She sucked in a breath and caught Darius’s gaze. “Let me feed him.”
Darius didn’t say anything, but his dark eyes asked a million questions.
“Hey, I’ve got to do this.”
He sighed. Breaking his silence with her, he said, “Yes, you do.”
“Okay. So I’m ready.”
He rose from the rocker and took a few steps away so she could sit down. When she was comfortable, he handed her the baby first, then the bottle.
Fear made her hand tremble as she slid the bottle into Gino’s mouth. Nearly every time she’d touched him, memories had assaulted her. And, after the memories came hours of recriminations. Guilt. Beating herself up for not seeing the obvious.
But Gino took the nipple greedily and this time she didn’t see her baby’s face as he suckled. She saw dark-haired, dark-eyed, very hungry Gino.
She laughed.
Darius turned away.
Her heart tumbled in her chest. Darius’s silence made her feel ashamed. Selfish. He’d mentioned his mother’s death the night before. He’d said he was alone. He hadn’t exactly reached out to her, but had only told her because it fit into their argument. Still, this morning she knew she had to say something.
Seeing Gino was happily suckling, she drew in a quiet breath, swallowed, then said, “I’m sorry about your mother.”
“It’s okay.”
“No. It’s not.” She shook her head angrily. “This is what always happens with people when I try to talk to them. Nobody’s tragedy is as terrible as mine so nobody really talks with me.”
He turned around again. His face scrunched in confusion. “That’s ridiculous.”
“No, it isn’t. Look at you. You won’t tell me about your mom.”
He busied himself with arranging the items on the changing table.
“See!”
Still occupied with powders and lotions, he casually said, “There’s not really a lot to tell.”
“But you said you were alone.”
“That was a slip. A way to show you that you’re not the only one who’s suffered a loss.” He shook his head, but didn’t face her. “I shouldn’t have compared my situation and yours. Our losses were totally different. Plus, I’m lucky. I might have two half-brothers who intend to ignore me, but I still have a baby brother, and if I raise him he’ll be in my life for at least eighteen years. I have a family.”
She glanced down at Gino. “You know, if you really wanted to have a family you should bring your brothers together. You shouldn’t hang back, waiting for the right time for them to come up and meet Gino. You should take the bull by the horns and invite them now. Get them involved with him now.”
He faced her.
“The longer you wait, the more distance you put between yourself and them, and between them and Gino, and the less chance they’ll accept your invitation.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “And you’re the expert?”
She shrugged. “Lawyers counsel people. We sometimes can’t see what’s in front of us in our own lives, but we have this uncanny ability to think really clearly about the lives of our clients.” She glanced down at Gino, then back up at Darius and smiled slightly as she caught his gaze. “You’re not really a client, but I’m sort of new to your life, so it’s easier for me to see the obvious.”
“And you think I should invite my brothers here?”
“Yes. I think you need a chance to bond.”
He snorted out a breath. “Bond. Like a bunch of girls at cheerleading camp?” He shook his head. “That’s ridiculous.”
“No. Bonding is finding a common denominator. Something all three of you care about. So that you can relate to each other.”
The baby spat out his bottle and Whitney burped him. But when she tried to sit him on her lap again he squirmed and squealed.
Without hesitation Darius walked over and hoisted him up, into his arms. “You look like a guy who wants to play.”
Gino giggled. Darius hugged him and headed for the toy box. Whitney’s chest tightened and her heart squeezed. He loved Gino so much. And his reasons for wanting Gino in his life were good. He wanted a family. This time, the guilt she felt had nothing to do with her past and everything to do with right now. This minute. She’d mistrusted him, accused him without knowing anything about him.
Maybe the same was true of his brothers?
Maybe they didn’t so much hate the eldest Andreas son as much as they simply didn’t know him well enough to like him?
Darius opened the toy box and pulled out four big plastic blocks. He sat Gino on a brightly colored striped rug and lowered himself beside him.
The way Darius so easily, so naturally played with Gino tugged on her heartstrings, and once again she thought of his brothers, of how wrong it was for them to dislike their oldest brother.
“I’m not going to drop the idea that you should invite your brothers here.”
Preoccupied with trying to get Gino to take a block, Darius said, “I’ve already told you I don’t want to ‘bond.’”
“So don’t look at it as bonding. Look at it as getting a chance to talk about the company, about your dad, about the things you have in common.”
“And you think talking will fix everything?”
“No. I don’t know for sure that there’s a way to fix your family. But I think it’s a start. And I think you owe it to yourself and Gino to try.”
He shuffled the blocks in front of Gino, who batted at them before he picked up the yellow one and inspected it.
When he didn’t answer, guilt from their argument in the kitchen rose up in her again. At a point when he would have spoken about his mom, she’d been so wrapped up in her own troubles that she hadn’t reached out to him. Every day they’d been here, he’d reached out to her. She owed him.
“If you can get your brothers to come up for a weekend, I’ll stay here with Gino until the Monday after that weekend.”
He glanced up sharply. “Their schedules aren’t going to be any easier than mine. It might take eight or ten weeks before they can come.”
“I’m fine with that.”
He studied her for a few seconds. Finally he said, “I guess I do have enough room here that we could easily invite my brothers for a weekend.”
Darius spent the first few hours at work on the phone with his brothers. He didn’t actually speak with
