Chapter 22: Wear It

Joanna's POV

The flat above the shop had a new nursery, a new crib and a second-hand rocking chair painted yellow.

Cesare had painted the chair himself.

He had gotten more paint on his hands than on the wood.

He sat on the floor of my bedroom that night with his back against the bed, because he would not leave and I would not tell him to.

The doctor had said tonight, tomorrow or next week.

I was too restless to sleep.

"Cesare."

"Yes."

"Come here."

He looked up.

I was sitting on the edge of the bed in one of his old shirts, with my bare feet on the floor and my belly very round under the cotton.

He stood and came to me and stopped an arm's length away.

"Rule one," he said, low.

"I'm tired of rule one."

"You made it."

"I'm unmaking it. Touch me."

He knelt in front of me.

He put both hands on my stomach and pressed his forehead to it, and he stayed like that.

I felt the baby kick against his cheek.

He laughed, shaky, into the shirt.

"She's heard me," he said.

"She thinks you're loud."

"I am."

I threaded my fingers through his hair and lifted his face.

The kiss started gentle, and then it was not.

I pulled him up onto the bed, and he tried to stay careful, and I gripped his collar.

"I'm not made of glass," I said. "Take your clothes off."

He undressed fast, and I pulled his shirt off me and lay back.

My body was strange to me now, heavy and ripe.

He looked at all of it and did not look away.

"God, you're beautiful."

"I'm huge."

"You're beautiful."

He kissed my throat, my breasts, the tight curve of my stomach.

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