“It seems we’ll be returning to a media circus in Phoenix. That’s why Alex called. My offices have received calls for days, attempting to locate me and get a statement.”
“Do you think anyone in San Diego knows about it yet?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “No, it seems contained in Phoenix so far.”
“Okay, well, we can deal with that. What are you going to say about it?”
Enzo finally looks up at me with those amazing eyes of his. I’m taken aback by how dark and sad they are. “I haven’t decided what to say. I don’t know the content of the chapter. Alex is going to call me back later and read it to me.”
“We could look it up online and see if it’s there.”
“I don’t want you to read any of this, Ava,” he insists. “You are my wife. This is not appropriate.”
“Do you think I’ll be able to avoid it? I am your wife, so I’ll be asked my feelings about it. Don’t you think I should know what I’m responding to?”
He gazes at me for a moment. “No. It doesn’t feel right.”
“You can’t stop me. I can read it if I want to. This is obviously going to be a problem for us, and I have every right to know why.”
Enzo sighs again, heavy with his thoughts. “Fine.”
I grab my iPad and start my search by typing in his name. Whoa. Ten news stories populate the page, all about this new tell-all book. Enzo sits next to me, aloof, and seemingly disinterested in the results.
“Emma Carlyle, well known for her position as production manager at Channel 14, has released a memoir of sorts,” I read aloud. “The book regales details of her salacious love life. It includes intimate descriptions of many high-profile men, including the former president of Channel 14, Ben Thompson, married anchorman Timothy Peyton and, most notably, the extremely private architect, Enzo Milano. The details regarding her peculiar relationship with Mr. Milano are laid out in painstaking detail and will likely be required reading for the many women interested in his personal–”
“Stop,” Enzo demands, standing and walking away. “I don’t want to hear this, and I don’t want you to read it.”
I put the iPad down on the sofa and follow him. Placing my arms around his waist, I press close to him, so he has no choice but to look at me.
“I’m your wife now. Whatever happens to you happens to me, too. I accepted that responsibility when I said my vows to you. You can’t protect me from this.”
Enzo’s eyes soften when they meet mine. “I know I can’t and it’s killing me. I don’t know why she had to do this, and why now.”
“Well, she did, so let’s not worry about that,” I say, calmly. “Let’s just figure out how to deal with it.”
Wrapping his arms around me, he pulls me close. “You blow my mind sometimes, Ava. You fit me so well. You must love me not to run for the hills, dealing with all the shit that comes along with me.”
“We all have shit, Enzo. I do love you, and you are worth any trial we have to go through. Besides, the positives outweigh a few women from your past.”
“I’m not so sure, but thank you.”
Enzo leans his head down and kisses me. “What do you want to do tonight, amore? It’s our last night here, so let’s enjoy it.”
“We can go and get a bite to eat, and then come back here and make love in the peace and quiet of this place.” I kiss his cheek. “Let’s just keep the outside world away, just for one more night. Tomorrow we’ll deal with whatever comes our way,” I suggest.
“Yes, I like that idea.”
****
I roll over in bed and notice that Enzo is not here with me. It is the middle of the night and the room is silent. I creep into the living room to find him looking out the window into the darkness. He is holding his phone to his ear with a grave expression on his face.
“Is that the extent of it? You’ve read all the applicable pages that include me?” He listens intently for a while before answering, “I’m so pissed right now. That was years ago. Why now? How am I going to explain this to Ava? I can’t believe she published this. Fucking bitch.”
I jump a little, shocked by his language. Explain what to me? It is clear that he’s talking about the infamous book, but whatever is in it is really bothering him. I don’t know if I should sneak away and let him be, or try to comfort him. I know one thing for sure: I don’t like angry Enzo.
He continues to pace in front of the window, listening to the caller silently. I strain to hear from my vantage point in the hallway.
“I want legal action. I can sue even if it’s true, right, for invasion of privacy or defamation?” He listens. “Well, find me a reason. She’s not going to get away with this bullshit.”
He wants to sue her? Oh shit. It must be worse than I imagine. Enzo is an amazing lover, so whatever she wrote must be flattering, even if it is an invasion of his private life. His reaction makes me wonder if there is something more damaging in those pages.
“I want a meeting first thing Tuesday morning. And I do not want any fucking media at the airport when we arrive. I don’t care what you have to do to make it happen. Understand?”
Turning, I sneak back into the bedroom and climb back into bed. When I hear Enzo walk in, I pretend to be asleep. I sense his body pressing up close to mine. His hand strokes my hair and he whispers in my ear, “I’m sorry, Ava. I love you so much. I’m so sorry.”
I try not to move, but my breath catches softly. Why is he sorry? He sounds so tortured. How bad is it going to be?
“Ava, can you hear me? Are you awake?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“I need to talk to you. I need to tell you…” His voice breaks.
My heart breaks a little inside, scared to hear what he’s going to say. Where is the strong, stoic man that I know?
“Enzo,” I say, “you can tell me anything and I will be here. I will love you no matter what. Tell me what it is.”
He holds me tightly for a moment, and I inhale his closeness as though this might be my last chance.
