by Bethany-Kris
It kept Emma from checking the long, thin piece of plastic sitting on the counter.
The time had already passed.
Three extra minutes, to be exact.
She still couldn’t check.
Emma didn’t really need to look because she already knew what the simple, drugstore pregnancy test would say. Her menstrual cycle had never been late before. Not one single time in her life.
She was officially two days late.
Perhaps, she could’ve attributed her late period to the stress of her current circumstances. She was certainly stressed enough for it, what with her arranged marriage, new husband, and her entire life being turned upside down.
Emma knew—somehow—the stress wasn’t the cause.
She had faced stress before.
Never was she late.
Emma knew what that meant. She was pregnant. Which would, of course, make her new husband happy. Over the moon, even. That was, if Emma could manage to convince Affonso it was his child she was carrying.
Because it wasn’t Affonso’s baby.
It was Calisto’s.
Emma wasn’t a stupid woman, despite what her current situation implied about her ability to make good choices. She could do basic math, and understood how her cycle worked.
If her cycle was only a couple of days late, she would have conceived at least two weeks prior. She was newly married, by just a few days, to be exact, and Affonso had not touched her once before they married.
Emma was still able to count back the days easily enough. To right about the time she and Cal had spent a whole night and subsequent morning fucking.
Her husband’s nephew.
Emma caught sight of her reflection in the bathroom mirror.
Wary.
Tired.
Worried.
Unsure.
Pregnant.
How could you be so stupid?
You knew better.
Well, what did it matter now?
It didn’t, she decided.
Emma stepped forward and plucked the pregnancy test off the counter, checking the windows for what she already knew. Two bright, thick pink lines stared back at her.
So. Fucking. Pregnant.
Emma looked at her reflection again.
She would do what she had to.
She would lie.
Whatever it took to make her husband believe this child was his.
Emma stuffed the pregnancy test in her pocket, determined to destroy it. She could afford a week, or maybe even two, before she would tell Affonso.
It wasn’t a perfect plan.
But it was something.
Emma found Affonso in his office, sipping coffee and reading from a newspaper. It was the same thing he did every morning, and he preferred not to be interrupted while he did it.
On this morning, she didn’t think that he would mind.
It’d been a week since she stood in the bathroom, panicking, as she stared at a pregnancy test. There was a part of Emma, a very small part that spent the week praying and hoping for some kind of damn miracle.
Foolishly, she only thought of Calisto.
That maybe, like a white knight, he would roll through and save the day. He would save Emma.
It was nothing more than a silly, stupid thought that would never come true. Calisto hadn’t even been around since the wedding. He had clearly drawn his lines in the sand, and he was on one side, while Emma was firmly stuck on the other.
She had to do what she had to do, now.
Calisto would understand, surely.
If he ever found out …
Emma didn’t think that Calisto would ever learn the truth. After all, her very life depended on making sure no one knew what happened between her and Cal. Never mind, making sure everyone believed Affonso was her child’s father.
There was no other option for Emma except for what she was about to do.
“Can I help you, Emma?”
Affonso’s cool, yet irritated tone, broke Emma from her inner thoughts. He stared hard at her from behind his large desk, clearly annoyed at her presence.
Emma had learned a few things about her new husband and his expectations for her, rather fast.
He only wanted to hear, look, or speak to her when he wanted to. She was better appreciated at a distance. She was, in every sense, his trophy wife.
“Um.” Emma wrung her hands, avoiding Affonso stare. “Do you have a minute?”
“I have many minutes. That doesn’t mean I’m willing to share them.”
Emma had also learned that the only time she could expect patience and a soft hand from her husband was when he wanted to fuck her. She had been terrified on their wedding night, knowing that refusing to sleep with Affonso would do her no good. It was not that he was older, or unattractive, because he wasn’t. She simply could not enjoy sex with a man she despised.
But he never hurt her during sex. He was careful. He did expect her participation, to some extent. Emma was grateful that, at the very least, he did not force her.
“Emma,” Affonso said, “what is it?”
A large part of her wanted to stay silent.
The small part of her that knew it was better to speak up, won.
“I’m pregnant,” Emma blurted.
She pulled a pregnancy test from the pocket of her jeans, a new one she’d taken just before finding her husband. Affonso’s eye caught the test and his smile grew.
A genuine, joyous smile.
Emma swallowed back the guilt and shame chewing her alive inside. “Are you happy?”
Joy danced in Affonso’s eyes. “So happy.”
Well, then.
Emma had done her job.
For as happy as her husband seemed in that moment, Emma never thought that only a couple of weeks later, as she was rendered immobile in her own blood on the kitchen floor, Affonso would be sickened at the sight of her.
He would not care that she was bleeding.
He would not understand her tears at losing the baby.
He would not be kind at all.
She knew none of those things.
Until the loss came.
Missing
Author’s Note: This scene was removed from the end of book two, Thin Lines, as I felt better ending the book how I did, and allowing the new Calisto to speak first at the beginning of book three.
