by Bethany-Kris
She wished she could understand them better.
If for nothing else, to help them.
“Take a breath,” Emma ordered, glancing between the glaring sisters, “and chill out.”
Neither Michelle, nor Cynthia, said a thing.
Emma was grateful.
At least when they didn’t talk, they weren’t arguing.
It was something.
“Maybe we can do something else,” Cynthia said, breaking the staring contest with her sister to look at Emma. “For Daddy, I mean.”
Emma nodded, happy with the change of direction. She dropped her hands, knowing the fight was likely defused for the moment.
But as she rested her hands back onto her lap, a sharp ache stabbed into the side of her swell. It quickly melted into a cramp that wiggled its way over the left side of her stomach before it disappeared. As fast as it had come, the pain was gone.
Still, Emma had felt it.
And it took her breath away.
She froze on the spot, pressing her palm to the side of her stomach. It was hard to the touch, but that wasn’t unusual. Neither was the cramping given how far along she was.
Maybe it was just the baby boy trying to work his way into a more comfortable position, and that was what caused the strange pain. Emma hoped so.
She had been to her regular appointment the day before at the specialist’s office to once again, measure and check her cervix for any changes. There was very little, though she was thinning out.
It was concerning, but they weren’t willing to do anything just yet. The doctor had sent her home with an order to stay off her feet as much as was possible, and to avoid stressful things.
She almost laughed in the doctor’s face.
Her life was the very definition of stress at the moment.
“Well, what do you think?” Cynthia asked.
Emma blinked out of her haze, realizing that neither of her step-daughters had noticed that anything was wrong.
Nothing is, she told herself.
… she hoped.
“About what?” Emma asked.
“Cee thinks we could go shopping and pick up Daddy a few things for when he gets home—stuff he likes, you know,” Michelle said through a bite of her waffle.
Emma hesitated.
She should refuse them, only because she couldn’t spend a day on her feet walking through the malls for hours on end looking for gifts that Affonso would only pretend to care about before tossing away in a drawer.
And yet … the girls looked happy.
Hopeful, even.
She couldn’t refuse.
“Not all day,” Emma said. “The baby needs to rest.”
Michelle rolled her pretty brown-black Donati eyes. “He’s inside you—all he does is rest.”
Emma nodded. “I know, and he needs to stay there for a while longer.”
Cynthia nodded. “Okay, not all day.”
Across the kitchen, Emma found the cook was watching her again. This time, Sherry had a wrinkle between her brow—a sure sign of her concern.
Emma didn’t blame the woman.
She was concerned, too.
Midnight’s whimpering woke Emma from her nap. In a week and a half, since the shooting, she hadn’t been able to get a decent night’s rest as her mind just wouldn’t slow enough to shut down. Her body, on the other hand, was finally fighting back with exhaustion.
A nap in the middle of the day was just one of those ways.
Emma blinked, and corrected her previous thought. She had fallen asleep in the middle of the day. Earlier, when she climbed into bed, the sun had been high and bright in the bedroom windows. But now, all she could see staring back at her from the windows was a black sky filled with gray clouds, and just the barest hint of the moon gleaming behind them.
How long had she slept?
Emma checked the clock on the bedside table. It read just a little before 9:00 PM. Almost half of her day was gone to her body finally giving up the fight and putting her to sleep.
She didn’t mind.
What else was she going to do, anyway?
Sleep seemed like a good choice.
Again, the little dog on the floor whimpered. Ignoring the twinge of tightening pain in her side as she rolled over in the bed, Emma reached down to scoop Midnight up from the floor. It wasn’t often he slept in the bed with her now that he wasn’t just a puppy anymore, but some nights couldn’t be helped when the pup was feeling lonely … or Emma was feeling desolate.
She needed comfort, and the pup was good for that.
Calisto’s gift kept on giving, that was for sure.
Once Midnight was in the bed, his whimpering settled almost instantly. He curled his thin, furry body around the side of Emma’s swelled stomach, his nose bumping her belly with gentle huffs of air. She wasn’t sure if it was because the dog liked her belly, or if he knew there was a baby in there and he was just saying hello in his own way.
Whatever it was, Midnight always touched her belly with his nose.
“All right,” Emma told the pup, scratching behind his fluffy, floppy ear, “it’s time for sleep. No more going on, huh?”
Midnight barely reacted to her order, but he did flick an ear, and then looked toward the door. The slight wag of his tail accompanied his diverted attention as his head perked up more.
Emma hadn’t heard anything outside in the hallway, but it was possible one of Affonso’s daughters were up and moving around. It wasn’t all that late, after all.
The softest knock on the bedroom door damn near made Emma jump out of her own skin.
“Emmy?”
She stilled in place.
That voice did not belong to one of Affonso’s daughters. It was the very last person she expected to come back to the Donati home after the last time he was there, and what happened between them.
Clearing her throat to rid the nervousness from her tone, Emma said loudly, “Yeah, Cal?”
“You decent?”
