by L. D. Davis
One thing was clear. Several members of my family had been keeping secrets about Massimo and Celia. There have been many cryptic statements made by Maria, my parents, and Massimo that I had either overlooked or disregarded. I’d always believed Celia got a bad reputation because of how things went down more than twenty years ago, but I hadn’t been around much since then. Clearly, I’d missed something because, for the first time, I realized there was something very wrong. I was not going to leave Tessa’s house until I had answers.
When she opened the door, she wasn’t as welcoming as she’d been earlier. The door wasn’t open wide in invitation, and she stood in the small gap she’d created with her arms crossed.
“What do you want, Marco?”
“I want to apologize and get answers. Please, can I come in?”
She thought about it for a moment before rolling her eyes and stepping aside. In the parlor, my brother was seated on the couch with a stack of pillows behind him and the big Newfoundland at his feet. Daniel stood on the couch talking and gesticulating wildly with his small arms. I had no idea what the child was saying since he was still so young, but Massimo acted like the toddler’s words were of the utmost importance. The boy asked a garbled question, and Massimo answered with some nonsense about the stock market. Daniel responded with a nod, some more speech where few words were understood, and then another question my brother answered.
As I watched this exchange from the threshold, I saw the love and wonder in Massimo’s eyes for his son. He looked at all his children in that way, even Roberto, even though he was a grown man with his own child on the way.
“They have been inseparable all day,” Tessa murmured. “When Massimo went to sleep for a couple hours, Daniel lay down beside him and went to sleep, too. I didn’t even have to drug him or hit him over the head. Normally, I can’t get the kid to sit for more than a minute. He’s like a storm, all day every day. Little Gia calls him Daniel the Wrecker.”
My amused smile was immediate. “He takes after his father. You remember what Massimo was like as a child.”
“Are you kidding me? I don’t think he calmed down until he hit forty. Even now, that’s debatable.”
We shared a smile, but mine faded as I looked at her profile.
“Tessa, I am sorry for the way I spoke to you and Massimo before. It was disrespectful and your son should have never seen nor heard me behave that way.”
Her dark eyes moved to me. “You really hurt your brother.”
I sighed. “My brother, my girlfriend, my children, my mother…the list is endless.”
She gave me a sympathetic smile and rubbed my shoulder. “You’ll fix it, Marshmallow. You’ll fix all of it.”
My lips pulled up slightly at the corners at the nickname she’d given me a lifetime ago, and I nodded with appreciation for the faith she had in me. Inside, though, I feared I would let her down, that I would let everyone down.
“Go say hello to your uncle,” Massimo told Daniel and sent him flying in my direction.
I was unprepared for the kid to crash into my legs and wrap himself around me like a monkey. Laughing, I removed him from my legs and kneeled to his level.
“Hi, Daniel.”
“Look.” He pointed to the cartoon character on his shirt.
“I see. My Mandy likes that show, too.”
His cherub face lit up at the sound of her name. “Mannee?”
“Sorry. Your cousin isn’t here. Daniel, can I get a hug?”
Immediately, he launched himself into my arms. I closed my eyes and held him tightly, missing my own toddler and wishing I’d spent more time with her over the past few months, and especially the past few days. What if Lydia permanently ended my relationship with Amanda, Cora, and Gavin? My heart felt like it was bleeding to even consider it.
Daniel wriggled to get down and went to his mother. She asked him if he was ready to help her with dinner, and they left me alone with my brother, the dog trailing after them.
“He is a cute kid,” I said as I took a chair across from him.
“He is a ball of energy. Tessa can barely keep up with him. I wish I were in a better position to help.”
A coughing fit took over him, but I was relieved to hear that it didn’t sound as bad as it had days before.
“Where is Michael?” I looked around for the young nurse like he might jump out from behind a piece of furniture.
“We sent him home for the day. He was not needed after the IV finished.”
“What about your night nurse?”
“I do not need a night nurse. I have Tessa if I’m unable to help myself.”
Worried, I took out my phone. “I’ll call the agency and get a nurse here. It can’t hurt.”
“Marco,” Massimo said with the patience he used when speaking to his children. “We will be fine. Stop worrying. You did not come here to play doctor, did you?”
After a moment, I sighed and sat back on my chair. “No, but I am leaving tomorrow. I want to be sure you will be okay. I don’t know when I will be back.”
“Where are you going?” His gaze went right through me, like he already knew the answer.
“Lydia left me. I deserved it, but I need to go to her. I need my family back.”
He nodded, and there was a look of approval on his face. “You should have never let her go. I told you, I warned you not to make my mistakes.”
I glared at him. “Well, I am only now beginning to understand what those mistakes were.”
“You really have no idea.”
I clasped my hands together to keep from punching something. “So, tell me. Tell me everything. It’s time you stop hiding things from me, Massimo. You need to explain yourself. You need to tell me how we came to this, why we are sitting in your mistress’s home, and how you’ve come to have another child outside of your marriage.”
“If you refer to Tess as my mistress or anything like that again, the conversation will be over, Marcello. You will respect my future wife.”
