The doctor left the room quietly, promising he would return within the hour. The door clicked shut. Silence settled over the bedroom like a suffocating blanket.
Luca remained seated beside Aria, but the stillness in his body trembled with something volatile. Not grief. Not sorrow. Pure, unrestrained fear masked behind rigid control.
Aria could feel it in the way he held her. One arm wrapped around her back, the other hand protective over her stomach, his palm warm and firm as if he could shield the child inside her with nothing but his touch.
She lifted her eyes to him, seeing the hard tension set in his jaw, the muscle ticking as every scenario ran through his mind.
"Luca…" she whispered, her voice weak from pain and the sedative.
He looked at her instantly.
"You scared me," he said, and the way he said it—low, cracked, shaken—made her chest tighten.
"I am all right now," she breathed.
