Lying in Bed Together

Throughout the night, Lara and Chris kept vigil. Lost in their own thoughts of the man who'd made such an indelible impression on them both, they spoke little.

At six o'clock the next morning, Rocco died.

"He's gone, Chris," she said. "It's over."

He nodded, bent his head and gathered his father's frail body in his arms.

Leaving him to make his private farewell, she slipped from the room and went out to the terrace. In the half-light of dawn, the flower beds shone like pale clumps of stars. It was going to be another beautiful late September day. The first of many without Rocco.

She didn't hear Chris join her until he spoke. "He was rambling, wasn't he, when he said the baby's mine?"

"No," she said, too sad and exhausted to prevaricate. The truth had to come out sooner or later, it might as well be now. "You're her biological father."

"Th