“How can she be your future wife when you still have one back at home?” I demanded, barely keeping myself from shouting at him.
“I do not have one back at home, idiot. Celia and I have been divorced for more than two years. She isn’t my wife. She is the mother of my children, and despite her sins, she is a good mother. I will always respect her for that, and I will take care of her monetary and medical needs until she finds another fool to marry—hopefully, not you—but she is not my wife. Celia Valecci Mangini is a manipulative witch, and it is time you open your eyes and see that.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Twenty years ago, when I found out my best friend in the whole world was moving away, it dawned on me that I had feelings for her,” Massimo said to begin his story. “But you know how I was back then. I was wild and enjoyed a life of debauchery. There wasn’t a party I wouldn’t go to, a drink I would not drink, and I always had a warm, female body in my bed—or her bed. Or the bed she shared with her husband. Even though I knew my feelings toward Tessa were changing, I didn’t understand them at first. So, I continued to live my life, but I no longer received the same satisfaction as before.
“A couple months before she was supposed to move away, our mother extended the invitation to Tessa to stay with us if her parents would permit it. I thought she would say yes right away. I thought she would want to stay because Italy was where her life had been since she was a little girl. She had friends, other family members on her mother’s side, and she had me. Being narrowminded and stupid, I thought I would be enough to make her stay, but she said she needed to think about it. So, I did what any narrowminded, stupid, male slut would do. I tried to seduce her.”
I snorted. Even back then, Tessa had a big heart, but she was not an empty-headed idiot. “And how did that work out for you?”
Massimo shook his head with a self-deprecating smile. “It didn’t. She accused me of trying to use my sexuality and her love for me as psychological weapons to get what
I wanted. She told me if I wanted her to stay that I would have to convince her in some other way. I did not take her rejection well and reacted by doing what I did best in those days. Drinking and fornicating. In a matter of days, I had sex with half the women in Lecco before I came to my senses.”
“What made you come to your senses? A sexually transmitted disease?” I asked dryly.
“Something very similar. Your girlfriend.”
I stared at him, unamused and silent.
“If you remember, I was friends with Celia in those days. It was not unusual for us to find ourselves in the same group of friends. One night, she and I ended up at the same party. It was broken up by the police, and I made her leave with me. There was no way I was leaving your girl behind in that chaos. I was just going to drive her home and go to a bar and contemplate my life, but she wanted to stay out longer. So, we went to this small, cruddy bar. After I had several drinks in me, I told her how I felt about Tessa. She admitted that she was nervous about marrying you, and then we drank more. I don’t remember how it started. I don’t even remember the act itself, to be perfectly honest with you. All I remember is some kissing and then waking up naked in a hotel room with my brother’s naked fiancée in bed beside me.”
I inhaled deeply. It had been a long time, and I’d forgiven Massimo and Celia years ago, but to hear what happened for the first time still hurt and made me want to punch him.
Trying hard not to grind my teeth, I said, “So, if I am to understand you correctly, you get drunk with my girlfriend instead of taking her home as you should have. You then confess your feelings for Tessa and honor both her and me by fucking Celia. Is that about right?” Massimo tried to respond, but I kept going. “And if that was not bad enough, neither of you came forward with the truth. I had to figure it out on my own.”
My brother sighed deeply. There was regret and sorrow in his eyes, but it didn’t make me feel any better.
“Marco, I wanted to tell you, but Celia swore she would. I had no reason to doubt her. I thought if she didn’t tell you after a few days, I would do it myself, but then I became…distracted. Tessa and I began to spend more time together. Our relationship began to shift. We became more intimate. I was completely absorbed in her. When I was with her, even in the smallest way like holding her hand, or even just our arms brushing together, I felt at peace. I didn’t disregard you or what I had done, but I was falling hard for Tess, and I was trying my best to show her how much I wanted and needed her to stay in Italy. I managed to convince her to stay for the rest of the summer while her family went on to Naxos, but I had not yet convinced her to stay for good.
“I never told her about Celia because I didn’t want you to think when it finally came out, that everyone else knew but you. I also didn’t tell her because I was selfish and didn’t want that meaningless night that I could not even remember to hinder what was building between Tessa and me. The night before everything blew up, we were together. I had slept with a lot of women over the years, but Tessa was the only one who made me feel whole. She was the only one who made me feel alive and, at the same time, made me feel like I could die because I felt so deeply for her. I thought from that point on, everything would work out. She would stay, we would be together, and I even thought maybe you and her never had to know about my mistake with Celia.”
Massimo started to cough at the tail end of his last sentence. It took him a couple minutes and a cup of water I retrieved for him before he was able to continue. I was eager to hear more, but I also dreaded it.
“The day before everything went to hell, Tessa and I were laying in my bed, just holding hands and talking about everything under the sun.” He smiled softly as his eyes glazed over. “She was so pretty lying next to me, her dark har spread out across my pillow. Her skin was so soft, and she smelled like heaven. I can still hear how sweet she sounded that night and the carefree laughter between us. She propped herself up on one arm and told me she had a secret to tell me. She looked so serious, Marco. I thought it was going to be something big, and that was when I realized I needed to confess as well. I didn’t really know how she would react, because technically, I hadn’t cheated on her, but Celia was her friend—our friend, your fiancée.”