Taking a deep breath, he begins, “I met Emma a few years ago, maybe three or four. I was at a party, and she was there with a date that was treating her poorly. I stepped in and ended up getting the guy kicked out. She was drunk, vulnerable and thankful.” He pauses. “I took her home and she asked me to come in, so I did. Obviously, I had sex with her.”
Obviously… The word does not make it any easier for me to hear. I know he has a past, but it makes my skin crawl to actually hear him discuss it. And it makes me sad that he is forced to because of this book.
“You know how I told you that I rarely saw a woman more than once?”
I nod my head and rub his hand softly.
“Well, I saw Emma more than once. It went on for a while because she…” Stopping, he glances down.
“Because she what, Enzo?”
“Because she had a certain quality that was appealing to me at that time of my life,” he says.
Oh, hello, Mr. Cryptic. What the hell does that mean? I cock my head.
He sighs. “She was willing to participate in a certain lifestyle choice that interested me.”
Now I feel like I’m about to freak out. I sit up in bed and stare at him. “What lifestyle choice? Could you just spit it out, please?”
I can tell he does not want to have this conversation with me. I think I’m about to learn a dirty little secret about my husband.
“Ava, I…” Enzo wrings his hands. If he were standing, I’m sure he’d be pacing at this point. “There was a time that I liked to be dominant…”
“But you’re always dominant. What are you trying to say?”
“Dominant in bed.”
I still don’t know what the hell he’s talking about. He’s always dominant, regardless of the activity. I sigh. This is a frustrating conversation.
“Apparently I don’t understand,” I tell him. “What do you mean?”
Enzo’s eyes shift up to me, slightly surpris
ed. “It means that I like to assert power over women. I like to be rough. I like women to be submissive.”
It does not escape my attention that he’s using the present tense. I narrow my eyes at him.
“I used to. Not anymore,” he quickly adds.
I remember the spanking and robe tie that morning months ago, and how expertly he controlled the situation. At the time it was exciting, and I enjoyed giving myself to him in that way. Now I’m starting to understand where he got those skills.
I take a breath. “Okay, so you like to be dominating. She wrote about that, I assume?”
Enzo nods. “In great detail,” he adds.
“How many times did you see her?”
“Many.”
I tense up. He had a relationship with her? Yet he told me that he never had one since Lucia. Was this woman somehow important to him?
“Were you serious about her?” I ask.
“Define serious.” The clipped tone reveals his guard is high.
I glare at him. He’s keeping secrets and I don’t like it.
“Don’t play games, Enzo. You know what serious means. We’re serious. Lucia was serious. Were you fucking serious with her? It’s a simple question.”
His eyebrows rise. “No, not in the way it is with you. Not even the way it was with Lucia. But it was involved. I saw her a lot because she understood.”
“Understood what?”
“My need,” he says, softly.
“Your need to dominate?”
“Yes. She knew how to… keep me.”
I climb out of bed, suddenly not wanting to be close to him. “Do you still have this need?”
Enzo doesn’t answer me and stays sitting on the bed, his head lowered. His demeanor makes me unsure whether I want to hear his answer.
“Are you going to answer me?”
“I told you, it was a long time ago. I don’t need that now.”
He continues to avoid eye contact and I’m not sure I believe him.
“When were you going to tell me this?” I ask.
“Well the book was just–”
“Not about the book, Enzo. About your need,” I say, crossing my arms and staring hard at him.
“I’m not sure I was going to. I only tried it for a short time. I don’t like what it does to me. It only happened with her, and never again after that.”
“So it just goes away? You don’t feel it anymore because you don’t want to? Sounds like this Emma chick had a pretty strong hold over you because of this need, as you call it.”
“I had just learned about it, and I was experimenting. She let me.”
“You’re still not saying that you don’t need it,” I repeat. “You’re saying you don’t want to need it. That is not the same thing.” My voice begins to rise, revealing my increasing anger with the situation.
“If you’re suggesting that I still want that lifestyle, I don’t. I don’t want that with you, Ava. You’re my wife. I will not dominate my wife.” His voice turns cold, and I know this is about to head straight into a fight.
“If not with me, then who?” I demand to know. “Who will you fulfill this need with if the desire comes back? Emma? Or some other chick who comes along and wants to be submissive to you? I’m sure you’d find plenty of takers.”
Oh shit, my green-eyed monster just reared her ugly head. I’m torn apart by jealousy. This woman gave him something I haven’t. Because I didn’t know. I don’t even know what being submissive is.
“I would never cheat on you,” Enzo says. “You know that.”
“I know that every need you have should be met by me. Is this something you still feel?”
He stares at me for a moment and something in his eyes changes. “Sometimes, yes.”
I breathe in deeply at his admission. Now it’s my turn to pace the room. How do I deal with this?
“What does it involve? What exactly is in this book?” I ask him.
Enzo rolls off the bed and turns away from me. “I thought she and I had an understanding. I really believed she could be trusted. I did a lot of things with her that I would never want you or my family to know about. We’re going to be faced with it tomorrow, and I’m sure it’s going to be ugly. I want you to stay home for a while until it blows over.”
