by Alice Ward
“I apologize again about the flowers,” he said.
I frantically waved my hand. “It’s fine, really. Don’t worry about it. Honestly, we don’t have to talk about it ever again. We’re good.”
I liked that he sent me roses — maybe loved it, judging by how many times in a day I’d opened that door under the sink, and I felt guilty about that. Needing to change the subject, I searched my mind for a segue.
“Teresa told me you grew up in the orphanage,” I ended up saying.
Cristiano’s face grew tight, and I cringed. Damn it. That had not been the right thing to say.
“I did,” he slowly answered. “I arrived there when I was about four.”
Four years old?
A long moment went by as the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I wanted — needed — to ask more. I steadied my breathing and looked for the best way to move the conversation forward. But I needed to be careful…
“About four…?” I gently pressed, fully aware of the verbal tightrope I was walking.
“There are no records on me before getting there, so no one knows when my exact birthday was. Apparently, I could tell the staff my age, but I didn’t know my birthday.”
“Oh,” I said in a small voice, then shut my mouth. I was desperately curious to know the exact details of his life, but I was afraid I’d made a blunder and brought it up in the wrong way. I needed to be more tactful, more gentle. Instead, I’d just started asking questions, and probably too soon. Cristiano and I barely knew each other, after all.
I exhaled. “Now I think I’ve crossed a line.”
He looked at me curiously.
“I shouldn’t have asked about your life at the orphanage,” I explained, trying to smooth things over. “It’s none of my business.”
He gazed at me steadily as he seemed to think about my words. “You’re curious. It’s all right.” He paused. “I think about it sometimes. I’ve even gone to seek professional help in memory retrieval.”
Now I really couldn’t stop my curiosity. “Memory retrieval? Did that work?”
He sighed. “Somewhat.”
“How does it work?”
“The person I went to see used what some might call hypnosis. I was pretty skeptical about it at first, but someone I knew had it done, and he kept recommending it to me. So, anyway, I went into this room that looked like a therapist’s office. The practitioner had me relax and then she started asking me questions. Taking me back, you would call it.”
“Huh. That’s kind of cool.”
“The idea of it is, yes. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any of the real information I was hoping for. I got a room with a crib in it, but that could have just been my imagination. Who knows? And even if that was a memory of a real event, it’s not like the image of a regular old nursery helps any. The truth of it all is that my first real memory is of the orphanage.” His head ducked down, and he stared at the passing cracks in the sidewalk.
My heart ached just to hear the story, to think of a four-year-old left at an orphanage like that, no clue as to who he was or where his parents were.
“You’ll find them,” I blurted out.
Cristiano’s head snapped up and his amber eyes connected with mine. “What?”
I bit my bottom lip, wishing I could sew it shut. “I just...” Shit, shit, shit. “I have hope that you will.”
His mouth curved up the smallest bit. “I’m glad that you do. I’m sorry to say I’m not as optimistic. I’ve been trying to find them. For too long.” He sighed, and his words took on a new, harder tone. “I don’t think they want to be found.”
“Why do you believe that?”
“Because the woman who dropped me off — presumably my mother — never came back. And I’ve spent years trying to dig up information on her, but there’s nothing.”
“Maybe she didn’t come back when you were a kid because she wanted to protect you.”
His jerked back. “From what?”
“I don’t know,” I said, then thought about out to proceed. “If she kept you up until the point you were four, she probably loved you very much. If she hadn’t wanted you, she would have given you up as a baby. Right?”
“Perhaps... but why not find me as an adult?”
I shrugged. “Maybe she’s afraid. It might be even more complicated than we think it is. It could even be that, at the time, she thought she was doing the right thing... and now she’s not so sure. Maybe she thinks you hate her because of what she did.”
His lips drew into a tight line. “Some days I do.”
The kids crossed the front yard of the orphanage and loped across the porch. The door banged shut behind them. I slowly climbed the steps, not quite willing to go inside.
“Are you having dinner?” I asked Cristiano, turning to look down at him. He’d already settled on one of the steps, his fingers interlaced and his forearms resting on his knees.
“I’m not hungry,” he said to the street.
I looked at the back of his head, regretful over bringing up his past. Slowly, I stepped down a couple steps and settled in next to him. “You know, I’m not either. Plus, I don’t know if I can take the noise in there right now. Mind if I sit out here with you?”
His head cocked, and he looked at me like I was the most interesting thing in all of the city. “That would be nice.”
I pulled my knees in close and watched the road, the minivans and station wagons rumbling down the asphalt and past the chain link fences, the one lone jogger trudging his way up the slight incline.
“What’s your family like?” Cristiano asked, surprising me.
“Well... there’s only really my mom and me. That is if you don’t count my extended family, and I don’t really. They all live so far away now.”
He stared at me, still looking at me like I was a great mystery that needed solving. “Really?”
I nodded. “My dad died when I was fifteen.”
His eyes softened. “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.” My throat cracked a little bit, and I cleared it. “It was really hard on my mom. It took her a while, but she’s doing pretty good now.”
“Did she get remarried?”
“No. Although I keep hoping she will.”
“She depends on you a lot?”