Emma glanced down at what she was wearing. The over-sized T-shirt and thin cotton shorts kept her covered and comfortable. “Decent enough.”
“Can I come in?”
“Ah, you probably—”
She was going to tell him that he shouldn’t, given it wouldn’t be appropriate, but Calisto was already pushing the door open, seemingly satisfied with her earlier comment about being dressed.
Calisto stood in the doorway, haloed by the dim light streaming in from the hallway. Shadows darkened his features, keeping Emma from gaging his current mood, or why he might have shown up again with no warning, and for no particular reason.
He leaned in the doorway, crossing his arms and staring down at the floor like he didn’t want to look up—or maybe he didn’t want to look at her.
Emma wasn’t sure.
Still, it was damn hard for her to force back the automatic reactions of her mind and body every time this man was near. Deep in her soul, her heart screamed for her to tell him the whole story—the truth he deserved to know. Her hands ached with the need to touch him, while her eyes did a new inventory of his features and anything else they could find each time he was near.
She missed him.
All the time.
Terribly.
But she had to protect his child first, herself second, and then maybe … maybe she could save him, too. Emma just didn’t know how to go about all of that at the moment.
Calisto waved a hand at himself, still silent.
Emma’s brow furrowed at the confusing action. “What is it, Calisto?”
“Uh, I didn’t mean to just barge in here.”
“You didn’t—you knocked.”
“Still, here. The house, I mean. The girls are downstairs watching something on the television. At first I thought … well, I convinced myself I was going to come over tonight just to spend time with them. I haven’t seen them in a while, and it’s strange. It’s like they know I’m not me.”
Emma frown
ed. “You’re you, Cal. You’ve always been you.”
Calisto shook his head, chuckling dryly. “No, I’m not me. Something is missing. I’ve known it since I woke up. I just couldn’t figure out what it was.”
“You’re remembering some things, though.”
“Some,” he agreed. “But I can’t tell anyone, can I?”
Emma fingered the sheets covering her lower half, feeling his eyes watch her every movement. He was gaging her now, searching for lies in her actions, her words, or her tone. Emma knew that without even needing to look him in the eye to see it.
Calisto was different since his accident—he knew less things about his life.
But he was still the same in ways he probably didn’t realize.
“These things I remember,” Calisto continued quieter, taking a step further into the room. “It’s not like I can just … out them to anyone, huh?”
“Depends on what they are.”
Calisto sighed heavily. “The last time I admitted I was having a memory, someone died.”
Emma’s head snapped up, and she found his gaze cutting into hers with an intensity that kept her silent. She wanted to ask what he meant—ask who had died—but a part of her might have already known. Father Day.
“That was when I really started paying attention,” Calisto murmured. “That was the moment when I knew all those things that didn’t feel right … shit, they didn’t feel right because they weren’t right. And lies can only be spun so many ways before the web is just a tangled mess that anyone—even the blindest of person—could see.”
“And can you?” Emma dared to ask. “See, I mean.”
Calisto closed the bedroom door, and it didn’t make a sound when it shut behind him. He took another step closer to her, and then another and another until he was right beside the bed. Without a word, he dropped to his knees, lowering him beneath her gaze. Emma kept a hand on her pup, using the dog’s thick fur to hide the shaking of her hand.
Her other one, however, had clenched tightly into the bedsheets.
What was he doing now?
Emma didn’t know how to deal with this, or Calisto. Her heart tightened to a painful point as the cool, calm facade of his mask faded away in an instant.
“I’m not me,” he told her softly.
Emma blinked, her fingers twitching with the urge to reach out and stroke his face. One little touch wouldn’t hurt, right?
So she did.
His skin, warm and smooth under her palm, sent a fire raging up through her arm. At the touch—as innocent and comforting as it was meant to be—Calisto closed his eyes and let out a slow, but shaky, breath.
Like he’d wanted that.
He wanted her to touch him.
“I was using the girls as an excuse to myself,” he said, “for why I came here tonight. I thought if I said it enough times in my head—for Michelle and Cynthia, because they’re scared and alone—then it would make me believe it, too.”
Emma chewed on her inner cheek, knowing what he was probably going to say next. “But?”
“But then I got here. And even when I was talking to them, the silence was too loud. I wanted to ask about you, anything about you at all. I’m always worrying about you, and I don’t even know why.”
“It’s okay to worry.”
“Maybe, but the other things—the stuff I remembered, what little it was—isn’t okay.”
Emma pressed her lips together, knowing he meant the Vegas memory. “You’re right, it’s not.”
“And somehow, I just knew …”
“Knew what?”
“That wasn’t the last time,” Calisto said.
Emma quieted altogether, not wanting to give away all their secrets. Would he run again if she did? Would he deny the truth if she told him about the baby’s paternity?
What would he do?
Emma couldn’t risk it.
