“What?”
“Enzo, I know about your ex-fiancée stabbing you.”
“You know about Gloria?” he asked, his eyebrows knit together.
“I think it’s time we get it out in the open.”
“How did you find out?”
“Paul told me how she had broken off the engagement and how you went crazy, so she stabbed you thinking you might hurt her.”
Enzo frowned deeply. “That’s what Paul told you?”
“Don’t worry, Enzo. I don’t think less of you. I know you wouldn’t have hurt her.”
“That’s not how it happened,” Enzo explained dryly.
“No?”
“No.”
Kate moved closer to him. “Then tell me how it happened.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he blurted.
Kate sighed deeply. “We’ve been in this relationship long enough for you to be open with me. Sweetheart, we’ve got to communicate better.”
“Katie, I don’t want to talk about what happened with Gloria.”
Kate nodded calmly. “I understand that it may be too painful to talk about, but we have to begin somewhere. Let’s begin by you showing me the knife scar.”
In all the years she had been with him, he had never gone shirtless in the daylight. He had kept the scar well hidden. And if it seemed odd that she’d never seen him fully naked, he acted so natural about it that gradually it had become natural to her not to take showers with him or make love during the day.
“Katie, I don’t—“
“Please, Enzo. Show me the scar or our relationship will never grow.”
Valentina and Leonardo’s relationship had changed when she had seen his whip marks, Kate thought. Valentina had started understanding him better.
“I don’t see what looking at an ugly scar can do for us,” stated Enzo.
“That wound keeps you closed off to me.”
“But—“
“Please , Enzo.”
He frowned. “Okay, but I still don’t see the point to it.” He started unbuttoning his dark-blue shirt. Kate waited patiently, hugely relieved that he had agreed to do it. She was certain this would be the start of much healing on his part and also the beginning of him letting go of his fear of marriage.
Taking off his top shirt and only left with his under-shirt, Enzo looked at Kate before proceeding. “Are you sure you want to look at this thing?”
“Yes.”
Enzo pulled up the under-shirt on his right side. Kate gasped when she saw the puckered, discolored inclination of where the knife had been plunged in. It was a gash that was only a few inches long but the pain contained in it might as well have been miles long. Now she knew why Valentina had cried when she had seen Leonardo’s wounds. Tears rushed out of her eyes, trailing down her flushed cheeks. He abruptly pulled down his under-shirt.
“That’s why I didn’t want you to see it,” he declared, embracing her.
Kate sat speechless for a few moments.
“Violence like this isn’t easy to look at,” he announced.
“I’m sorry, Enzo,” Kate muttered softly as she tried rubbing the tears with her hands. “I didn’t think it would affect me so much.”
“Katie,” he said soothingly, “don’t be so upset. Remember, it happened a long time ago, and it doesn’t hurt. It’s just a scar.”
“A scar that has affected your whole life.”
“Katie—“
“Sweetheart, can I have a few moments to myself?” This time she was the one who needed space.
“Are you okay?” he asked, concerned.
“I just need a little time.”
He nodded solemnly. “I understand. I’ll be in the shower. When I get out, I’m taking you to dinner.”
While Enzo climbed up the stairs, Kate’s thoughts came bubbling out. Between still dealing with the death of her best friend and fully realizing how close her lover had come to being murdered, her composure had left her. The therapeutic calm she had cultivated through the years was nowhere to be found and in its place were jumbled nerves.
She stayed at the sofa for a short stretch of time as the psychiatrist gradually took over the emotional person in love. Going over the positives of what had just happened, the new beginning with Enzo, she gradually calmed down. It was a normal gut reaction, she told herself. But now it’s time to continue the healing.
She climbed up the stairs determined to make further strides with Enzo. Opening the bathroom door, she’d show Enzo she could take seeing his scar. As much as he liked working in the yard, he’d be free to walk around shirtless, and she’d be free of what was pulling him away from her. The light sound of the water splattering on him soothed her as she started to run the shower curtain to the side.
“Is there room in there for me?” she asked, getting a full view of Enzo’s back from where she was at. Gasping loudly, she grabbed the wall next to her, trying to re-gain her equilibrium.
Enzo turned around, surprised to see her there. “Katie,” he gasped. “What’s wrong?” he questioned after taking in the consternation in her expression.
“Your . . . your . . .”
“What’s wrong?” he repeated.
“On your . . . What’s on your . . . your . . .”
“Katie,” he said with gentility, “if the scar still bothers you, you shouldn’t be in here.”
“It’s not the scar,” she managed to say, her voice very shaky.
“Then what is it?”
“Your back—what’s on your back?”
“Oh that,” he said, his worry easing as he showed his upper back to her. Light-brown marks covered his skin. “It’s nothing, Katie. You don’t have to be so freaked out.”
“Nothing?” she mumbled.
“Birth marks.”
