"Gabriel," she said softly.
"You didn't tell me," I choked out, the words catching in my throat as I pulled the white sheet from my pocket. "In Soho... you handed me this and walked away. Isabelle, for God's sake, you were carrying my child."
She looked at the paper in my hand, then back up at my face. A faint, sad smile touched the corner of her lips—a smile that broke something vital inside my chest.
"It wasn't your child, Gabriel," she said gently. "It was ours. And when I was lying in that cold room on the fourth day, listening to the heart monitor tick while you were ordering Barolo in Piazza Navona, I realized that 'ours' didn't exist anymore."
"I would have come," I pleaded, stepping across the threshold, unable to stop myself. "If you had told me—if you had said the word hospital, or baby, I would have burned Rome to the ground to get back to you!"