Calisto was surprised to see his uncle’s wife sitting in the library in front of the grand piano. She wasn’t playing the instrument, but rather, drifting her fingers over the lid covering the keys.
She rarely ever came into the library, and he would know, as it was where he spent ninety percent of his time. Well, when he wasn’t at another doctor’s appointment or doing another round of therapy.
The library, and the piano, was a reprieve of sorts for Calisto. He didn’t have to think about his shattered shoulder, his broken femur, the wheelchair he was still constantly stuck in, or his messed up mind.
His mind that was … missing.
He thought—maybe—he wouldn’t care about the rest of his injuries or problems, if only his mind would work again. If only he could remember what was lost to him.
Calisto was grateful for his uncle, and the way Affonso had brought him into his home to recover from the accident. But nothing felt quite right. Sometimes, everything just seemed off. Even when everyone was smiling at him, Calisto felt like they were lying to him somehow.
Nonsense, he thought. Or rather, that was what he was often told. Whenever he brought up his odd feelings to his uncle, Affonso brushed it off, claiming that it was nothing more than Calisto’s lack of knowledge playing tricks on him. That perhaps the trauma of his accident, and what he was subconsciously remembering of it, was bleeding into the conscious side of his brain.
Calisto hated how that made sense; hated, even, how he clung onto the idea, wanting it to be the truth.
He didn’t understand why he felt that way, either.
He had no reaso
n to be distrustful of the people around him, especially his uncle. Yet, those thoughts and feelings were still very present.
Constantly.
Persistent.
Demanding.
A soft sigh broke Calisto from the prison that had become his thoughts. It took him all of ten seconds to realize where he was again, what he was doing there, and what was happening around him.
In the library entrance, stuck in his wheelchair. He’d found Emma sitting at the piano, but not playing.
Nothing was wrong.
Everything was fine.
Relax, he told himself.
The zoning out thing had become far too common, and therefore, a problem. Calisto could be doing anything, at any random time of the day or night, and suddenly be pulled into his thoughts, lost to a trance-like state to his own mind. The doctors said it was normal, considering his traumatic brain injury, and the subsequent stress of having amnesia didn’t help. It was like his brain’s way of blocking out all of the unneeded background noise, and simply focusing on what was immediately at hand.
Calisto didn’t care why.
He just wanted it to stop.
Albeit annoyed about zoning out, Calisto was grateful to be brought out of his daze. He found Emma was still sitting at the piano like he had first found her, seemingly unaware of his presence behind her.
There was something in the shadow of her profile, an emotion that she couldn’t quite hide.
Longing.
And sadness.
Both were there.
He felt terrible for spying on her. After all, it had been him who snapped at her a while ago for sneaking up on him while he was in that very same spot.
Calisto decided to make his presence known. “Do you play, Emma?”
For a split second, Calisto swore he saw Emma’s back tense. She shot him a look over her shoulder. That sadness and longing disappeared from her features, a false happiness taking its place.
She could smile all she wanted, Calisto decided, but there was clearly something inside of Emma Donati that was deeply unhappy.
“I do,” Emma replied, “but not nearly as well as you.”
Calisto scoffed, smiling at the same time. “That can’t be true.”
He rolled himself further into the room.
Emma turned back to the piano. “Oh, it’s true. I’m technically trained, but that means nothing when I don’t have the right ear for it.”
Strangely, Calisto understood what she meant.
“Well, you must like it enough. You certainly stare at the piano like it’s holding all sorts of secrets for you.”
Again, Emma tensed. “Maybe it does. Who knows?”
He fully believed that she knew.
Entirely.
“Care to share one?” Calisto asked.
Emma’s eyes widened as Calisto’s wheelchair came to a stop beside the piano bench. “Share what?”
“A secret.”
A nervous burst of laughter fell from her pink lips. “You’re being funny now. Where’s Affonso? Weren’t you supposed to go to that dinner with him?”
Calisto shrugged. “That was two hours ago. I changed my mind.”
“Oh.”
“And you’re deflecting.”
Emma’s gaze darted away. “You should let people have their secrets, Cal. There’s usually a good reason for them.”
“Maybe so.”
“I hear a but in there.”
“But,” Calisto said, smirking, “you could indulge me.”
“That’s an interesting way to try and convince me.”
He waved at his chair, his one constant companion and enemy. “Yes, indulge me. This is all the fun I get in a day, wheeling from one room to the other.”
“Besides,” Calisto added, “we don’t really know each other that well. This could help.”
He saw that flash of sadness come back in Emma’s eyes at his words, but it disappeared before he could think on it for too long.
“I don’t have secrets,” Emma said.
“Bullshit.”
Her mouth popped open. “Pardon?”
“Bullshit, Emma. Everyone has secrets. It’s a part of being human. And, you can’t tell me that a woman of your age, arranged to marry a man of my uncle’s age, doesn’t have at least one secret locked up tight.”