“Birth marks?” she asked, her voice becoming very strained.
“I’ve had these since I was born.”
“I’ve got to sit down,” Kate announced, stumbling out of the bathroom. She plopped down on the king size bed as soon as she was near it, the shiny gray silk bedspread losing its smoothness.
Enzo came rushing out in a Navy blue bathrobe and sat quietly next to her. “Katie, seeing all those marks on me has been hard on you, hasn’t it?” he asked soothingly.
“Yes,” she stated.
“But I already told you,” he chided gently, “the things on my back aren’t wounds—they’re birthmarks.”
Kate pulled the top of his robe over one of his shoulders. “They look like whip marks,” she mumbled.
Enzo chuckled. “I’ve been told that before but what would I be doing with those kinds of lashes on my back?”
“Yes, what would you be doing with them?” Kate asked solemnly, thinking about the mark on Valeria’s leg.
“Yes, what?” he repeated.
If he had marks like the ones that had belonged to Leonardo, it had to be a coincidence, she told herself. Maybe Enzo had also been whipped in a past life.
He chuckled darkly. “When I was a kid, I’d tell my parents that they came from an uncle.”
Kate’s heart gave a jolt. “An uncle?” she asked feebly.
“My parents tell me that I’d insist that an uncle had whipped me. What an imagination I had, right?”
Kate climbed inside herself in deep contemplation. “Big imagination,” she mumbled. “Big.”
“Yes, big.”
“Enzo, would you tell me the story behind Gloria?” she asked quietly.
“But—“
“Please.”
He let out a deep breath. “I hate talking about what happened.”
“Please.”
He nodded gently. “Okay.”
“Tell me.”
“Gloria used to live at the apartment complex I was at before I bought this house. One day I saw her crying by the pool. When I asked her what was wrong, she told me she had been sexually molested by an uncle
and had just seen a man who looked like him. I tried to comfort her as best as I could.
“After that day, she would always come to my apartment. It was like she was spying on me—knocking on my door only minutes after I’d get home from work. While I hated the intrusion on my privacy, I felt sorry for her. Then I found out she was telling everyone, including Paul who was in the apartment next to mine, that we were engaged. I angrily went to her apartment and banged on the door. When she opened it, I demanded to know why she was lying about our supposed engagement. She didn’t know what to say.”
“What happened next?” Kate murmured.
“I told her that I never wanted to see her again—to stay away from me. She started crying and saying that I was humiliating her. Before I knew it, she grabbed a pair of scissors from a desk she was next to and stabbed me.”
“It wasn’t a knife?” Kate asked, her mind in a frenzied jumble.
“No, it was a pair of scissors. Paul didn’t even get that part right.”
Kate seemed to be sinking deeper and deeper into quicksand. This story seemed so familiar, like the Gregoria one, and she just wanted desperately to go back in time—to before Valeria/Valentina had come into her life.
“Katie, I’ve never told anyone about what happened that night,” he explained, his breathing shallow. “I really don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“Neither do I.”
“Let’s put it behind us.”
“I think that’s a great idea.” agreed Kate, sighing. “Just great.”
Chapter 60
Dr. O’Leary splashed cold water on her face. After Valeria had stepped in the office for another session, Dr. O’Leary had rushed into the lavatory. Thoughts hounded her. Could it be possible that Enzo was Leonardo? She refused to believe it. Leonel had to be Leonardo—had to! It was just a coincidence that Enzo had birthmarks on his back, and the thing with the uncle was a child’s overactive imagination. It had to be. And his experience with Gloria was too strange for words. Dr. O’Leary didn’t want to think about it anymore and didn’t want anything to do with this bizarre case. She stepped back into her office.
“Are you okay, Dr. O’Leary?” Valeria asked, concerned.
“I think I ate something that disagreed with me.”
“I’ll leave so you can go home. I’ll arrange for another appointment.”
“No,” blurted Dr. O’Leary.
“No?”
“Valeria,” Dr. O’Leary smiled weakly. “I think we’ve gone as far as we can go. I don’t want to keep taking your money when I can’t do any more for you.”
“You really don’t think you can do anything else for me?” Valeria asked, disappointed.
“I’m sorry, Valeria. This is the end of our sessions.”
That night in bed, Kate watched her lover sleep. Everything she had been suppressing came back in an abrupt explosion. What if he is Leonardo? But she convinced herself that she needed to forget all the strange sessions with Valeria. Suddenly, her life had turned upside down with the death of her best friend and the ramblings of reincarnation. She had to find a way of getting her life back to normal. Anyway, Valeria had Leonel. Kate only had Enzo. She eyed him and sighed.
Lindsey’s death almost did me in. I can’t afford to lose another loved one.
I won’t survive it.
El Paso was a large enough city for two people never to run into each other. With a population of about a million, how difficult would it be to keep them apart?
Forever Hearts Page 18