by Bethany-Kris
Merda.
Gian had entirely skipped those plans after seeing Cara the night before. He hadn’t intentionally done so, but something better came along, and those plans no longer mattered. He was surprised that Elena cared enough to call anyone and ask around about him, but that was probably because she was hoping his body showed up somewhere.
“Weren’t you having dinner with her father last night?” Dom asked.
“Yeah, I had dinner with Gabriel.”
“And?”
“And nothing. I forgot, I guess.”
“You for—”
“Gian, is everything all right?”
Cara’s question came out too loud in the quiet bedroom to be hidden. He shot her a reassuring smile, and stroked her back again, saying nothing. She tucked back into the blankets, happy as could be, but Gian knew his brother had heard her.
“Oh, well, shit,” Dom said quickly.
“So, something came up,” Gian muttered.
“Someone, you mean.”
“Semantics.”
“If you say so. Cara Rossi?” Dom asked.
Gian sighed, scrubbing a hand down his face. “I’m not in the mood, nor do I have the patience, to listen to anyone’s bitching this morning, man.”
“Yeah, sure. When did that happen again? How long?”
“Or your questions,” Gian added. “I answer to God, my priest, and the Pope, but certainly not to you. Don’t expect me to.”
And Cara …
Gian answered to her, too.
“What do I tell Ma and Dad … or your wife, for that matter?”
“Apologize, say I wasn’t feeling well. I’ll be at the mansion before noon to deal with the other bit, since I need to grab some stuff anyway.”
“Sure, sure,” his brother said, sounding anything but sure.
“Au revoir, Dom.”
Gian didn’t bother to give his brother the chance to say goodbye back, before he hung up the phone. Setting it back to the nightstand, he immediately went back to Cara, his arms ensnaring her warm body and bringing her closer to him under the white sheets.
He didn’t want to talk or think.
He just wanted to be for a while.
Cara’s rhythmic breathing was too light, telling Gian that she hadn’t fallen back asleep. He waited out her inevitable questions, but what she eventually said was not what he expected.
“I don’t want to be that woman, Gian.”
“Cara—”
“I don’t want to be the other woman.”
He swept her wild curls off her shoulder, giving him soft skin to kiss. He felt Cara’s shiver work its way through her body, and so he kissed her again, just to feel it once more.
“I know,” he murmured, his lips still pressed to her body.
“But here I am.”
“Those are details, and I know they’re the kind of details that matter to some, but they are only details, bella mia. You’re not the other woman for me. You’ve always just been mine. There is no other here. There’s one man and one woman. One man who loves one woman—I love you, Cara. That’s it.”
“One man with a wife,” Cara said softly.
“She’s certainly not mine, not in that sense,” Gian said dryly. “On paper, maybe, but the rest … no.”
“I’m not sure if that makes it better, but I want it to. I wish it did, and I’m pretty sure that makes me a horrible person.”
He pulled her closer still, letting her legs tuck in around his under the sheets, while his arm tightened around her midsection to keep her in place.
“Do you want to know anything about her or the—”
“No,” Cara interjected swiftly, shutting him down.
Gian kissed her shoulder again. “All right.”
“Do you have to go?”
“In a while, yes. I have to go to the mansion and grab some things for the week. I missed church, too, so my mother needs a visit now, to be sure I’m not dead.”
“So, the mansion. Is that where … Elena, right?”
“Mmm.”
“Is that where she lives?”
Gian let out a slow breath. “Yeah.”
At his quiet confirmation of her suspicions, Cara stiffened in his arms.
“Would you stay, though?” Gian asked.
“For what?”
“I’ll be back later today or tonight sometime. I’d like to come back to see you. We should talk, or something. Just talk, Cara. Without yelling or slapping, or fighting and fucking. Just talk.”
“I don’t want to be that woman, Gian,” she repeated.
She hadn’t refused his request, though.
Gian took that as a win. “But?”
“But I love you, too. I love you, and I want to hate you.”
Yeah, that was the hard part.
It was every single reason why she was in his bed, instead of in her own. Because had he loved her even a little bit less, or perhaps in a better way, he would have left her alone to her business and life the night before.
Except he couldn’t.
Because love.
Or, that’s what he was going to keep telling himself. Otherwise, he would be forced to admit how selfish of a fucker he truly was.
“Stay,” he said, kissing along the curve of Cara’s shoulder. “Stay for me.”
“Maybe.”
It wasn’t a no.
Gian grabbed one of the five new garment bags hanging in the walk-in closet. He used the second largest bedroom in the mansion, while his wife used the master bedroom, just across from his. He only kept clothes when it came to personal effects at the mansion, so that he could come and go as he liked, and it actually appeared as though he lived there.
