Page 76 of Thin Lives

With a room number in mind, Calisto eyed the plaques on the doors he passed until he found the one he was searching for. Since the door was slightly open a couple of inches, and his uncle had invited him to come down and say hello to the newest family member—three days after the baby was actually born—Calisto didn’t think to knock and wait. He simply rapped his knuckles gently against the door and then pushed it open.

The hospital room wasn’t empty, but it wasn’t filled with the people he expected, either.

Soft, pastel blue walls with white trim and accents stared back at him. The hospital bed, which looked much more comfortable than the ones he had spent time in over the years, was propped up into a sitting position. The curtains had been drawn, and the lights were dimmed.

Emma sat on the middle of the bed, cross-legged. On the bed with her was a tiny, blue bundle swaddled tightly but for one arm that had escaped. All Calisto could see was rounded, pink cheeks, dark tufts of hair, and a thumb firmly stuck between the baby’s lips.

“My dark-eyed boy,” Emma cooed to the baby, running the tip of her finger down his nose. “You look just like your father, Cross.”

Calisto cleared his throat, not wanting to feel like he was spying on Emma and her baby.

Emma’s head snapped up, her gaze finding his instantly. A softness resonated in her features as she stared at him, seemingly unsure of what to say. “Calisto. I didn’t know you were coming.”

“I didn’t mean to inter—”

“No, no,” she interjected quickly, waving a hand to ask him closer. “Come here, you didn’t. It’s just …”

Calisto strolled forward, but slowly. “Just what?”

“Affonso hasn’t really allowed anyone to come, that’s all.”

“He said he would meet me at the nursery,” Calisto said, shrugging.

Emma’s eyes widened a second before she laughed under her breath. “Well, that’s on the other side of the maternity ward, Cal. It’s where they allow the families to spend time with the babies while giving us new mothers time to rest and also privacy.”

Calisto cringed. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” She scooped the sleeping baby into her arms, and his attention was drawn to the boy’s sleeping features. Instantly, he could see the resemblances he shared with the newborn. Brown-black eyes, dark hair, the shape of his nose and lips. “Cross Nazio Donati is what I named him.”

Calisto was still staring at the baby, that sensation poking at his brain again, like there was something he was supposed to know, but couldn’t remember. “He certainly looks like a Donati.”

The baby watched him with dark eyes.

Donati eyes.

It unsettled him, because the child felt so familiar to him, yet, he hadn’t even touched him.

“He’s awfully expressive for a baby,” Calisto said more to himself than to Emma.

Emma smiled a genuine sight. “I think he gets that from his father.”

There was a lilt to her tone, as if there was more to her words. He still couldn’t stop staring at the baby, his mind running a million miles a minute. He was going straight back to that place where he knew he shouldn’t be. A place where he considered things like Emma, and his strange attraction for her—his desire to want to be closer to her. Just looking at the child that resembled him because they were family and nothing more was enough to twist his gut with something hot and heavy.

The baby looked like it could be his, for Christ’s sake.

And he liked that.

“Would you like to hold him?” Emma asked.

Her innocent question brought Calisto out of his crazy head with a bang. He knew he was going crazy—he had to be fucking insane. That was the only explanation to why he would even think about Emma in the way he was, never mind the things he knew he had once done with her.

That’s what it is, he told himself. You’re confusing something that happened with everything you don’t know. You want to keep what you do know, so you’re forcing something that isn’t there. Stop being stupid!

Calisto took a step back, and then another, even when Emma’s smile fell, and sadness colored her features.

“Ah, no,” he started to say.

“Just wait a minute, Cal.”