by L. D. Davis
Kyle and Lily decided to get married and planned a wedding for the end of December, just a few days after Christmas. Lily needed the next few weeks to heal, with the added boon that she and her brand new little family had some time alone.
I worried that our holiday would be difficult for the kids, considering Marco’s absence and with it only being their second Christmas without their father. Anxiety kept me up late into the nights as the day approached, but as it turned out, I’d had nothing to worry about as far as the kids were concerned. Everyone came to my house that day—Shawna, Cliff, Mom, Wes, Paris, and Cody. We had a breakfast of assorted pastries, orange juice, and coffee while the kids opened gifts. Besides the gifts from me and their grandparents, there were also a few from Adam, as well as Lily and Kyle. Marco sent some to everyone, including Wes and his family.
Marco’s gifts to me remained wrapped in two small packages out of sight in my formal living room. I wasn’t ready to open them, because I didn’t know how it would make me feel. I was afraid it would make me miss him more and make me break down and accept him back. A girl could only be so strong. I decided I would open them another time, when I was ready.
After breakfast and gifts, Cliff and Wes bravely took all the kids except for Mandy out to a movie. Us lady folk stayed behind to cook. We sipped on mimosas and wine while Mandy sipped on a virgin mimosa made of OJ and sparkling water. Dinner and dessert were just as pleasant and relaxing. The kids were happy, which made me happy, truly, but a hidden part of me was depressed as hell. I was surrounded by a bunch of people I loved and who loved me in return, but watching my mom with Wes and Shawna with Cliff made me feel lonely in a way I hadn’t felt before.
The day after Christmas, we flew to the east coast. Included in our merry band was my mom, of course, and Wes and Paris and Cody. It was going to be a long couple of weeks for Mom and Wes. A few days after Lily’s wedding, they were going to be on their way to the Caribbean for ten days. It was my mom’s Christmas present. I liked Wes, but I didn’t know how I felt about the two of them running off together. He’d already basically stolen my mom. She hadn’t slept at my house since before Thanksgiving.
Wes had kindly declined Kyle’s hospitality and had decided to rent his own car and pay for a hotel room for himself, my mom, and his kids. I liked him a little more for that, and wished I were in a position to do the same, but I wasn’t.
In fact, I wasn’t in a position to do much of anything. My part-time job at the bookstore barely covered some basics. Those gift cards Kyle’s secret foundation had supplied for my family more than a year ago were quickly dwindling. The leak in the bathroom had worsened, and two weeks before the holiday, I had to put out money I couldn’t afford after my dryer died a smoky death, and in that same week, the alternator needed to be replaced in the van.
Of course, those disasters were why Marco had given me a black credit card without a limit, but I didn’t use it. I hadn’t destroyed the card, but I refused to use it. The problems in my house were my problems, not his. I didn’t tell him about any of it during our short conversations. I’d instructed my kids to remain mum as well, but I wasn’t sure if that held. I had a full plate to deal with when I got back home, but first, I had to get through the next few days, because in a matter of minutes, I would be face to face with Marco again, for the first time since I told him to leave my house.
In one of our most recent conversations, he told me he would be back for the wedding. I wasn’t surprised that he would make the trip for Lily. Secretly, I was a little resentful that he would make the trip for her, but I told myself that Kyle was his friend, too, and that it wasn’t just about Lily. The kids had no idea he was coming. He wanted to surprise them. His relationship with Gavi had improved as much as it could with the distance between them.
He and I talked even less over the past weeks. So close to the holiday, work had been busy, and I had put in more than forty hours during a couple weeks. Plus, I had physical therapy and my commitment to my daily exercises. All that on top of typical mom stuff, I no longer had the energy for the middle-of-the-night phone calls. Marco was also busy, taking up his older brother’s role in the family and trying to run a business from Italy that was mostly centered in the New York and Philadelphia regions of the United States. Our conversations were not only shorter but also less frequent.
