Total pages in book: 52
Estimated words: 48585 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 243(@200wpm)___ 194(@250wpm)___ 162(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 48585 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 243(@200wpm)___ 194(@250wpm)___ 162(@300wpm)
Before I can think anything of it, Luciano gets down on one knee in front of me. In his hand, he holds a small black velvet box. And when he opens the hinged top, it reveals the most stunning diamond ring that I've ever seen.
“Valentina Ricci,” he says, completely taking me by surprise. “I am so in love with you, as I know I always have been. You have my heart, and you always will. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and make you the happiest woman alive, if you’ll give me the chance and do me the honor of being my wife. Will you marry me?”
Tears fall from my eyes, dripping down my cheeks and onto my bare breasts as I stare at him, overjoyed. Luc, half-naked as he holds the ring up toward me with one hand and wipes my tears with the other, is everything that I’ve ever wanted, and I could not be more in love with him than I already am.
This time, when I get married, it will be my choice. It will be for love, and I will be the only one to determine my fate.
“Yes!” I say ecstatically. “Yes, of course I’ll marry you, Luciano! I love you so much.”
I cry happy tears as I throw my arms behind his neck and pull his mouth to mine. The kiss is one that I feel like I’ve waited my whole life for, even though my lips are practically sore from all the kissing we’ve done since we got here.
When I let go, Luc pulls the ring from its box and carefully slips it onto my finger. It’s stunning, and this moment is nothing short of perfect. Actually, it’s about to get even more surprisingly perfect now.
“Oh!” I say in surprise as my hand with the new diamond ring on it quickly touches my stomach.
“What is it?” he asks. “Are you okay?”
“Luc,” I say hesitantly, so that I don’t let myself get carried away again with false hope. “Luc, I think I just felt something.”
“What? What do you mean? Did I hurt you with too much sex?”
“No, no, not at all,” I say as I quickly get up and walk toward the floor-length mirror at the corner of the room. I turn sideways and notice my profile. I have been feeling a bit more “round” lately than usual, and my clothes have been fitting tighter for no apparent reason. It isn’t until I stand at the mirror studying my profile that Luc notices it too.
“Valentina, did your period ever return after the hospital?”
“No,” I say as it suddenly dawns on me that I’ve missed several cycles now. “Do you think it’s possible that I—oh! There it is again!”
“What?”
“I feel a fluttering inside,” I say as I rub my stomach with both hands and try to elicit the motion again as we both look in the mirror at my stomach.
When it happens a third time, there’s no mistaking it—it’s not just a “fluttering,” it feels like a tiny, definitive little kick.
I wanted a miracle, and I thought it was naïve of me to think that I would ever get one. But yet all the signs are now adding up—my rounder figure, the missed period that never returned, the increased hormones and sensations during sex, and now—the indisputable feeling that there is something, or someone, inside of me moving around to let me know they are still there and still alive.
I reach for Luc’s hand and press it tightly to my stomach. It might still be too light for him to feel from the outside. But then, when it happens again, his eyes quickly dart to mine without saying a word.
“You felt that too, didn’t you?” I ask, embracing the idea that the impossible has happened and that even after the horrid pill, our unborn child has survived.
Luc nods, and his jaw drops open for a moment before he pulls me into his arms and holds me.
“She’s still here with us,” he says with a reverent sigh of relief. “She’s a fighter, just like her mother.”
THE END