Her hands touched my cheeks and slid down to my shoulders, and I saw her eyes lose focus.
“Noah?” I said, holding her up as she went slack in my arms. “Get a doctor!” I shouted when she didn’t come to. I picked her up, and terror invaded me. Had she been shot? Did she have some internal wound no one knew about?
“Wake up, Noah,” I said, holding her tightly against me until I reached another ambulance.
“Let me,” a paramedic said. Police sirens began to wail, and Raffaella and my father came up behind me.
“What’s wrong with her?” I asked. They took her from my arms and laid her on a stretcher, and paramedics gathered around and lifted her into the ambulance.
“We’re taking her to the hospital. Are you her mother?” they asked Raffaella, and she nodded, climbing into the ambulance.
“I’m going, too,” I said, not leaving room for discussion.
“I’ll follow you all in my car,” my father said.
The ambulance ride lasted an eternity. Noah was still unconscious, but after looking her over quickly, one of the paramedics said there was nothing to be concerned about.
I leaned over her and carefully ran a hand through her hair.
“I’m sorry, Noah. I’m sorry.”
49
Noah
When I opened my eyes, I was in a hospital bed. My head and face hurt, but my mind was relaxed once I saw who was there with me.
“At last, you’re awake!” Nicholas exclaimed, kissing my hand, which he was holding.
“What happened?” I asked, with no idea how I’d gotten there.
“You fainted,” he said, his worried eyes staring at me. “The doctors said it was psychological exhaustion. They gave you some pills. You were worn out.”
I nodded, trying to take everything in. I remembered what had happened, the kidnapping, the blows I’d received from my father and Ronnie, the moment when I thought my father had shot me, when he’d fallen to the ground bleeding…
“What happened to him?” I asked.
Nicholas knew immediately what I meant.
He hesitated for a moment and then finally spoke.
“He didn’t make it, Noah… The bullet pierced his heart. He died before he got to the hospital.”
It was strange. Maybe there was something inside me that was broken, but I felt nothing, absolutely nothing. Just relief, an infinite relief, and a weight lifted off my chest. A weight I’d borne for almost a decade.
“It’s all over,” Nick said, getting up from the chair by my bed and bringing his face close to mine. “No one can hurt you anymore. I’m going to take care of you, Noah.”
I felt my eyes watering.
“I never thought things would turn out like this. I never thought I’d be thanking the stars for bringing our parents together. Two months ago, everything you represented was hell for me. And now…” I got up on my knees in bed and touched his face, and he wrapped his hands carefully around my waist. “I love you, Nick. I love you like crazy.”
His lips kissed mine, gently but with the full force of the love that had grown between us. The kind of love that happened only once in a lifetime, the kind of love that touched your heart and never left you, the kind of love nothing else compared to, a love we sought, a love we may even have hated, but that made us alive, that made us need each other, that turned us into something the other person couldn’t live without…the love that I had just found.
EPILOGUE
Nick
A MONTH LATER
“Don’t you dare open your eyes,” I warned her as I brought her to the middle of the room. Having her there gave me a joy I couldn’t express in words. The change she’d made in my life was a new beginning in our relationship, but that was something I needed, and it would wind up being a good thing, enabling us to spend all the time we needed together.
“You know I hate surprises,” she reminded me, wriggling around. I smiled to myself.
“You’ll like this one,” I said, posting myself behind her. “Okay…now!” I took off her blindfold.
She looked astonished as she saw what lay before her. We were in the entryway of the penthouse condo I’d just bought, and she could see the doorways to the bedroom, the kitchen, and the living room. It wasn’t big, just enough for one person to live comfortably, but it was a nice apartment. A family friend had decorated it to my taste, and it looked amazing. The brown and white tones gave it a homey, modern feel. I’d had a fireplace built in the center of the living room in front of the chocolate-colored sofa where Noah and I could watch movies and relax by ourselves. The kitchen was compact, but it had everything we needed, including an island perfect for two people to have breakfast together. There were thick rugs on the hardwood floors and a huge window with amazing views of the city. At that moment, the dark night meant the lights were glowing like a carpet of stars.
Noah’s mouth was open slightly as she looked around in amazement.
“So…what do you think?”
She shook her head. She needed a moment to find the words.
“Is it yours?” she asked, walking to the sofa and resting a hand on the back of it. When she turned around, she had an expression I would struggle to describe: confused, worried maybe.
“I mean, I’m going to live here, but you’re going to spend most of your time here with me. That’s why I bought it, so we could be together without anyone coming between us,” I said, walking over. I liked seeing her there. Her presence made it feel like a real home.
A second later, a smile crossed her face.
“It’s amazing!” she shouted. But I could see in her eyes that she was hiding something.
I stroked her hair, tucked it behind her ears, and took her face in my hands.
“What is it?” I asked. Her expression worried me.
She shook her head and exhaled.
“It’s just that I’m going to miss seeing you every day,” she said, leaning her head against my chest. I was going to miss her, too: I loved getting up and having breakfast with her, I adored seeing her before she’d fixed her hair, always ready with a smile, and, of course, I loved knowing she was safe and sound behind our locked door. All that would change now that I was moving, but it had to be that way, I knew that. Living with my father and being in love with his stepdaughter was madness. We almost never felt fully comfortable, we were almost never alone with each other, and now that I had my own place, I could see Noah all the time without parental supervision.
“I will, too,” I said, “but it’s something we need to do. I can’t stand seeing you every day and not being able to do this when I feel like it,” I said, kissing those perfect lips. “Or this.” I kissed her deeper, my tongue wrapping around hers with all the passion she awakened in me. She responded right away, and in a split second, desire had taken over my body. That was the effect she had on me. “Or this.” I picked her up, and she wrapped her legs around me, giggling.
“Or this,” I said, tugging off my T-shirt with one hand.
I groaned as I felt her hands on my shoulders and neck. I walked to what was now my new bedroom, with its huge bed and incredible views, dropping her on the soft pillows and unbuttoning her white shirt.
“I think you’ve convinced me. I like your new place.” She sighed, letting me kiss every centimeter of her skin.
“I knew you would,” I said, reaching her lips.
At that moment, I realized that this woman would be beside me forever. I loved her above all else, and she had rescued me from the black hole my life had been before I’d met her. It had taken us time to understand, but now we were together and would work to make our relationship grow. Our lives hadn’t been easy, and that was why we understood each other so well. At a critical moment, in the eye of the storm, we had each been the other’s lifesaver, and that was not something easy to find.
* * *