by Me, Tara Sue
I wasn’t a fertility expert by the stretch of anyone’s imagination, but even I knew it fell close to my departure. Did that mean he’d been cheating on this mystery woman with me? The thought made my stomach turn.
Just as quickly as that question popped into my head, though, so did the realization that Luca had brought me here on purpose. And while Gemma’s existence shocked me, Luca had known the entire time what he was doing. He’d known she’d be here, and he still canceled my hotel in order to ensure I would be as well.
He finished talking with his sister and then bent down to speak with Gemma. I watched as he interacted with his daughter and marveled at how he seemed an almost different man than the one I’d been around lately and more like I remembered him being years ago. He was animated, at ease. Free. Watching the duo made me smile. Especially how intently he listened as she explained what she’d drawn.
I felt the weight of someone watching and looked up to find his sister looking my way. She didn’t appear abashed to be caught staring so brazenly, nor did she turn away. Instead, she smiled.
“How was your trip from Boston?” she asked. Her accent was much more pronounced than Luca’s.
It wasn’t until she asked me that my body realized how tired it was, and I found myself yawning at her question. I covered my mouth with my hand. “Sorry.”
Maria laughed softly. “No apologies necessary. International travel always has the same effect on Luca.”
She nodded toward where he and Gemma had moved a few steps down the drive. I turned and watched as Luca covered his own yawn.
“Are you tired, Papa?” Gemma asked. “It’s not bedtime yet.”
He stood up and took her hand. “No, but Papa didn’t get a nap today.”
Gemma apparently thought the idea of her father taking a nap was hilarious, because she laughed hard. “You don’t take naps.”
They had made it back to us, and I couldn’t help but add, “He should have taken a nap. He was very grumpy on the plane.”
Gemma looked at her father in surprise. He nodded. “I was. I won’t say otherwise. But I’m home now with you, and I feel much better.”
“Gemma,” Maria said, holding out her hand. “Come with me and let Papa show Wren to her room. We’ll get out the dinner we made for them and have everything set up so you can tell them how much you helped me prepare.”
Gemma had taken her aunt’s hand, and they were headed back to the side door they’d come out of, but Gemma turned for a second. “I had to show her how to do everything, Papa.”
Luca smiled. “I can’t wait to taste it.”
We remained where we were, unmoving and silent until they entered the house. I broke the silence first.
“Your daughter is incredible, Luca,” I said.
He continued watching the door they’d just entered. “Thank you. I’ve always thought so, but then again, I know I’m not the most unbiased person to ask.”
Unsure about what to say or do, I did nothing.
“I’ll sure you have a lot of questions, and I promise to answer them all,” he said. “After Gemma goes to bed.”
“I’m the one who sent you away and then left. You don’t owe me any explanations, Luca.” I’d realized as much when he acknowledged I had questions. Questions I had no right to have.
His somber gaze never left mine. “Don’t I, though, Wren?”
Chapter 16
Luca
Wren had been wrong to say I didn’t owe her any explanations. I’d watched her do the math in her head when Gemma announced how old she was. It didn’t take a mathematician to figure out the estimated timeline.
Wren turned away without responding to my question and walked toward the house. I shook my head. She might not think I owed her an explanation, but she was damn sure going to get one. Later, Gemma would be in bed and I could tell Wren about what happened to me after she left Italy.
First things first, though. I had to show Wren to the room that would be hers while she was here. After that, I’d show her around the estate a bit to give her a general idea of where everything was. The place was beautiful. It was also huge and had the capability of making one feel as if they needed a map to get around. Nearly every room and hallway in the maze of a house were white. I’d give Wren the high level tour today.
By the time we finished, it would be time to eat whatever Maria and Gemma had made for dinner. Gemma’s bedtime would follow soon thereafter.
Like always, I smiled at the thought of Gemma. I had a few regrets in my life. Some bigger and potentially more far reaching than others, but my daughter was not one of them.
I turned to Wren. “Let me show you around.”
I found Wren in the library after I tucked Gemma into bed.
“That took longer than normal,” I said in explanation. “I had to read two books instead of one because Gemma insinuated I didn’t have a good dog voice. She said Auntie Maria’s voice was better. I was left no choice by that point, but to read two books to prove the superiority of my dog voice.” I wrinkled my forehead. “Although, now that I’m thinking back, she never gave me her final thoughts on the matter.”
“Sounds to me she got what she wanted. An extra story read by her dad.”
I snorted. “You’re probably right.”
Wren gave a smile of satisfaction, but remained silent. I could see the questions she had in her eyes. I also saw her determination not to ask a single one. But I knew what question had to be driving her crazy the most.
I took a picture frame from a nearby table and placed it in Wren’s hands. Based on the way she sucked in a breath, she knew exactly who she was looking at.
“Her name was Gianna,” I said. “She’s Gemma’s mother. She died soon after giving birth.”
“Oh, Luca,” Wren whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
I sat down next to her. Close, but not close enough to touch. “Thank you,” I said, determined to tell her the entire truth. “I appreciate that, but my relationship with her wasn’t like that.”