I thought about that. “I think she tries not to, but she can’t help it. I’m her only kid. I’m kind of all she has left.”
“She’s lucky.”
I didn’t say anything.
“To have you,” he further explained. “Just to have anyone.”
I thought about Cristiano, all by himself with no clue where his family was. I’d never felt lucky before. In fact, if I’d felt anything, it was cheated. For a while, I cursed the world for leaving my mom and me all alone. But at least I had a father for most of my childhood, and at least I still had my mom. Cristiano didn’t even know who his parents were.
“Yeah,” I slowly said. “You’re right... and she’s a great mother.”
“What was your dad like?”
My heart squeezed as a million memories assaulted me at once. “He was awesome. He would always take me out on the weekends, usually fishing. But every once in a while, we’d go camping... he loved camping. It was kind of our special thing.”
“That’s nice,” he murmured.
I nodded, and swallowed hard, forcing the emotion back down.
“Can I ask... what happened?”
“Yeah. It’s all right. The big bad cancer got him.” I cleared my throat. “But at least we had some time. There was, like, six months after he got the diagnosis. He was pretty practical about it all.” I stared at the house across the street. “Now that I think back, I wonder if he was just putting on a brave face. You know, for my mom and me. Back then, though, I believed it. I really thought he was the bravest person in the world.” I shook my head. “I wanted to be like that,” I whispered.
“Maybe you are now.”
I looked at him with
interest. “No. I’m not brave like that.”
“Perhaps you just don’t know it. Not everyone who is courageous thinks of themselves in that way. Sometimes people just think they’re doing what needs to be done when it needs to be done, and nothing more, but to others they’re heroes.”
“Hm,” I murmured, giving that idea some thought. “Yeah,” I finally said. “I get what you’re saying.”
I thought about how brave the woman who dropped him off at the orphanage must have been. I imagined her fear and heartbreak. Leaving someone you loved so much, but who you felt would be better off without you. I couldn’t imagine walking away from your child like that. Surely that took as much bravery as anything else in the world?
Another silence followed, but it was more comfortable than the last one. We’d both said enough for a little bit, and it was nice to just sit there and listen to the sounds of the neighborhood. From behind us, in the house, dishes clattered, and children squabbled.
“Sounds like we’re missing big drama over who gets the last pig in a blanket,” I commented.
“Yeah.” Cristiano chuckled. “Darn it. We should have gone in there.”
I laughed with him and looked down at my lap.
“You’re in between jobs,” Cristiano said. “So what did you used to do?”
“Um...” I ran a hand through my hair. Did I tell him? I’d gotten out of the habit of talking about my past life, merely because I saw it as good and behind me. I didn’t hate mentioning it, I just didn’t like being defined by it. Once people found out what I used to do, they invariably saw me in a different light.
Knowing I needed to say something, I just went ahead and blurted it out. “I, uh... I was in the army.”
I swear I literally heard his head whip in my direction. “Really?”
“Yeah.” I looked into his eyes, reading the surprise and admiration there.
“I wouldn’t have guessed.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Because I’m wearing a dress?”
He laughed. “No... because... well, I don’t know really.” His eyes roamed over my face. “I get the feeling you didn’t want to tell me this.”
I gazed back, looking for a good answer. No, I hadn’t wanted to tell him. Already I’d let him know more about me than I intended to. I wasn’t usually so open about my past. With Cristiano, there was an added reason for needing to keep my distance. The air vibrated between us, humming with what I knew was a shared attraction. I needed to be careful around him, needed to watch myself. And I wasn’t doing that. For some reason, I’d let my guard down. I’d already stayed too long, opting to sit outside alone with him and share intimate details of our pasts.
“I need to go,” I said, my voice cracking. “I forgot that I have to be somewhere.”
If he thought the excuse sounded like a lie, he didn’t let on. “All right.”
I stood quickly, and he followed, his hand slipping into his pocket as he did so. My heart clenched, and I don’t know what I expected him to pull out, but it wasn’t a business card.
He handed the rectangular slip of paper over to me. “Give me a call if you like.” His eyes seemed to glow as he gazed at me intently. “Anytime.”
He turned and walked up to the front door. I tore my gaze from him to stare instead at the step he’d vacated, forcing myself to not turn and watch him go.
CHAPTER FOUR
At home, the silence was heavy, pressing into me from all four sides. It greeted me the second I walked through the front door. With a sigh, I dropped my bag on one of the kitchen chairs and grabbed my laptop.
Settling in at the kitchen table, I pulled up the search engine on the browser.
Cristiano Leventis.
My eyes grew wider as I scanned the Google page. There was a Wikipedia link to him as well as a Forbes article. I cherry picked keywords, doing a quick once over of the presented links.
“Net worth two billion?” I whispered out loud. “Jesus...”
Was that really what the stock market had done for the guy? From an orphanage to an estimated two-billion-dollar fortune. It was certainly a rags to riches story fit for the history books. No wonder he made that segment on TV.
Other than numbers and professional stats, there wasn’t much to be found about Cristiano online — certainly zilch about his personal life, which, to be honest, was what I was mostly interested in. On Google images, I did manage to find photos of him at different events. I counted three separate beautiful women hanging off his arm at various times. Girlfriends?
