“I will go. I’ll pack my things immediately.” She forced herself to speak, to keep the words coming even though she felt horribly disorganized, her emotions colliding with her reason. “But I shall not be taking the girls back with me.”

Ah. She had his attention now. He hadn’t turned around, but his head lowered and she caught sight of his profile.

“What nonsense is this?” His low voice throbbed with fury.

“It’s not nonsense. It’s true. I can’t take them home. I won’t have them watch me go through chemo.”

He said nothing. He hadn’t moved. She pushed herself on. “I know what the treatment looks like, Marco. I know how it ravages the body. I don’t want the girls exposed to that.”

He stood frozen in place. “Chemo?”

His voice came out rough. Payton touched her tongue to her upper lip and took a deep breath. Damn but this was hard. One minute she was kissing, feeling, wanting and the next she was an ice maiden again, frozen on the inside.

“I…” She looked up at him, wondered how she’d get the words out. She hadn’t spoken them aloud yet. Hadn’t told anyone. “I have cancer.”

He turned toward her. She didn’t just say what he thought she said, did she?

He did a slow double-take as he faced her and yet Payton didn’t look hysterical. She looked calm. Astonishingly calm. She couldn’t have said what he thought she’d said. It was crazy, but for a split-second he actually thought she’d said she had cancer.

“Mommy!” The cry sounded outside the study, at the top of the stairs.

Payton quickly opened the door and headed for the stairs.

“I have to go to the bathroom.” Gia was standing on the stairs in her nightgown. “I have to go bad but I’m scared.”

It took Payton awhile to get Gia settled back into bed and by the time she’d closed the door to the girls’ bedroom, Marco was no longer in his study.

She found him outside, leaning against a column in the courtyard. He didn’t turn around but he must have heard her. “This is true?” he asked, staring up at the sky.

“Yes.”

“You’ve gone for a second opinion?”

“Yes. I’m waiting on the results, but the first diagnosis came from the specialist who treated my mother.” She stepped past him to stand in the middle of the courtyard in a small pool of moonlight. “I’m lucky they picked it up when they did.