I held my breath, nervous as if I were witnessing these things firsthand.
“I told her I had a confession, too, but she insisted I tell first. So, I told her about that night with Celia. She just stared at me for a long time with this shocked look on her face. Then she says, ‘I was just going to tell you that I applied at the University of Milan on Thursday.’ I knew she would not have applied there if she hadn’t intended to stay, so I started to get excited and happy, but she got up. She wasn’t excited or happy. She looked like I had just kicked her in the face. It took a little bit of time, but she finally told me that Celia had confided in her a few days before. She told Tess that she was in love with someone other than you and didn’t know what to do.”
I moved to the edge of my seat, my eyes wide. “Tessa knew Celia had cheated on me and never said anything?”
Massimo rubbed his forehead and sighed. “Back then, they were friends, Marco, but you were like family to Tess. She urged Celia to end whatever she had with the other man, or end the engagement, and to tell you the truth, or that she would tell you herself. To compound the situation, however, I made my confession, and Tessa came to the wrong conclusion. She assumed Celia was talking about me. I tried to tell her that I was not the mystery man, that we had only been together one time, but I used to lie to women all the time, and she knew that. She wasn’t convinced that we had not been carrying on a secret romance all along. Also, she didn’t like that we had betrayed you. She cared for you like a brother.
“I begged her to give me a chance, to not leave. I told her I would prove to her that she was the only woman in my life. She agreed to come to lunch after mass the next day and talk afterward, but we never got to have that talk.”
“Was it because she saw you leave the church, and then Celia came out seconds after you? Did she think you two had been up to something?”
“Yes, but I didn’t know that at the time. I didn’t even know Celia had been behind me.”
“It was one of the reasons I lost it and attacked you later that day,” I explained. “At first, I had a bad feeling about it, but then I dismissed it. Later, after Celia broke up with me, I remembered how she’d stared at you when she thought no one was watching. So, what really happened?”
“What really happened was nothing like that. The reality was I wanted to stay as far away from Celia as possible to prove myself to Tessa. Mrs. Costa caught me before I could leave the church and asked me to track down her great-grandson, who happened to be in the bathroom making a mess at the sink. I handed over the soggy five-year-old to his great-grandmother and went back into the bathroom to clean up the mess. When I finished, I went directly outside without talking to anyone else. I saw Mrs. Costa again, stopped to talk to her and to decline her offer of lunch, and that was it. I didn’t know until much, much later that Celia had been behind me, but for Tess, that was all she needed to see. It was enough to condemn me.
“When she came over after lunch that day, I thought she was giving me another opportunity, but I was wrong. She had come to say goodbye. Her mind was made up and she was going to leave with her family in a couple days. I let her go in that moment because she was very emotional, and I was emotional, but in my mind, I’d already formulated a plan. I was going to follow her to Naxos—hell, I would have followed her to the moon. I’d been willing to give up my life in Italy to be with her and spend the rest of my days proving myself to her, but then you came into the conservatory and started asking questions. It never occurred to me that you were talking about Celia. I had been drinking since before lunch, and I couldn’t think of anyone or anything else but Tess.”
I gave him a dark look. “Even though you misunderstood who I was speaking of, you still deserved the beating.”
“Just so we are straight, little brother, you only succeeded because you caught me off guard, and I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“I suppose we will never know. Tell me how you ended up with Celia if things were as you say they were.”
He hesitated and eyed me carefully. It was obvious I was not happy to discuss this situation.
“Well, Mamma sent you away for a while to cool off. While you were gone, Celia came to me and told me she was pregnant. I was an emotional wreck and was crude to her. Even now that I know what kind of person she is, I am still sorry for the things I said to her that day. I asked her how she knew it was my baby, that it could have been anyone’s. Yours, Papa’s, Gio’s, the butcher’s…I named a lot of different people, and most of them did not make sense.”
I froze and stared hard at my brother. “But…one of those did make sense. Me. I could have been…I could be… Is Roberto…?” I trailed off, completely freaked out that my nephew could possibly be my son.
Massimo held out a calming hand. “Relax. That one is mine.”
I did start to relax, but then I mentally repeated his words. That one. My eyes narrowed. “What does that mean, Massimo?”
“I’m getting there, Marco. You wanted to know everything, so I am telling you everything.”
Tessa and Daniel entered the room before he could continue. She put out an antipasti platter, a couple small plates, a bottle of wine, and glasses on the round table between my chair and the sofa Massimo sat on. Without asking him if he was hungry or wanted to eat, she piled food on one of the plates and passed it to my brother.
“Eat,” she commanded, giving him a raised eyebrow that dared him to challenge her.
He gave her an incandescent smile. It was the kind of smile I’d never seen him give anyone but her. “Yes, my love.”
She bent over and kissed him briefly on the mouth before turning to me. “Will you be staying for dinner?”