I closed the computer and leaned back in my chair. It didn’t matter. Cristiano’s girlfriends were the last thing I needed to worry about. Shaking my head, I got up to take a shower.
I pulled my dress off as I padded across the living room floor, then dropped it in the hamper pushed into the corner of the bathroom. My bra and panties followed, and I stood naked next to the shower curtain as I fiddled with the temperature to get it just right.
I edged into the spray, the muscles in my shoulders relaxing as the warm water struck them. All down my body, my nerves were bunched. Two days had passed since I last worked out, and my body already groaned in protest, making my short sabbatical from exercise feel like an eternity.
The army... I can’t believe I told him I was in the army.
Not that it was classified information or anything. Still... I just hadn’t meant for Cristiano to know anything meaty about me. I didn’t want him to figure me out, to take me apart and dissect me so that he could feel like he knew how I ticked. I hadn’t walked through the front doors of Hampton Road Orphanage with the intention of letting anyone know my story — and least of all a hot Lothario.
Wrong, I reminded myself. You don’t know anything about what he’s like with women.
I closed my eyes and rolled my head to loosen up a kink in my neck. Evie was right. I was just writing my own story about Cristiano in an attempt to keep my distance. The truth was that I was being selective about information — like the women in the pictures — and using that info to form my own biases.
I needed to stay objective. Needed to stay focused. I needed to go to that orphanage and do the job I’d gone there to do. That and nothing more.
But those golden eyes... they hovered in front of me like they were there in real time, just as much a part of the steamy shower as I was. They covered me in a blanket of tingles, made a hot shiver sneak down between my legs.
I shut my eyes, thinking the vision might disappear in the blackness. But it didn’t. Instead, Cristiano’s hand appeared, strong and tan, reaching towards me as it extended his business card. The same business card still tucked safely away in my purse.
I exhaled sharply and opened my eyes to reach for the loofah. Loading it with body wash, I switched my train of thought. What was I going to do tonight? Derek had plans to watch some game at his buddy’s house, something I was definitely not interested in, and Evie was working till closing. There were a couple other friends I could call who would likely be free, I supposed. Or I could go to the gym and get that overdue workout checked off.
But, really, I only wanted one thing. I wanted to see those golden eyes again, to hear the deep vibrations of that smooth voice. It didn’t matter what we were doing or what we were saying. Just to have him near would be pleasing.
Or not. Actually, most likely it would be torturous.
Remember, you go to that orphanage for one thing. Don’t forget it.
I wouldn’t. If my four years in active duty plus two years in reserve had taught me anything, it was discipline. I knew how to focus. I knew how to commit.
Like I had with Derek.
I shook my head. I was happy with Derek. Even if we weren’t soul mates, we had something, and it was good.
But how long can it last, really?
I knew I wanted to get married someday. I wanted to find that one special person to settle down with. I had trouble believing that guy was Derek, but the idea of cutting him loose caused me pain
. I loved him. He was a part of my life now... a part of me.
I rubbed my arms hard with the loofah, working the body wash in. I moved it across my shoulder and chest, getting every bit of me frothed up. My fingertips grazed one of my nipples and a zing of pleasure shot down my body.
The loofah went lower, swirling over my stomach and back and forth across my hips. I took in a shaky inhale and closed my eyes again, letting the loofah fall to the bottom of the tub. I turned towards the water spray, enjoying the pulsing of its force as it washed the soap off of me. My hands lingered near my hips, creeping closer towards the inside of my thighs. My core ached in anticipation, screaming to be touched.
Before I could stop myself, I imagined thick, black hair in my face. Hot, sweet breath on my neck. The weight of a man bigger and stronger than me holding me down.
My fingers swept across my clit, making me shake. Slowly, I rubbed little circles, the pleasure spiraling up with each swirl. I couldn’t think of him. It was wrong to think of him...
But I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t help but feel his lips against mine, his tongue pushing between my teeth. I couldn’t help but imagine him stretching my legs and inching into me. I heard his breath, heavy and fast against my neck. Or was it my own breathing filling up the shower?
I didn’t know. I couldn’t know anything but Cristiano’s touch. My back arched as his fingertips dug into the outside of my thighs. I moaned, welcoming his entire length inside of me, welcoming the way he stretched me and drove into me until there was no more space to fill.
I shuddered again, letting out a little yelp as an orgasm flew through me.
I put one hand on the tiles, holding myself up with some help from the wall. My breathing still came out labored, and I felt as spent as if I’d actually just had sex.
But I never would do that with him.
Cristiano was a fantasy.
He was probably many a woman’s fantasy, and for me, that was all he would ever be. It was all right to have crushes while in a relationship. I knew that. As long as I kept everything within the appropriate boundaries, everything would be fine.
Still, I felt slightly guilty. What if Derek knew what was going on in my head? Fantasizing about someone you didn’t know, like a celebrity or a porn star was all right, but an actual acquaintance? I’d never thought about it before, but wasn’t that a warning sign that your relationship was on the rocks? Worse yet was that I would have to see Cristiano again, after I’d gotten off to the thought of him.