by L. D. Davis
I didn’t bother to offer any kindness. “Hey.”
She glanced toward the door with a faint smile. “He works hard.”
“Yes. Unfortunately, he is working harder than usual because he’s been so…distracted these past few weeks.”
Our eyes met, but this time, I returned the coldness she emanated from her gaze.
“Lydia, I believe it is well past time for a…tête-à-tête.”
It was well past time for me to punch her in the face, but I didn’t do that, and I didn’t deny her the conversation, either. We agreed to go to the solarium and walked side by side in silence. Once inside the beautiful room, we took high-back chairs opposite each other, a low table between us. As she began to talk, I realized her English was much better than she’d pretended. That was as I’d expected, but I didn’t hold it against her, because I’d done the same.
“Marcello told me you are pregnant,” she said, getting right to the point.
“Of course he did,” I muttered. I was disappointed he’d told her, but not at all surprised.
“I care very much for him. He is my family. So, I ask you, Lydia, how is it possible that he is the father of your child if he has spent most of his time here? He himself admitted the likelihood of the two of you conceiving during that time was very small. In the beginning, he denied the possibility that you would have been with someone else, but make no mistake, my dear, the question is there in his mind.”
The chuckle that left my lips was cold and cynical. “If the question is in his mind, you’re the bitch who put it there, but make no mistake, my dear,” I said sardonically. “This baby is his. I’m sorry if that ruins whatever plans you had for my boyfriend.”
She studied me carefully. “What makes you believe you are good enough for him? Yes, you are very pretty in your own way. You seem to be rather intelligent, and it is obvious you care for him, but what makes you believe that is enough?”
I already hated her, but I really hated her in that moment, because she just tapped into my biggest fears. From the beginning, I had been in awe that Marco wanted me. I’d struggled internally with that for most of our relationship and had repeatedly asked myself if I was good enough for him. I had all of that on my shoulders in addition to my feelings of inadequacy with Gavin. So, Celia asking that question really got me in my soul, but I couldn’t let her see that.
“I suppose you’re going to tell me all the reasons you are so much better,” I said in a bored tone.
“Marcello and I were always meant to be together. We’ve known each other my entire life. He and I were inseparable.”
“Until you blew that all up and threw him away for his older brother.”
She was unfazed. “I admit, mistakes were made. I was young and thoughtless, but that was a very long time ago. Perhaps I am not better than you, but I am what is best for him.”
“Oh, this is entertaining. Please tell me why you, the woman who broke his heart and disrupted his entire family and forced him to move halfway around the world, is best for him.”
“Marcello is what you Americans would call a classy man. He comes from a good family with a strong bloodline. Even without his own business, he is still worth a lot of money. He leads a very elite lifestyle and has access to and relationships with some of the most extraordinary people in the world. Marcello Mangini deserves a woman on his arm who is equal in sophistication, refinement, and aristocratic blood, and she should certainly be able bodied and in excellent physical condition.”
What sucked, what really sucked, was that a large part of me agreed with her. Marco did deserve a woman like that, someone like her, and that shredded me inside.
“You know what, Celia?” I shrugged a shoulder. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe that makes sense, but the fact is…love doesn’t always make sense. He has had a slew of choices of women who are sophisticated, refined, from a good bloodline, and who could go for a run with him or climb mountains or whatever the fuck, but he didn’t want any of them. He wants me.” I stood, so ready to be done with the conversation. “And you know what? You’re a real piece of work, sitting there talking about Marco in this way while your husband is in the hospital suffering from cancer and pneumonia.”
She actually appeared regretful. “There is nothing more I can do for him, but there is much I can do for Marcello. I can stop him from making the biggest mistake of his life. Yours would not be the first bastard child I’ve had to work around.”
I almost laughed in her fucking face. “Right, because the first bastards you had to work around were your own children, right C?”
She seemed genuinely surprised I knew that information. The look of astonishment and terror on her face only lasted a few seconds but had been well worth it. Plus, the serenity in her voice was no longer there. I took satisfaction in knowing I’d shaken her.
“You do realize he does not really want you. He barely speaks of you. He can’t stand to share your bed, and I know that because he is with me every night in our own secret hideaway. Every night we make plans for the future that do not involve you or your fatherless children.”
Celia had real guts. She moved closer to me, smiling because she knew she’d hit a nerve. It was all over my face. I couldn’t hide the hurt from that one.
“I know he smells like me when he comes to you in the mornings. Tell me, Lydia. Do you smell him on me?”
And that was when I lost it. I wasn’t tenderhearted Tess, or observant and accepting like Salina. I slapped the shit out of that bitch. I slapped her so hard that the sound echoed throughout the solarium. It was a loud, resounding crack, and I would’ve hit her again had someone not pulled me away from her.
“You’re lucky!” I shouted at her. “Lucky! I could’ve broken your fucking perfect nose, you stupid bitch!”
“Lydia!” Marco shouted my name, and I realized he’d been doing that for some time.
“I will fuck you up,” I screamed to the sobbing woman holding her cheek.
“Stop it! Now!” Marco demanded as he carried me away.