At the end of every call, he told me he loved me. I hadn’t said it back. I did love him, but it felt too much like putting myself in a vulnerable situation to admit it. It would feel like I was giving him a power over me I didn’t want him or any other man to have. I didn’t trust anyone to wield that power responsibly. I thought maybe I could have given that to Marco at one time, but I knew he would just hurt me—not on purpose, but he’d bring me more pain, nonetheless.
With that in mind, I had no idea how I was going to stay strong around him for the duration of my stay in Philly. I had no idea how I was going to keep him at arm’s length when my heart truly ached for him. As the door to the penthouse opened the morning after our arrival, I had to steel myself, give myself a pep talk. I could totally do this. I could totally just act like we didn’t have this short but intense history between us. I could totally act like I didn’t know how his kisses felt, or how perfectly my hand laced in his, or how sweet he could be, or how his smiles made me glow. I could totally pretend I didn’t know any of that. Right?
In those few seconds that he stood framed in the open door, my eyes drank him in from toe to head.
The brown boots, dark blue jeans, and black hoodie would have looked plain on almost any other man, but not on Marco. The jeans weren’t nut crushing skinny jeans, but they fit his legs, and oh, man, his ass—at least as much as I could see of it—perfectly. The hoodie was snug, and showed off his hard abs, perfectly sculpted biceps, and broad shoulders. He even managed to make the black beanie that covered his dark hair look good. He was absolutely, mouthwateringly, unbelievably sexy, and clearly out of my league. How had I even landed that Roman godlike creature? I could hardly believe he’d been mine, even if for a short time. Only the sting and ache of my heart was proof that it had actually happened, that and the scorching longing in his eyes that ripped my breath away when our gazes briefly locked.
But then the kids went nuts. Their shock wore off, and they bombarded him. He’d barely been able to get through the door before they had surrounded him. As worried as I’d been about his relationship with them, it was rather warming to watch the four of them hug, laugh, and all try to talk at once.
I stood by the window, apart from everyone, and watched. Marco held Mandy in one arm, her head rested on his shoulder and a pudgy hand on his face. He didn’t put her down when he hugged my mom with one arm and exchanged quiet words. He looked my way again, that same heat and need still in those sexy blue eyes. He continued to hold Mandy as he greeted everyone else, his gaze swinging to me every few seconds or so. It took a good five minutes before he was able to break free of the melee of kids and adults and make his way over to me. Mandy was still in his arms, her refusal to be put down clear in the way she clung to him, tiny arms wrapped around his neck, legs wrapped around him like a little spider monkey. He didn’t seem inclined to put her down either, and when he kissed the top of her head and murmured something in Italian to her, making her smile, it kind of made my heart all trippy.
There was no hesitation before he reached up and pushed my hair behind my ear, his fingers leaving trails of heat across my cheek, around my ear, and down my neck. I could have stepped back and shrugged him off, but I hadn’t known how much I’d missed that, how much I had wanted it, until then.
“Hello, Tesoro,” he said, his voice soft and sweet like his touch.
“Hi,” I whispered.
There were tiny peppy cheerleaders in my brain yelling at me to remember myself, to remember that I was supposed to pretend to…to… I couldn’t remember what the fuck I was supposed to do, how I was supposed to behave. When Marco slid a hand to my nape and pull
ed me closer with my head tilted at the perfect angle, and when he kissed me briefly, but oh so tenderly and so perfectly, on the lips, for a foggy moment, I remembered nothing but him and his kiss, and that moment. Nothing else.
His lips were moving, but I didn’t hear a word. My focus was on that mouth, and the kiss, and previous kisses we’d shared. When he waved a hand in my face, I finally snapped out of my stupid fog.
“What?” I blinked. “What did you say?”
He gave me a smirk, making it clear he knew exactly what I had been thinking.
“I asked if you were coming with us today.”