Wren raised an eyebrow, and I heard her unspoken question just as clear as if she’d asked it out loud, If your relationship wasn’t like that, how did you end up having a child together?
“I grew up with Gianna.” It was the best place to start, but I didn’t add that Carmella was her best friend, or even that she still worked for me. There was something between Wren and Carmella. I wasn’t sure what it was, and though I planned to get to the bottom of it and find out what it was, now wasn’t the time. “And though we dated off and on for years, we knew the only thing between us was fun, and that we weren’t soulmates or each other’s better half.”
Wren held herself still, almost as if she waited for the second shoe to drop.
“When I met you, Gianna and I had decided not to date because we worked better as friends than we did as lovers. After you left, I went a bit mad.” I closed my eyes for a second hoping to block out feeling the overwhelming of sorrow and helplessness of that period of time. “I know you left instructions for me to let you go and not to attempt to find you, but I couldn’t. Just like I couldn’t forget you.”
I risked a glance at her. I’m not sure what I expected to find in her expression, anger, maybe for not doing as she asked, but that wasn’t what I found. Tears filled her eyes, threatening to fall with the slightest provocation. Seeing them made me forget what I’d been saying.
Because she wouldn’t let me see her in the hospital and how quickly she’d left Italy, it’d always been my assumption our time together had meant more to me than it had to her. Now I wasn’t so sure.
I cleared my throat and continued. “I hired private investigators and talked to anyone you’d talked to while you were in Italy. I thought if I searched long and hard enough, I’d eventually find you, but I didn’t.”
Wren wiped a tear from her face.
“About three months after you left, I had dinner with some friend and Gianna was there. A few days later, she came by my apartment in M
ilan. She’d just been dumped by her current boyfriend, and earlier in the day, I’d received a letter from the last investigator I had searching for you saying that he’d exhausted all leads. He couldn’t find you and told me he wasn’t looking any longer. I refused to listen to him, and he simply quit. It was later that night when Gianna showed up.” I shook my head, remembering. “We were both upset and lonely. It wasn’t the best reason for us to hook up for one last time that night, but it was good enough in the moment. She left the next morning, and to be honest, I’m not sure I thought about her afterward. I put all my time and energy into my business. That worked well until Gianna showed up again at my front door, two months later. She looked scared to death. That’s when she told me she was pregnant.
Wren nodded, a silent plea for me to continue.
Picking up where I left off, I continued, “I offered to marry her, of course, but she would have nothing to do with that.”
I remembered so vividly the weight in my stomach when I brought up the two of us getting married. My entire world had shifted in a matter of seconds, and all I could do was stand back and let it happen. Gianna would marry me and together we would raise our child. It was the honorable and right thing to do.
“I didn’t believe her at first.” I shook my head. “Damn. I was so full of myself back. I think I actually asked her if she had any clue as to what she was doing. She told me she did, and that she had more sense than to marry a man she didn’t love.”
“Ouch,” Wren said.
I gave her a weak smile. “I’ll admit, her words hit my pride right where it hurt the most.”
“Let me see,” Wren said. “I bet you saw yourself as a glorious white knight, riding in and saving the poor pregnant princess, and the only thing that happened was she knocked you right off the horse you rode up on.”
“How did you know?”
She rolled her eyes. “Fucking men. You all think the same. I doubt any man has had a unique thought in at least fifty years or more.”
I looked at her in shock.
“Believe it or not,” she continued. “We don’t always tell you things because we want or need you to fix them. Most of the time, we’re just talking.”
“I was trying to do the right thing,” I insisted.
“Did you bring up getting married the same day she told you about the pregnancy?”
Of course. “Yes.”
“Idiot,” she whispered under her breath.
Instead of replying, I continued, “Gianna told me she had no desire to get married and that she wasn’t sure how active a role she wanted me to take in everything. I suppose she still saw me as a playboy, even though she was the only woman I’d been with after you left.” I didn’t have to hear her comment to know what she was thinking. Five months without a hookup? Insert sarcastic wow. But for someone with my history of one night flings and a different woman on my arm whenever I went out, five months was huge. “I wasn’t sure how she’d be able to raise a child alone. She had money and her parents’ estate as part of her inheritance, but as for support people? There was no one.”
“Wait,” Wren said. “Her inheritance?”
“Yes. Her parents died in an accident right after she finished school.” She nodded, and I continued. “As her pregnancy progressed, and I guess as she saw that I wasn’t always out on the town, hunting for carnal pleasure, but instead spent my downtime being constructive, she changed her mind. She asked me to go with her to her doctor’s appointment during her third trimester.”
I’d never forget hearing Gemma’s heartbeat for the first time. I had been standing next to the exam table Gianna occupied. A white sheet covered the swell of her belly. The day had already felt surreal. Ever since Gianna had gotten undressed and sat on the table, I’d watched in amazement the way my son or daughter would move, and how in doing so, made the thin sheet move as well.
