“Exactly.”
Alessio gave Corrado another one of those winks as he headed for the small attached enclave of their master bedroom that was supposed to be for the reading nook he’d wanted. Really, it was the only thing he asked to be done in the entire house. He knew there would be a gym—Corrado was the one who demanded that. The office would also double as a library because they all liked that idea.
The reading nook, though ...
“I really wanted this,” Alessio said, his voice muffled from where they couldn’t see him inside the enclave. “Can’t see what would be so important that we’d change it, honestly.”
Corrado looked Ginevra’s way to find she was chewing on her bottom lip while she closed the binder in her hands and set it on her lap. “He never whines.”
“I know,” she whispered. “But ... it’s a good surprise.”
“You didn’t even tell me what the change in plans were, kitten.”
“I wanted you both here when I did it.”
Corrado laughed, and headed for the bed. Putting both his hands at the edge, he leaned over and pressed a quick kiss to Ginevra’s temple. Her pretty lips curved with the sweetest smile, and her gaze drifted to the entry of the enclave where Alessio had come back to stand.
“We’re both here,” he said.
“You are,” she murmured.
“So,” Les urged, “what happened to the reading nook?”
“I thought ...” Ginevra swallowed hard, shrugging the delicate line of her shoulders under a silk camisole as Corrado stood straight, and Alessio joined him near the side of the bed. “Well, it’s better suited for something else because it’s right in the bedroom, there’s still privacy, and we’ll hear the baby as soon as they cry for us.”
All at once, Corrado’s heart stopped.
He was sure it did.
Beside him, Alessio made a noise.
Soft and thick.
Unsure and excited.
“What baby?” Corrado heard himself ask.
Alessio’s hand found Corrado’s wrist, and he grabbed tight. Tighter than he’d ever held him before, and while someone else might have thought that action wasn’t a good thing, he could feel the other man’s joy radiating. When someone spent enough time with another person who owned a part of their soul, they learned to distinguish things like that.
“The sleeping ... getting sick,” Alessio said. “That’s because you’re—”
Corrado made a noise that time, stopping the man beside him from saying more. He didn’t want Alessio to say it, even if they both figured it out. It was Ginevra’s news, and it should be her who told them. She waited, after all.
He understood that now.
She waited for them.
For them to be a them.
All together.
The way they should be.
“You say it,” Corrado told her. “Tell us like you wanted to, kitten.”
She grinned.
Sexy and sweet.
Alessio’s fingers tightened around Corrado’s wrist again. “Yeah, Ginny.”
Ginevra set the binder aside and moved to her knees where she rested at the side of the bed. In front of both of them. “So, that’s the thing ... I’m about ten weeks preg—”
Alessio took her down to the bed first with a shout before he pinned Ginevra down and kissed every breathless laugh that fell from her lips. Corrado was very quick to follow.
Tucked between them with her laughter muffled, one of her hands tight around Alessio’s middle while her other reached back to hook Corrado’s neck, Ginevra trembled. And then he felt Les’s lips find his forehead overtop her, the softest kiss.
“We’re gonna have a baby,” he murmured to Corrado. Then, the two of them glanced down. Ginevra stared up at both of them, her top teeth catching her bottom lip as she smiled. “We’re having a baby?”
“Yeah,” she breathed.
They were having a baby.
9.
Ginevra
Seven months later ...
“I can’t ... I-I can’t, I just—”
“Yes, you can,” Les murmured, his face clouding Ginevra’s hazy vision. She did her best to focus on him and Corrado resting behind her on the bed if only because that was easier to process than the absolute agony ripping through her lower half. “She’s right there, babe. She’s got the prettiest black curls, and she wants her mom to hold her.”
“One more,” Corrado said in her ear. “You can do one more, Ginny.”
The music she wanted played still hummed in the background of their master bedroom, but she couldn’t distinguish what song was currently echoing through the speakers. Not that it mattered because the sound of her boys talking her through the hardest experience of her life to date took every ounce of her concentration.
She was grateful for them.
Needed them for this.
It was every reason why the three of them were in the bedroom of their home with a midwife between her legs with her fingers probing against the crowning of their baby’s head because she needed them here. With her.
Her gyno had been great throughout the whole pregnancy. She was open-minded and didn’t say half of the ignorant things a lot of others who should have known better did when it came to the pregnancy, and their life. But when it came to the hospital, the policy was one support person in the room, and it didn’t matter how many times they explained both fathers had to be in the room, no one would budge.
So, they found themselves here. With a midwife who worked in her gyno’s office, in their bed where she felt most comfortable while her two boys were exactly where they wanted and needed to be, and their family filled the brownstone to wait for the birth of their daughter.
The first Guzzi child of her generation.
They had more than enough people who felt the need to voice their concerns. From everything to how far away a hospital was to whether or not a name was going to be put on the birth certificate. As though women hadn’t been giving birth since the beginning of time and which name a baby was given at birth would make or break it all despite all their love. None of it made any difference to the three of them, though.
They knew what they wanted.
This baby was theirs.
What did the rest matter?
“One more,” Alessio assured, “that’s all.”
“With the next contraction, Ginevra,” the midwife agreed, “and she’ll be right out into my arms and ready for you to meet her.”
“You ready?” Corrado asked.
Ginevra took a moment. Just one single second to take in her surroundings and everything else. Her men. The one with his arms wrapped around her chest where he sat behind her. And the other on the edge of the bed with both her hands in his. They never forgot each other; she knew it. Even when it seemed like Corrado and Alessio were in entirely different worlds, all it took was a single look between them for everything to settle.
Right now, though, it was all about her.
And their baby.
She was sweaty.
Aching all over.
Was she ready to be a mom?
Was she ready for everything to change?
“Yeah, I’m ready,” she replied, voice quaking with every word. “Let’s have this baby.”