“So I know it’s wrong,” Calisto continued, seemingly oblivious to her inner plight. “But I keep coming back here—I keep wanting to, I guess. And maybe that’s because you make me feel normal, Emmy. Or more normal than I am. I can’t think right because I’m always so focused on what should be in my head, or what I’m missing. I can’t breathe when I get in that head-space.”
“Cal, it’s—”
“But I can with you,” he interrupted quickly. “You make me feel more like me, even when you’re across the room, and all I can do is watch you. I do that, you know, a lot more than I should. Just like when I think about you more than I should. And that’s when I knew.”
Emma didn’t want to ask, because she wasn’t sure her heart could take it.
But she did.
“Knew what?”
“You’re what I’m missing. You’re hiding it—hiding a lot, and I’ll figure it out—but right now I just needed to breathe.”
“Breathe,” she echoed.
“There’s too many lies, too much shit in my head. I just need to think for a while. You let me do that, and it’s what I need to do right now to figure the rest out.”
Emma felt his hand slide under hers, unfurling her fingers from the sheets as he twined their fingers. She stared at their connected hands, unsure and wary.
This was going to hurt her in the morning.
It would hurt when he left again.
He still wasn’t hers—she wasn’t his.
“I know you’re what I’m missing,” Calisto said, his features confused and darkened with pain.
Emma couldn’t help herself, she nodded.
Because she was.
She was missing him, too.
So why couldn’t she just tell him?
Why did the fear keep choking her silent?
Emma
Emma had never been more anxious in her life than she was waiting for the front door of the Donati home to open. On either side of her, both Michelle and Cynthia waited, both excited and happy.
But her?
Emma had so much dread building inside her body that she felt physically sick. It certainly didn’t help that leading up to this day, she had gotten very little sleep, and her nerves were ready to snap at even the slightest aggravation. Despite being put on bedrest, she had practically no time at all to relax.
Not with her husband coming home.
Affonso’s release had depended on several factors like his healing, the fever he had been running, and how he felt in general. When that call came from Ray, telling Emma that Affonso would be released the next day and expected to come home to a house ready to welcome him, she barely kept down her lunch.
Running a palm over her stomach, Emma tried to calm herself.
She didn’t need the stress or the worry.
It wasn’t her who had shot Affonso.
Oddly, it didn’t help much.
When the door finally opened, and Affonso was led inside by Ray and Calisto, Emma didn’t quite know what to do or say. In a wheelchair, the man seemed almost smaller than what she knew he actually was. He appeared fragile as he shook his head when Ray asked him a question, and then waved a hand to ward off whatever Calisto was saying right after.
Emma knew looks were certainly deceiving.
Affonso may have appeared weak, but she knew he was anything but.
The man was a snake.
A dangerous, poisonous snake.
“Daddy!”
Michelle’s shriek of happiness brought Emma from her inner thoughts, and she watched the girls rush forward to their father. It took Affonso far too long, in Emma’s opinion, to open his arms and accept the embrace from his daughters. He winced when they hugged him, but other than that, he gave nothing away.
From the corner of her eye, Emma found Calisto watching her.
Silent, unmoving, and dark.
He hadn’t come back to see her since that last time.
He hadn’t said another thing about the memory he had regained.
She wondered what he was thinking, or what else he might know.
&n
bsp; Jesus.
She wondered all the time.
Emma schooled her features with a false smile when Affonso’s gaze leveled on her.
“No hello for me, my dear?” he asked.
“Of course,” she said. “We’re happy to have you back. Welcome home, Affonso.”
Somehow—by the grace of God and nothing else—Emma had managed to keep the resentment and worry out of her tone.
“You’re looking …” Affonso’s gaze traveled over her thirty-one week swell, and his smile grew a little. “Well, I suppose.”
“Everything is good.”
“Wonderful.” Affonso waved at Ray and Calisto with one hand and said, “I am fine, you two. As you can clearly see. These three will make sure I am in bed like the doctor wants. I do not need grown men tucking me under the sheets.”
“Zio,” Calisto started to say.
“Boss,” Ray cut in at the same time.
“Go,” Affonso barked.
Emma caught Calisto’s eye for a brief second before he left the house. Ray quickly followed behind, but not before telling Affonso to call him in the morning. As soon as the door was closed and the men were gone, Emma’s nerves climbed a notch or two.
She wasn’t sure what Affonso’s mood was after being shot, nearly killed, operated on, and then finally allowed home. What she did know was that he had allowed practically no one entrance in his hospital room—he wanted no guests there at all.
Including her.
Even his daughters were not welcomed.
“Now, you two,” Affonso said, bringing Emma from her thoughts. His gaze was trained on his two waiting girls who only wanted to spend time with their father after his accident. “No more worrying about me, hmm? I am perfectly fine, it was nothing.”
“You were shot,” Cynthia argued.
“It was nothing, Cee. It will take a great deal more than a couple of bullets to kill me.”
Emma sucked in a hard breath at those words, but no one seemed to notice. Cynthia and Michelle were too focused on their father, and the small bit of attention he was giving them. He never gave them enough.