“Wait a minute. You skipped over some steps there. When did you decide that I’m being locked in the house over this? Why won’t you just answer me?” I’m close to yelling at this point.
“I decided it the minute I learned about this problem.”
“It’s your problem, not mine. Why do I have to be the one who is locked up?” I’m definitely yelling now.
“You’re not being locked up. Goddammit, Ava, this is for your privacy too.”
“I don’t need to protect my privacy. No one wrote a book about me.” I stomp into the living room. He quickly reaches me and grabs my arm, but I pull it away. “Leave me alone,” I yell.
My husband grabs me again and pushes me gently towards the couch. “I will never leave you alone, ever. You need to calm down so that we can talk this through.”
“I don’t need to do anything. I can do whatever I want.”
“I know,” he says, softly.
“Why won’t you just tell me the truth?” I demand again. “You’re hiding something. I don’t think you’re being honest with me right now, and that’s what hurts the most.”
“I don’t want to be honest with you. Can’t you see? I’m only telling you what you need to know. Can’t I keep my past to myself?”
“No, because it’s not your past anymore – it’s happening right now.” I rub my forehead, already tired of this talk. “It’s here in the present, sitting right here on this couch between us. It’s not going away, and you still haven’t told me how you plan to live your life with me with a desire that you aren’t sharing. I’m your wife,” I shriek.
“Stop it, Ava. Just stop it.” He sighs and runs his fingers through his hair. “You’re making me crazy.”
“Yeah, I know. Always.”
We stare at each other, knowing we’ve reached an impasse and one of us is going to have to concede. I know one thing-it ain’t gonna be me.
Enzo breaks the silence first. “You want honest? Here it is.” He runs his hand through his hair again. “Sometimes I do want to dominate you, very much. I want to tie you up and have my way with you. I want to smack your delectable little ass every time I see you, every day. Especially right now when you push me like this.” His voice turns thick with desire. “So, yes, I want that. It’s a need. I need you, but you know that. You know how you make me feel. That is the farthest it goes.”
I feel tingly inside, which shocks me. This is a serious conversation and I’m getting turned on.
He continues, “I want you because you are the most desirable woman I’ve ever met. But, Ava, I love you too much to do the things I did before. I love you too much to treat you like that. I want to show you respect and honor because you deserve it. We should be equals in all things. Besides, you don’t have a submissive bone in your body. It wouldn’t work.”
“How do you know?” I ask. “You’ve never shared this with me. Don’t you remember that incredible morning when you tied me to the bed? I remember it. I loved it.”
Enzo reaches for my hand and I let him take it. Looking up at me, he smiles at last. “Yes, I remember that. I loved it too, because it was with you, and there was love between us.”
My voice softens. “I don’t know what being submissive is, but if it’s something you want and need, we should talk about it. Anyway, keeping secrets from me is not respecting me.”
“You’re right, I didn’t think of it as a secret. I just considered it a part of my past that wasn’t important anymore.”
“But it’s not in the past,” I remind him.
“I see that, but I don’t know if I could get comfortable with sharing that part of myself with you. It was ugly.”
Just when I thought we were getting
somewhere, he shuts down again. Finally, I feel that I’ve had enough and tears fill my eyes. I’ve married a man who isn’t sure he can share a part of himself with me – he can’t give me everything.
He looks at me, his eyes filled with sadness. “No, Ava, please don’t cry. You know your happiness is the most important thing to me. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“It does hurt. You’re not willing to give all of yourself to me.”
“Dammit,” Enzo says, slamming his hand down on the table in front of us, causing me to jump out of my skin. “Haven’t I proven myself to you? Haven’t I shown you that my love is unconditional? I love you more than anything. Don’t you get it? My decision not to share this with you is about love. I want us to have a normal life together, and I’m not treating my wife like some fucking slut I slept with four years ago. You are too good for that.”
Enzo stands and walks across the living room to stare out the window. The sun is just coming up, which means we will have to leave in a few hours.
I don’t know what to think. There are two things I do know – he loves me and he has a past. In his mind this is all about protecting me, but it doesn’t feel right that such an important part of him is closed off.
“You would feel the same way if you found out I was keeping something from you,” I begin again. “You would, Enzo.”
“I know,” he replies, but he doesn’t turn to face me.
“The things we do together are consensual, they’re between us,” I continue. “Just because you did something with someone else before doesn’t mean you can’t do it with me. Besides, this whole thing isn’t about sex. It’s about talking to each other and being open. I take you as you are, completely, and I know you take me as I am.”
Standing up, I walk towards him and take his hands in mine. “Enzo, please look at me.”
He finally lifts his face, so I can gaze once again into his deep blue eyes. My heart hurts when I see how sad they are.
“We need to be on the same page before we get on that plane in a few hours,” I plead. “We’re going to be torn apart if we can’t pull together. You are everything to me, Enzo, and you always will be, but I need your trust. You need to trust me that whatever you’re going through, I’m going to go through it with you. And that I’m going to love you through it, no matter what. That’s what wives do.”
Turn Towards the Sun Book Two: After the Rain Page 8