Emma’s lips pressed tightly together, like she was trying to hold the words back. “Fine, then. I don’t have secrets I am willing to share.”
“That’s no fun.”
“You should have known better than to ask, Cal.”
“Maybe, but if I don’t try, then I will never know the what ifs.”
Emma lifted a single shoulder. “I’m not allowed to have secrets. Not in this life, living in this house, married to that man. Secrets are dangerous.”
Calisto nodded, understanding that, at least. “You should know, Emma, that sometimes you don’t have to speak to tell your secrets. Your face tells them all. In case you didn’t already know.”
She smiled, but the sight was sad. “Is that so?”
“It is, at least when you think people aren’t watching. Then, you wear your emotions clearly, unhidden on your face, like your heart is on your sleeve. Especially your unhappiness.”
Emma didn’t look the least bit surprised at Calisto’s statement. “Someone has already told me that at one time. I guess you can say I haven’t gotten any better at fixing the problem.”
“Is it really your problem to fix?”
“Huh?”
“Your unhappiness that you try to hide,” Calisto clarified. “Is that your problem to fix, if you’re not the one causing it?”
Emma laughed. “Calisto, I am always the one left causing my own unhappiness.”
“What would make you happy?”
This time, Emma’s smile was bright and genuine as she turned it on him. “Right now, hearing you play the piano would be great.”
Calisto could do that.
And if it helped to make Emma look a little less sad, then he would count that as a win in his book.
Emma got up from the bench and moved it out of the way, allowing Calisto to wheel his chair into the proper position. Sitting in front of the piano, and lifting the lid from the keys, he found his calm and comforting place again. A small piece of his life that was sure and certain, it was perfectly familiar. Perhaps that was why he kept coming back to the piano day after day to play, no matter his mood.
Emma sat off to the side, patiently on the bench, waiting for him to start. Her hands rested atop the small swell of her stomach, a smile playing at the edges of her lips.
“Ready?” Calisto asked.
“Always, Cal.”
How often had he played for her before his accident?
Calisto chose not to ask.
Instead, he got lost in the comfort and grounding familiarity the piano provided. For the subsequent half of an hour that followed, was the melody that his fingers helped his mind to create with the piano keys. All the while, Emma never once spoke.
It was only once Calisto had stopped playing entirely, that he looked over to see Emma beaming down at her tiny swell. Her hands had moved lower on her stomach, her fingers tapping a beat over her dress.
“He likes that,” Emma said.
“He?”
“The baby. He likes the music, I think.”
Calisto’s gaze dropped to Emma’s stomach again, and the strangest urge swept through him. He wanted to touch her swelled stomach, feel the movement of the child she spoke so lovingly about, and understand the one thing that clearly made her so happy. Especially when it seemed like so little provided her with that joy.
“I didn’t know the baby was a boy,” Calisto said.
Emma shrugged. “I had some early tests done. Genetics gave the gender away.”
Before Calisto knew what was happening, or he could stop himself, he had turned his chair and wheeled closer to Emma. Hesitantly, he held out a hand.
; “Could I feel?”
Emma didn’t even think about it, simply took his hand and placed it where hers had previously been on her stomach. A second passed with no movement, and then a few more. Calisto was sure that he had missed the chance to feel the unborn baby moving to his music.
Then, he felt it.
Something thumping gently against his fingertips before it went away. Maybe thumping wasn’t the right word to use. It felt more like a bubble bursting beneath the taut roundness of Emma’s stomach.
And then there it was again.
And again.
Calisto let out a heavy breath. “Wow.”
“It’s the most amazing—”
Emma’s words cut off as a door slammed. The front door. Like a bolt of lightning had struck under her feet, Emma was up off the bench, had pushed Calisto’s hand away, and glanced at the library door.
“One more secret for the hell of it,” Emma said, “but this time, we can both share it.”
“Huh?” Calisto looked up at her.
Emma’s face had reverted to stone, no unhappiness to be found, but no emotion, either. “This never happened.”
Calisto didn’t get a chance to respond.
Emma was already leaving him behind.
What was he missing?
The Last Visit
Author’s Note: This deleted scene takes place at the end of book three, Thin Lives, before the Epilogue, about three or so months after the wedding. It was not included in that final chapter, because I wanted only a happy, joyous feeling to those ending bits after all the angst. And the Sorrento family does not exhibit those emotions, especially here.
Emma’s discomfort was not going unnoticed by her husband, as their private jet taxied down the runway. Although he was supposed to stay seated until the plane came to a complete stop, she heard the clink of metal before Calisto moved closer to her. She relaxed instantly when his lips pressed softly to her temple.
“You okay?”
“Nervous,” Emma answered honestly.
Calisto kissed her again. “It’ll be fine, bella.”
“I know.”
Awkward
Uncomfortable.
Probably irritating.
But it would be okay by the end of her visit to her mother and father.