I was so angry, so hurt and so angry that I saw red through my tears. It took me another moment of fighting him and cursing at her to realize that others were in the vicinity. Elena, Matteo, Maria, Sofia, and Francesca. There was utter horror on Sofia’s and Francesca’s faces as they looked back and forth between Celia and me.
I stopped fighting Marco, but I was still so furious that I shook hard as he put me down in the hallway.
“She—” I tried to tell him all the shit she’d said, but he put a hand up and stopped me.
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“But she—”
“I don’t want to hear it!”
I stared at him. He’d never roared at me like that before.
“Whatever it is, whatever it is she could’ve said, does not warrant you attacking her like that, Lydia.”
“But you don’t—” I tried again but was cut off once more.
“I knew that you disliked her, but this was low, even for you. I brought you here because I thought I would have your support, but clearly, I’ve made a mistake. I want you to go upstairs and I will deal with you later.”
“Deal with me later,” I mumbled incredulously. “Like I’m some kind of badly-behaved child.”
His scowl made me almost recoil, but I stopped myself. “Maybe you are.”
“I’m not going to just—”
“Go the fuck upstairs!”
“Marcello!” Matteo shouted disapprovingly as he stepped into the hall.
The two started to argue in Italian. I only caught some of it, but basically, his father was chastising him for speaking to me that way; Marco didn’t want to hear it from him, either. He told Matteo to mind his own business, which led to another argument.
Sofia came out next, and despite her expression a few minutes ago, she came right to me and took my arm. “Come. We can wait for him upstairs. This is not good for you and the child.”
Reluctantly, as
Marco continued to argue with his father, and as his mother got in on it, I let her lead me away. By the time I made it back to the bedroom, I was numb, even though tears still fell down my face and I trembled. Sofia managed to convince me to lay down while I waited for Marco. Maybe she thought I would eventually fall asleep, but long after she’d turned off the light and left the room, I was awake. The hours went by too slowly as I waited for him, but when he didn’t come by dawn, I got out of bed.
Celia mentioned something about a hideaway. The house was enormous; it could’ve been anywhere, but when I quietly stepped out of the bedroom into the semi-lit hallway, my gut told me to go to the left toward Massimo and Celia’s wing. According to Marco, most of the rooms between the two residences weren’t in use unless they had company. If Massimo wasn’t sick, they would’ve been full of guests for the upcoming holiday.
Under normal circumstances, I would’ve found the exploration creepy. It was eerily silent, and darker than the other corridors, but I was too anesthetized to be afraid. I peeked into a few rooms and alcoves but heard or saw no sign of them. After a few minutes of this, I was about to go back, but in the silence, it was easy to hear a door swing open on its hinges, even if it was a quiet sound. It closed softly a second later. I stood absolutely still and partially hidden in a small bathroom.
Light footsteps made their way from an alcove I’d already checked. When a figure appeared, I quickly positioned myself inside the room against the wall and waited for her pass. I waited several more seconds for another door to open and close farther away, indicating that she was gone. I quietly left the small washroom and made sure Celia was nowhere to be found before I headed back to the alcove.
I didn’t see an entrance, but she had obviously come through one. I had not imagined that sound. My eyes traveled carefully over the three walls. It wasn’t until I got a little closer and looked for a third time before I found what I was searching for. The door blended in with the wall almost completely. It didn’t have a traditional knob but a small hook attached to a latch. It opened easily, swinging into the hidden room. I stood on the threshold for a moment, staring in as my heartbeat began to pick up.
I went inside and closed the door behind me, though I had no idea how to open it again. In a matter of five seconds, I took it all in. The bottle of wine, one empty glass, and one half full on a small table. The couch in the middle of the room with a blanket lying carelessly across it, as if someone, or more than one someone, had been under it and just threw it off. The shoes in front of the couch, a pair of pink Gucci sneakers and a black pair of men’s Ferragamo moccasins. They were on the floor almost side by side, slightly askew as if the owners had taken them off as they relaxed on the old sofa. The hoodie Celia had on earlier hung over the back of the couch, and now that it was off her, I realized it wasn’t hers. It was Marco’s.
Posters adorned the walls. I recognized some American celebrities, but there were several Italian ones I didn’t know. Pictures were pinned and taped to the walls, featuring many of the Mangini siblings as they’d been as kids, but most featured Marco and Celia. Then there was the smell. It was him, and it was her. It was both of them together. I knew without actually sniffing everything in the room that their mingled scents had settled into the furniture, into the walls, into the fibers of the old rug.
I noticed all of that in the first five seconds. In the sixth second, I heard the shower. I looked toward a narrow door in the far-left corner. Without a shadow of doubt, I knew Marco was in there, washing the scent of Celia off his body.
I walked around the small space slowly, catching more glimpses of their past. Old toys, dusty board games, dogeared books, and an outdated stereo and fossil of a television. A cricket bat stood in one corner. I picked it up, hefted it in my hands, testing the weight of it. Holding on to it, I continued my tour of the room, picking things up, putting them down, and pausing to look at photos. I pulled open the drawers of the chest the stereo sat on and discovered a stash of male clothing. Leaving the drawer open, I moved on to the next thing of interest.
