Dial a Stud: Dante's Story (43 page)

How was I going to survive it? Did I want to survive it? No, I didn’t, because I couldn’t handle how badly it was already hurting. The thought of enduring this for weeks, months, maybe even years, sounded like torture.

I could end it. I could be free of the pain forever, but as quickly as that dark thought entered my head, it was gone again. It wasn’t just me anymore. I was pregnant. I had a tiny part of Dante growing inside me, and I had to make it my focus. I may have lost him, but I still had his child. Somehow we’d defied the odds. Despite doctors telling me the chances of me ever conceiving were very slim, I’d done it. A very tenacious sperm, and a determined egg, had battled and won, against the less than welcoming environment, of my womb.

Awkwardly, I tucked my arm with the I.V over my stomach, in an attempt, to cradle the tiny life that was protected in there. It hurt so much to cry, shaking and shuddering through my battered and broken body, but I just couldn’t seem to stop.

It was like a dam had burst, wretched wailing, and gut wrenching sobs, that were so loud in the room, I could barely hear the beep, beep of the heart monitor, as it registered the more rapid, distressed beat of my heart.

I was actually surprised it still made a sound. How did a heart that was breaking, continue to beat? It felt like it was splintering in my chest and yet, it still continued to pump the blood around my body. How did it do that? How did it keep going, when I felt like I was dying inside?

I jumped violently, when fingers brushed through my hair, and that familiar scent filled my nostrils. “Cara, oh god, baby, stop it, please, I’m sorry, Grace, please, forgive me.”

“Jesus Gracie.” I heard Mel’s voice. “Is she alright? What the fuck did you do to her? She’s a mess. Look at her. If you upset her so badly she los…” She stopped abruptly mid-sentence, and I breathed a tiny sigh of relief, before continuing to cry even louder.

“Please cara, stop, stop.” Arms closed gently around me, and I turned towards his beautiful big chest, burrowing in closer, as if trying to blend into him. He was back. I don’t know why, but he was back and holding me, and apologising. Apologising?

“D…D…Da…Dante?” I finally managed, to squeeze his name out on a shuddering sigh.

“What do you mean? What will happen if I upset her?” I heard him ask Mel and I tensed, hoping she would keep my secret as I’d asked of her.

Just at that moment, the door swung open, and Alex walked in, his eyes rapidly taking in the situation in the room.

“You have no idea how much you two, are pissing me off. You had better sort yourselves out, or I’m going to slap some sense into you. Well not you sugar, not for nine months at least, anyway.” He shot me a wide grin, but inwardly I groaned. Mel had told Alex and of course, Alex had no filter on his mouth, and so now Dante would find out from someone, other than me, that he was going to be a father. 

Sure enough, I felt him tense, his arms tightening so much, I squeaked, as he put too much pressure, on bones and muscles, damaged from being hit by the car. 

I heard a string of what I could only assume were expletives, pour from him. He was speaking in Italian, but I didn’t really need a translator. Swearing was one of those, kind of universal things. No matter the language, it was obvious, when someone was calling, on every swear word, known to them.

Dante released me, straightening, so he could see my face. He looked slightly green. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, for an olive skinned, Italian hunk of a man to turn green, but it seemed he could. Obviously the prospect of being a father, didn’t sit well with him.

As I stared nervously, at his gorgeous face, watching his features shimmer from the tears distorting them, he broke eye contact with me, and turned to the others. “I need to speak to Grace alone. Can you both, get the hell out of this room.” His focus swung from one to the other before centring on Alex. “You, need to work on your brain to mouth co-ordination.” He snapped.

I winced at his tone. He was pissed off, majorly pissed off. Obviously, he wasn’t even going to pretend to be happy about me being pregnant.

Once Alex and Mel had left the room, I dashed at my tears, as I nervously watched Dante, begin to pace up and down the room, like a caged animal.

“Dammit Grace. I came back to see you because, I didn’t mean what I said to you. I was hurting, because I thought you no longer wanted me, and I just wanted to lash out, and make you feel at least some of the pain, I was feeling.” He began, pausing briefly in his pacing, to look over at me. “Do you love me?”

