Page 121 of I Would Beg For You

I find myself in the car with the Andretti men. Victor is driving, Luciano is in front, and in the back is Franco, my own personal safety blanket, it seems like. A wave of fatigue hits me once we start on the road, and I slump against him. His arm comes around my shoulders, and I don’t know when or even how I fall asleep with my head in the crook of his shoulder.

I wake up to a feeling of tension under my cheek, and the air inside the car is heavy. Victor is speeding, too.

“What…what’s wrong?” I ask.

Franco rubs my arm. “It’s nothing, cara.”

Alarm bells are running inside my head.

“No, it’s not. You’re all so strung up. What— Has something happened to Valentino? Is this why we’re going so fast?”

“Naomi, breathe,” Luciano says as he turns to me in the front seat. “Panicking’s not good for the baby.”

I remember the baby, forcing my breath to slow. I can’t, though. Something’s wrong.

“No,” I whimper. “Not Val! No!”

Luciano holds my gaze with burning intensity, “We don’t know what’s happened. Not yet. Francesca’s being kept out of the loop. The doctor’s requesting you, his wife.”

His wife. In other words, his next of kin. Oh, God. To think Valentino married me so he could be my next of kin, so he could protect me this way. But today, the tables have turned on us.

“Nearly there,” Victor clips from the front.

Indeed, I can see the wrought-iron gates up ahead in the dimming glow of twilight.

The car speeds past inside the grounds. As soon as it comes to a stop under the porte-cochere, I jump out and rush to the front door. Franco, or Luciano, is hot on my heels. I don’t care. All I need is to get to Valentino right this minute. Thank goodness the ICU is on the first floor.

I burst through the heavy doors into the unit, finding Francesca pacing in the waiting area.

“Naomi! They won’t let me in! They—”

“I’ve got this,” I tell her, already brushing past to reach the door to Valentino’s room. I try the handle, and when it opens, I waste no time to barge inside.

The bed is surrounded by men and women in coats and scrubs. The beeping is still the background noise.

Nausea assails me. All these people, they’re not talking. There’s no human sound in this room. I can’t— It can’t—

When they see I’m here, a nurse breaks away.

“Mrs. Andretti?”

I nod.

“For a minute there, it was touch and go, but then…”

I don’t hear what else she’s saying. The doctors have moved away from the bed, and the sight that greets me would’vebrought me to my knees had I not already been holding on to a chair next to me.

It’s Valentino. There’s no tube in his mouth anymore, and his eyes are open, looking at me, locked on me.

I gasp out—it could be a word or a sob, I don’t know. I rush to my husband’s side and place a hand on his cheek. My lips touch his, reverently, softly, and I lift my head when I feel him smiling faintly against my mouth.

“Hey,” he says, voice low and rough.

“Hey,” I reply, my voice watery and trembling. “I thought…”

He heaves in a deep breath. “Thought so, too.”

I can’t believe he’s awake. I pull away a little, both my hands on his cheeks now, touching him, feeling the ridges and dips of his features, the stubble raspy against my palms.

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