Oh, right. He and my mom and Wes wanted to take all the kids to the Please Touch Museum, but even though it was barely ten in the morning, I was tired. Plus, I was afraid to go, afraid that I would have a good time and enjoy myself and that it would feel right like it did when he used to come visit, but then I’d just be let down again. When the wedding was all over, he would be on a plane back to Italy. I didn’t want to set myself up for that disappointment again.
“I don’t think so.” I hated the brief show of emotion in his eyes, the let-down, the sadness. It made me jump to an explanation, feeling the need to soothe him. “I’m just really tired. Getting ready for the trip out here right after the holiday was exhausting. While these little minions relaxed and slept”—I playfully tugged on Mandy’s shoe—“I was running around like a mad woman. Do you mind going without me?”
A line appeared between his eyes as he studied me. When his hand came up to my face, I knew I should have turned away, but I just stood there, and once again, enjoyed his touch.
“You do look tired, Tesoro. Are you feeling okay?”
“Yeah, just wiped. That’s all.”
Reluctantly, I removed his hand from my face and let it fall as I took a few steps back.
“Don’t do that,” he murmured.
I crossed my arms, not in offense, but in defense, as if to protect myself from his charm, his words, and his love. “Don’t do what?”
“Don’t pull away from me like that. I’ve let you pull away for the past few weeks to give you some space, but that’s over now. I’m not letting you do it.”
I glanced around the rest of the room. Nearly everyone was pointedly involved with other things, speaking louder than necessary, clearly trying to give us privacy in such an open space. Everyone but Lily, who eyed us with curiosity and concern.
“You weren’t just giving me space, Marco,” I whispered. “I broke up with you. I ended our relationship. I can pull away, and continue to pull away, because we’re over.”
I started to walk away, but with his free hand, he snagged the hem of my sweatshirt and closed the distance between us in one step. With his hand still wrapped in my shirt, he moved in close. His eyes were bright blue in the sunlight.
“I do not accept that. I will not accept that, and if you are honest with yourself, mia bella Lydia, you know we’re not over, too. You can say what you want, but we belong together, and you know it.”
He released me and took a step back. With the dad voice he had fallen so easily into months ago, he hefted Mandy higher on his side and said, “Tell Mommy to have a good day, sweetheart.”
“Good day!” Mandy waved to me.
“See you soon, Tesoro,” Marco said and left me standing by the window, my breaths gone and my heart in my throat.
After the whole crew left, Kyle went into his office, leaving me alone with Lily and Amara. I gladly took the infant from her mother and marveled over her tiny fingers, her little yawning mouth, and her dark hair.
“She’s so pretty,” I said admiringly.
Lily smiled down at her daughter, but I didn’t miss the shadow in that smile. “She is. She’s beautiful. Perfect.” She carefully smoothed her hand over the baby’s soft little head. “She looks a lot like Kyle, but she also looks a lot like me…and you. Anna was so tiny when she came along, so underdeveloped, it was hard to say who she resembled. I held her for a long time after she…” Lily paused. Her smile wavered as her eyes gleamed with unshed tears. “I held her for a long time afterward, and I kept touching her face, staring at her face, trying to imagine what she would look like in a year, five years, fifteen. I kept asking Gavin who he thought she looked like, and every time, he told me, ‘she’s beautiful, like you.’”
A fat tear escaped one eye and then the other. Lily quickly wiped them away and kept staring at her daughter.
“I wouldn’t let him hold her,” she admitted, her voice cracking. “I kept telling him I needed another minute. One more minute. He eventually got to hold her, but not for long before they came for her. You were there. Do you remember? I regret that—not letting him have his time with her. I am glad now, though, that he got to hold his other babies, that he got to see them for a little while before… Anyway, sometimes I wonder if Anna would have looked like Mandy or Cora. Would she have had Gavin’s blond hair or Cora’s red hair, or would she have fallen somewhere in the middle like Mandy.”
She went quiet, but it was the kind of silence that meant she was thinking. I recognized that look on her face, as she contemplated what she should and should not say. When she met my eyes, I knew she had decided to just say her thoughts.