That was the first time it truly hit me that we’d created another person. I sat in dumbstruck silence, content to watch the sheet move, while the doctor went about conducting his exam. When he’d announced he was going to check the baby’s heart rate, I didn't know I’d be able to hear it. At first the strange staccato sound didn’t resonate as my child’s beating heart. Not until a worried Gianna asked if it was okay.
I was done for then. Between the movements of the sheet and the rapid beating of a tiny heart, my heart was filled with more love than I thought possible for it to hold. I was amazed at Gianna because until that moment, I had no idea how incredible the female body was. To have the ability to harbor and grow another complete human? How amazing was that?
For the span of about three minutes, I felt jealous. The only thing I did was produce sperm. Then the doctor began talking about birth plans and delivery options and it hit me that the growing baby had to come out somehow and I didn’t see how that was in any way possible.
Suddenly, I wasn’t jealous anymore. I was in complete awe.
But I didn’t tell Wren all of that. Even though when it happened, the two of us weren’t in a relationship, it was probably hard enough for her to see the proof that I’d been with another woman. I didn’t need to talk about how amazing I thought her body was.
“Gianna was more receptive to me during those last three months,” I explained to Wren. “We weren’t romantically involved, but she at least put up with me being around.” I stopped, knowing I had to go on, but dreading it as well.
Wren picked up on my hesitancy. She placed her hand on my arm. “What happened?”
I took a deep breath. “Gianna went into labor early. We made it to the hospital right as her water broke. For a while everything seemed normal, but as time went by and there was little progress, she started complaining that something wasn’t right. Everyone kept saying she and the baby were fine. They gave her something to speed her labor up, and that seemed to help. But once it was time for her to push, she didn’t have to say anything. I knew her well enough to see something was off, but she was completely focused on delivering.”
I stopped to clear my throat and risked a peek at Wren. She wiped a tear from her cheek.
“Once things started happening, they hit so fast, it’s all a blur looking back now. I heard a baby cry, someone said we a had a daughter, and Gianna crashed all in what felt like five seconds.” I say anything else to spare her the details that still haunted me.
“Just that quickly,” I said, jumping over the rest of Gemma’s birth story. “Everything changed. I knew it would, of course. But I also counted on having Gianna to help. Going from directly from unattached bachelor to single dad was some kind of whiplash I’d never known existed.”
Wren was silent, and I wished more than anything I could read her mind. What could be she be thinking?
I was getting ready to ask what was going through her head at the moment. Before I could get anything out, she smiled softly and shocked me by putting her hand on my knee. “Thank you for sharing that with me. I know it was difficult.”
Chapter 17
Wren
The next few days were possibly the most unexpected ones I’d had since the last time I was in Italy. Though I was supposed to be on assignment, this job was nothing like any I’d ever experienced.
A human interest story on an international business owner moving from Italy to the States wasn’t all that interesting. I sat in on a few of Luca’s meetings and there was nothing newsworthy in any of them. Not with the content, anyway. If I wrote an article using the notes I’d taken during those meetings, no doubt I’d be let go for writing the most boring thing to ever be put on paper.
But if I looked outside the content of the meetings, now there was a human interest story. The single dad, on the cusp of making it big in the fashion industry while trying to move everything over the sea to America? One hundred eighty degrees from boring.
He held most of his meetings at the estate. One entire wing was dedicated to his business, including what had to be the world’s biggest office. Or at least it
was the biggest I’d ever seen. He only used half of it, I soon discovered. The other half was Gemma’s.
“I had to do it,” he said when I asked about the unconventional office setup. “I had to work, but I didn’t want to be away from Gemma. She’s already lost her mother, she won't lose her father to his job.”
I learned what it meant when he’d said the estate was family property. It had been in Gianna’s family and passed to her upon the death of her parents. Being as young as she was, Gianna didn’t have a will. From what I gathered from some of the household staff, Luca had spent a fortune ensuring everything including the estate was put in trust for Gemma. Technically, I suppose, one could say he was living at his daughter’s estate.
Two days after landing in Italy, I realized I was in deep trouble. Before, at the skiing resort, Luca was an intelligent, charming, and good-looking guy who caught my eye. Now, he was much more dangerous. That guy had grown to be a man who’d held the responsibly of both business and family. One he’d chosen and wouldn’t leave. The other had been a surprise he now couldn’t live without.
In short, being around him for any length of time put me in danger of losing even more of my heart to him.
It was midafternoon and Gemma was down for her nap. Luca had left for Milan before breakfast to finish some paperwork that had to be signed and delivered in person. He said it was better for him to leave in the morning because he’d be home early enough to spend time with Gemma.
I’d decided to let him go without me. There was nothing more boring than paperwork, and I had no desire to sit around and watch Luca take care of it. Talk about a major snooze fest. Regardless, I’d yet to check in with Zach, and I knew he was eager to hear how things were going. Or so I guessed from the handful of emails he’d sent with the subject I NEED A STATUS UPDATE. Just like that, both bolded and in all caps.