The shower shut off. I turned to face the door from the other side of the couch and waited. Not too long after the water stopped running, the door opened. Steam billowed into the room as Marco exited the bathroom in nothing but a towel.
His stunned eyes met mine.
“Lydia. What…what are you doing here?”
“I guess you’re going to tell me this isn’t what it looks like.” My voice was deceivingly calm.
“It isn’t.”
“It looks like a secret love den. So, you’re telling me it’s not a secret love den?”
He sighed. “No. It isn’t like that.”
My head tilted to the side as I studied him. “Are you fucking her?”
“No,” he said firmly, angrily.
“Then what are you doing with her, Marco? What is it about her that has you under her spell? Why can’t you see what an evil, conniving cunt she is?”
“That’s enough!”
My voice began to shake as the numbness wore off. “Did she tell you? Did she tell you all the things she said to me?”
“She told me she tried to have a civilized conversation with you, but you were hostile and attacked her.”
“And I guess you believe her.”
“We’re not having this conversation right now,” he growled and went to the chest of drawers for his clothes.
“Are you serious? I find you in a secret room, moments after she left, taking a shower, and you don’t want to have this conversation right now?”
He gave me a narrowed-eyed look of warning as he peered at me over his shoulder. “Lydia, I’m not doing this with you right now.”
“But you were able to do this with Celia all night while I waited for you!”
He spun around, fury in his eyes. “You physically attacked her! There is a welt in the shape of your hand on her face.”
“And I wish I’d done more! I wish I would’ve knocked her fucking teeth out!”
“You are out of control! Maybe it is your hormones, but—”
I jabbed a finger in his direction. “This is not about my hormones. This is about you and her. You don’t know the things I know about her. You didn’t hear the things she said to me. Why are you so blind? Why can’t you see there is something wrong? Your brother doesn’t even want to be around her!”
He shook his head. For a moment, he didn’t say anything as he took off the towel and pulled on a pair of boxers and some pants.
“You know, Lydia, from the moment I met you, you’ve had a fiery personality and a fiery tongue. I loved that about you, even if I was the one getting burned, but I did not think that you could really be malicious until last night. I have known Celia her entire life. She has always been the picture of calm and kindness. I have never known her to have a malicious bone in her body. You are trying to tell me that she is a horrible person, but from what I know of you, and what I witnessed last night, I do not know how you can expect me to believe that. You were the one who became violent. You were the one who was screaming like a banshee. Not to mention, you put our child at risk when you went nuclear. Do you know what she was saying while you were being crazy? She kept saying she was sorry. She was sorry for your bad behavior. You have not liked her from the start. I am certain now that nothing she could say would’ve made you happy. I don’t need this right now. I already have too much on my plate, Lydia. You said so yourself. I thought you would help ease that. I shouldn’t have brought you here.”
I blinked slowly, and to my surprise, a big fat tear dropped from my lashes. Celeste’s words came back to me.
“He isn’t an idiot, and he is one of the most intelligent people I know, but when it comes to his family, Marco can be blind. He loves you, Lydia, but he may not choose you in the end. I hope I am wrong.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t go.”
“You should still go.”
“But you just told me that a succubus might get her claws into
him and he would choose her over me.”
“I did not say he would choose her specifically, I only stated that he might not choose you.”
I turned away from Marco. Without considering the consequences, I swung the bat at a wall shelf that contained a hodgepodge of collectibles from his and Celia’s childhood. Even as I heard him shout my name, I swung the bat again at a collection of framed photos on top of a bookshelf. Before he could reach me, I swung again, this time at the wine bottle and glasses, making red wine and glass spray across Marco and the carpet. I threw the bat at him, and even though he tried to dodge it, it still got him in the side, making him curse. With a scream, I bent and flipped over the coffee table, making it crash into my stunned ex-boyfriend. I was still screaming when I ripped posters and photos from the wall and tossed those at him, too. If I could’ve torched that room, I would have, but before the idea really caught on in my mind, the door swung open.
Once again, I had an audience for a meltdown as Elena, Matteo, Maria, and Sophia poured into the small room. This time, no one had to hold me. I walked out without looking back as the arguing started behind me.
It wasn’t until I reached the bedroom that I realized Sofia had followed me. She didn’t urge me to lay down this time, though. I picked up my cell phone, found Salina’s number, and dialed. She answered after a couple rings, sounding groggy.
I didn’t break down until I heard her voice. “Please. Please help me.”
Chapter Sixteen
Marco
The Previous Night
My stress was at an epic level of high. The biggest project of my career was about to fall apart beyond redemption. I had not been as hands-on as I should’ve been the past few months, but I didn’t think things would become so critical. One of my biggest investors pulled out more than a week ago. Two of the few remaining were considering dropping the project. One of the companies I was negotiating with for construction wanted to drastically change the terms of our original agreement and have been unyielding. To add insult to my many injuries, the locals close to the building site were petitioning to stop the project from moving forward because they did not want to “lower the standards” of their neighborhoods and “destroy the value” of their properties by allowing low-income housing in the area, even if that housing was mixed in with everyone else.
