wonder about her mental health and this is a perfect example.”

Alive. His heart finally settled into a normal, healthy beat, making him aware of how high his blood pressure had been.

“Women are emotional during pregnancy,” he reminded his cousin, striding into the hospital. “Why do you take these things so personally?” He was such a prima donna, not that Alessandro had ever called him that aloud. He would never hear the end of it, but his cousin’s narcissism grated. Things were fraught enough without Primo waving his hands in the air.

But Primo still had his father and the bunch of them were as animated as any Italian family. Sandro was the wet blanket of the clan, consistently reminding everyone that lack of forethought could have dire consequences.

“It’s more than that, Sandro,” Primo insisted, pacing him. “She says things that don’t make sense.”