The Consequences of That Night

desperate hope. He thought of her years of devotion going far beyond that of any paid employee. Thought of how she’d always been by his side. How she’d always had the strength and dignity to stand up for what was right. Even today.
    Especially today.
    “You’ve shown me what love can be,” he whispered. “Love isn’t delusion, it isn’t trying to avoid grief and pain, but holding your hand right through it, while you hold mine.” He took her hand, cradling it in his own. “All this time,” he said in a low voice, running his other hand along her pale translucent veil, “I was afraid of loving someone and losing them. I turned it into a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
    She swallowed, shifting Sam’s weight against her shoulder. “It still could happen. I could get sick again. I could get hit by a bus.”
    “Or you could stop loving me. You could leave me for another man.”
    “Never,” she cried, then suddenly blushed, looking down at her wedding gown. “Er, except for just now, I mean. And I didn’t leave you for Alain, I never thought of him that way.”
    “I know.”
    “I couldn’t marry a man who didn’t love me. Because I’ve realized it’s love that makes a family. Not promises.”
    Slowly Cesare lowered himself to one knee, as he should have done from the beginning. “Then let me love you for the rest of our lives. However long or short those lives might be.” Taking her hands in his own, he fervently kissed each palm, then pressed them against his tuxedo jacket, over his chest. “Marry me, Emma. And whatever your answer might be, know that you hold my heart. For the rest of my life.”
    “As you hold mine,” she said as tears ran down her face. Moving her hands, she cupped his face. And nodded.
    “Yes?” he breathed, searching her gaze. “You’ll marry me?”
    “Yes,” she said, smiling through her tears.
    “Now,” he demanded.
    She snorted. “So bossy,” she said with a laugh. “Some things never change.” Her expression grew serious. “But some things do. I want to marry the man I love. The man who loves me.” Her eyes grew suddenly shadowed as she shook her head. “And if anything ever happens to us...”
    “We’re all going to die someday.” Cesare’s eyes were suspiciously blurry as he looked down at her. Beneath her veil, several pins had fallen out of her chignon, causing her lustrous hair to tumble wildly down her shoulders. He pulled out the rest, tangling his fingers in her hair. “The only real question is if we’re ever going to live. And from now on, my darling,” he whispered as he lowered his lips to hers, “we are.”
    * * *
    “Emma!”
    “We’re over here!” she called, but she knew Cesare wouldn’t be able to see her in the villa’s garden. It was August, and everything was in bloom, the fruit trees, the vegetables, even the corn. She tried to stand up, but being over eight months pregnant, it wasn’t easy. She had to push herself up off the ground with her hands, and then bend around in a way that made Sam, now fifteen months old and digging in the dirt beside her with his little spade, giggle as he watched her flop around.
    “Mama,” he laughed, yanking a flower out of the ground.
    “Fine, go ahead and laugh,” she said affectionately, smiling down at him. “I did this for you, too, you know.”
    “Fow-a.” With dark, serious eyes, he handed her the flower. Every day, he looked more like Cesare, she thought. But he’d also started to remind her of her own father, Sam’s namesake. She saw that in the toddler’s loving eyes, in his sweetly encouraging spirit.
    “Emma!” Cesare called again, more desperately.
    “Over here!” She waved her hands over the bushes, trying to make him see her. “By the orange grove!”
    The garden had been transformed. Just like her life. The gold-digging supermodels of London would have been shocked and dismayed to learn that, as a billionaire’s wife, Emma now spent most of her days right here, with a dirty child, growing fruits and vegetables for their kitchen and beautiful flowers to fill the vases of their home. Except, of course, when they had to fly down to the coast and go yachting along the Mediterranean, or take the private jet to see friends in London or New York. It was nice to do such things. But nicer still, she thought, to come back to their home.
    The wedding had been even better than she’d imagined. After their breathless declaration and kiss by the lake, she and Cesare