My heart contracted painfully in my chest at his question. I could see the vulnerability in his eyes, as he waited for me to respond, and I felt terrible, that it was me, who had made him, question my feelings for him.

“I love you more than life itself Dante. When you walked out, I literally wanted to die. You have no idea, how sorry, I am, that I hurt you this way. I genuinely panicked. I don’t expect you to understand. It was never about you, I guess, it was me, me and my stupid insecurities. Whether you keep the vineyard or not, you’re a very wealthy man. I’m not destitute, of course, but I will never know wealth, at the same level as you. You’re beautiful and everyone loves you. I saw that in Italy. I felt so overwhelmed, and then I suddenly thought, I wasn’t good enough for you. I worried you’d wake up one day, and wished you’d fallen for a nice Italian girl. Then when I saw you with those children, I really panicked. Several years ago, I was told by two different doctors, that I could never have children. Or at least, it was unlikely; I’d ever be able to have them. I have one damaged, heavily scarred ovary. The doctors aren’t sure what happened to it. Whether it’s damage done from an infection at some stage; that I didn’t know I had. I got sick a lot as a kid, so who knows. I only bleed every couple of months if I’m lucky. I also have patches of quite severe scarring in my uterus. It’s damaged enough, that it is considered unfriendly, so therefore unlikely, that an embryo, would ever be able to attach.”

Dante was silent for a moment. “You told me you were on birth control.”

I raised my eyes to his. “I told you that, yes, but I didn’t think I could ever conceive, so I’m not on any kind of contraception. I generally don’t have sex without a condom anyway. I was more concerned about diseases than pregnancy. It was different with you. I wanted that intimacy. I wanted to feel you, to have you fill me, without that barrier between us.”

“It was important to me too. Sex was always such a clinical affair when I worked as a stud, but it had to be, to make sure we weren’t at risk, and neither was the customer. It was different with you. I didn’t want anything to come between us either.” He walked back over to me, his eyes burning me, with the passion, I saw in those brown depths. “Why, why did you step in front of that car?”

I recoiled in horror. “God, did you think I tried to kill myself? No, hell no, it was a stupid accident. I sent that message, that I thought I’d sent to Mel, but when I saw I’d sent it to you, I was devastated, in shock and I suddenly had to vomit. I got out of the car, threw up and stumbled into the path of that car. It wasn’t intentional at all. I was so upset that I’d sent you that message by mistake.” I fell silent; fresh tears welling from my eyes and rolling down my cheeks. 

“When I got the call about you cara, I thought you had tried to kill yourself. It was like a double blow. You didn’t want me, and you were going to take your own life, to free yourself of guilt, or whatever motivated you.” He snorted. “The years may have passed, we might look different, but those old insecurities are still there, inside. We’re still fucked up in some ways.”

“You’re not fucked up Dante, I am. I caused all this; it’s all, my own, stupid fault. I love you. I should have simply accepted that. Instead, I let myself become overwhelmed, by all that comes with loving a man, like you. The thing is; it was never about you. It was me, thinking I wasn’t good enough for you. There’s nothing quite like being hit by a car, to knock some sense into me. When you walked out of here earlier, and I thought I’d lost you forever, I truly thought, I might never recover. For a moment, I wanted to be dead, but, I couldn’t do that.”

Dante shifted, sitting down on the chair, by the side of the bed, his hand coming out to cover the one I had over my stomach. “It’s true? What Alex said? You’re pregnant?”

I turned a watery smile on him. “One of the reasons, I thought it only fair to let you go, to let you find a woman who would be better for you, was because I had always been led to believe, I couldn’t conceive.” I searched his face for some sort of reaction to my words. “I never expected to fall pregnant. I had no idea until the doctor mentioned it. I’m not that far along, it would seem, but yeah, I’m carrying your baby Dante. I’m guessing from your reaction earlier, you’re not happy about that.”