“I hated you,” she whispered. “Because you not only had one baby with Gavin, but then you went on to have two more. It wasn’t fair. I had been faithful, a good sister, a good daughter, a good person. I’d done nothing to deserve such a tragedy, but…I eventually understood that bad things happen to good people, that there are millions of babies around the world that don’t make it. It didn’t make me feel any better, but I at least stopped hating you, eventually. I hadn’t wanted to meet your kids though, but I’m glad I did. They’re Anna’s sisters and brother. It’s like I’ll always have her if I always have your kids. She’ll live on through them.” She turned her teary gaze back to Amara. “I am so happy, so damn lucky to have Amara. I never knew my heart could feel so full, but…I can’t help but to think about Anna when I’m holding her. Is that wrong?”
My throat burned from holding back my own tears. Back then, after Anna had been born and died, I had been sympathetic, but I couldn’t have known how Lily felt, how Gavin felt. Even now, I could commiserate because I have my own kids and just the thought of anything happening to them made me want to burn down the whole world, but I still could not say that I knew exactly how Lily felt about losing a child. Not to mention, the insult to injury of mine and Gavin’s betrayal, and then the children she was robbed of.
I found a smile, even though my guilt, my sadness, and so much more were choking me.
“No, it’s not wrong. It’s perfect.”
Chapter Fifteen
After that conversation with my sister, I couldn’t just roll into my room and take a nap as if everything was fine. Her words and tone of voice had been laced with conflicting emotions—sadness, joy, and resentment—resentment for me. There was still so much shit between us, so much unsaid, so many questions unanswered, and I didn’t know if we’d ever work through any of it, or if we would simply continue as we were with bad feelings just beneath the surface.
I was tired, but I thought maybe a walk would either wake me up or wear me out enough so I could sleep. I just finished putting on my knee brace and pulling on a coat when Adam called. He was supposed to come to Philly at some point during my visit so we could hang out, and also, so he could see how I was progressing.
“Hey,” I answered.
“Hey yourself, my beautiful drama queen. What are you up to?”
“I’m about to go for a walk so my doctors and therapist don’t yell at me for being a lazy sack.”
“Good girl! So, I cut out of work early and I’m already in Philly. I just checked in to my hotel a little while ago. You want some company for your walk?”
I smiled. “Yes.”
A few minutes later, I left my room in search of my sister. She was at the dining room table, wrapping ribbon around small bott
les of wine, with Amara asleep in a bassinet nearby. The bottles were labeled with the names of the groom and bride and the date of the ceremony.
“I’m so glad I am having a small wedding and I don’t have to spend hours and hours deciding who sits at what table with whom.”
“Honestly, I don’t know how you’ve managed to throw this thing together so quickly. I know you only have what, thirty or so people attending altogether? Still a lot of work.”
She nodded absently. “That it is. Luckily, we didn’t have to try to find a venue, and Kyle convinced a restaurant that doesn’t normally cater to do the catering anyway.”
The wedding was going to be held at Kyle’s mother’s house. Apparently, she lived on a decent-sized estate and had the space to have three times the amount of people if Lily and Kyle had wanted. After months with Marco and seeing the Herrington’s home, I still wasn’t used to the idea of having all that money, enormous houses, and all the material things inside of them.
“So, when you say that Kyle convinced the restaurant, you mean that he threw a lot of money at them,” I said.
Lily grinned as she glanced up at me. “Yup. Uh, are you going somewhere or are you cold? We can turn up the heat. Maybe you can chill in front of the fireplace.” She snorted. “Chill in front of the fireplace.”
I rolled my eyes. “Wow, you’re an amazing comedian. I’m going out for a little while.”
One auburn eyebrow rose. “Going out?”
“Yeah, as in, I’m going outdoors, with a friend, and with a location in mind. Why are you looking at me like that?”
Now that brow came down and tried to meet the other in the center of her forehead as her eyes narrowed. “What friend? Where are you going?”