I saw a deep frown furrow his brow. “My reaction cara? I’m not sure what you mean?”

“When Alex burst in here and blurted out the news, you went green. There was a definite green tinge to your complexion.”

“No, if I showed any reaction to his announcement, it was not because of horror or fear over the news. It was the sickening reality that I’d been so cruel to you, walking out on you, causing you such grief and knowing that, you may very well have been left, to raise our child alone, and I would never have known. It is all those possibilities that made me, as you say, green, not the prospect of being a father. To know that I got you pregnant, that you carry my baby in there, makes me proud, fearful, excited and nervous. I think that this is a very clear indication that you and are destined for one another. Despite all the odds, despite experts of the medical field telling you, you could not be a mother, we have defied those odds. I love you my beautiful Gracie and I want you to think very carefully about the three things I will ask of you.”

“Oh god Dante, I love you, and I’m sorrier, than you will ever know, that I caused you the kind of pain I did, by thinking we should not be together. When you walked out that door, I thought my heart had been ripped from me. I was actually surprised to still hear it beating. It didn’t seem possible, that it could continue to function, when I felt like I was dying inside. If the pain I felt, is anything like the pain I caused you, then I am so very sorry. I love you so much, and I’m so happy that this unexpected miracle has come our way. We’re going to be parents, can you believe it?”

He smiled that warm, loving smile that still made my heart flutter, when he turned it on me. “Fate is determined that we be together cara. From my beautiful Barbie, to my gorgeous Grace, you were always meant to be mine.”

I yawned, suddenly exhausted, happy, but still tired. “You said you had something to ask me?” I reminded him.

He raised my hand to his lips. “You are tired and you need to rest. My questions can wait until you have rested awhile. I think I need to go and see our friends. I was rude to them, but Alex’s lack of tact, does occasionally rub me up the wrong way.”

I rolled my eyes. “So I noticed.” I said, yawning again.

“Ok, time for you to rest.” He stood, bending to kiss me gently on the forehead. “Sleep my beautiful girl. I will see you when you wake.”

Chapter Twenty Nine

It was actually several more days, before the opportunity came up, for Dante to ask those questions, he’d mentioned to me.

We were both a little emotional following an ultrasound, which gave us our first chance to see our child. We stared at the vague smudge on the screen, which was our baby, so tiny, and hard to decipher, amongst the general haze on the monitor, but we both had been able to see, the tiny fluttering movement, of his or her heart beating. We’d also had the chance to hear the rapid beats of the baby’s heart, which had left me with tears in my eyes, and Dante listening with a look of wonder, on his handsome face.

Once I was back in my room, propped up in bed, he came and sat on the chair by my side, taking my hand in his. We were alone, as Mel and Alex had left before the ultrasound, and would be back later.

“Now we have some time alone again, I think it’s time to cover at least one of those questions I had for you, remember?”

I nodded, staring at him, my heart skipping along suddenly, as I waited to hear what he had to say.

“I know the setting is not ideal. This would have been better in a nice restaurant, followed by me inside you, making love to you. I have missed making love with you; I’ve missed that intimacy that two people share when their bodies are connected, both physically and emotionally. I know that even once you are released from hospital, we will have to abstain for some time yet.”

I listened, my eyes watching his lips, as he spoke, until he mentioned abstaining. What? Hell no. Once I was out of here, I was going to fuck him. I hadn’t figured out how exactly, given my plastered arm and ankle, but now I was starting to feel better, I was also feeling horny.

“Huh?” The word was vague, my mind still digesting, the whole abstaining thing. I was well and truly stuck on that. I needed to focus again. “Huh, why do we have to abstain? I don’t want to abstain. I’m not made of glass Dante.”

He shot me an amused glance. “Have you not been listening to me Grace?” His expression sobered, and I saw that intensity come over his features. “Believe me, I want you. I want to bury myself, so deep inside you, that all I can feel is you, the way that sweet cunt of yours tightens around me, holding me within you. I want you, but I will not do anything, to harm either you or our child.”