Occasionally, he did business at the mansion, too. He had dinners for the men, and other nonsense that invited people into his “personal” space, though it was complete bullshit. Home was his penthouse, not this mansion.
He stripped down from the jeans and leather jacket he had tossed on before leaving the penthouse. He’d called his mother and promised dinner to make up for missing Mass, but she wouldn’t appreciate him showing up in jeans.
A suit it was.
He had just pulled the shirt up over his head, when a clearing throat froze him in his tracks. Turning slightly to face the opened doorway of the walk-in closet, he found Elena standing there, staring at him.
“Do you need something?” he asked.
“It’s good to see you’re still alive.”
“Is it?”
She just shrugged.
“Where were you when I came in?”
Elena flicked a loose, blonde curl over her shoulder. “Changing out of church clothes. I saw your car, so I came looking for you. Also, I could ask the same, Gian. Where were you last night and this morning?”
“Busy. Something came up.”
Gian turned back to the suit he had set out, picking up the pants as he said, “Ma is expecting us for dinner. You don’t have to go, but I would appreciate if you did.”
“Whatever. How did dinner go with my father last night?”
“Same as it always does. Gabriel is … Gabriel.”
Elena made an agreeable sound under her breath. “Did he want anything specific?”
“You have more contact with him lately than I do, so you tell me.”
“He asked you to dinner, not me.”
Gian rolled his eyes. “Like I said, it’s the same shit it always is. Business, family, and you. Nothing new, nothing to worry about. He isn’t about to climb through a window and steal you back in the night.”
Elena didn’t respond immediately and Gian shot a look over his shoulder to find she was staring at the floor, silent. She was as cold as ice, but there were buttons that a man could push, and she reverted into a shell of herself.
Gian had pushed that button.
“I could have phrased that better,” he said.
Elena shrugged one shoulder. “I choose not to underestimate my father.
He used me from the time I was fifteen to do his bidding and play his games, right up until the day I met you. It’s only because he believes I’m no longer useful to him that he keeps a distance now, you know.”
Gian grunted, displeased. “Yes, and then you used me. So how different are you two, really?”
“I used you to get away.”
“It doesn’t justify the mode, Elena.”
She only smiled. “It got me what I wanted. I never needed to fuck another man to benefit my father, I only needed to fuck you. And after that, I didn’t even need to do that, Gian. So yes, I got what I wanted.”
“Yes, stuck in a marriage with me. Where we despise one another, where you lied to me about everything and tricked me with a fake pregnancy, and then losing—”
“I apologized for all of that!”
Gian spun fast on his heel, not hiding his anger. “That’s the problem. You think because you spit out a few sad words, that it fixes what you did. It doesn’t fix it, Elena. You’ve trapped me into this fucking hell with you. I’m so goddamn happy that you don’t mind because of all the wonderful things you have, because fuck me, right? Fuck me and everything I might have wanted from life, Elena.”
“I was taught that feelings didn’t matter in this life, Gian. Only the end goal. Perhaps you should learn the same. My bad, that I happened to meet my goals before you did.”
Feelings only mattered when they were hers.
That was what she meant to say.
Gian was not stupid.
“Get the fuck out, Elena.”
“In a minute.”
Gian snarled a warning at his wife over his shoulder, done with her nonsense and games for the day. Elena barely reacted. In fact, she continued standing in the doorway with her arms crossed and her eyes nailed to his back.
“What do you want that you haven’t already bothered me with?” he asked, reaching his limit of patience.
“Who were you really with last night?”
Gian’s shoulders stiffened. “I beg your pardon?”
“Who were you fucking?” Elena carefully enunciated each word. “That’s why you didn’t come here last night or to church this morning, right? You’ve got scratches all down your back. Jesus, she must have liked whatever it was you were doing to her. Doesn’t that hurt? That’s one thing you’re quite good at—making a woman come again and again, I remember that well. Did she scream your name like a good little whore? Was it loud enough to drown out me and everyone else filling your thoughts?”
Gian reacted only to the fact Elena used the word whore. He spun fast on his heel. Elena took a giant step back, far enough out of the doorway that Gian was able to grab the door and slam it closed without hitting her.
Her voice stopped him before he closed it completely.
“Oh, someone’s touchy. Is it her again, Gian, the one from before?”
Gian let the door slam in her face, determined not to give Elena a thing unless she pried it out of his dead hands. When a man gave her an inch, she took a mile and ran with it until he was a bleeding, useless, broken mess trailing behind her. It was just what she did, it was what she had been taught and Gian refused to ever play those games with his wife again.
The last time he had, he’d lost. Lost his freedom. Lost his rights. Lost what he thought was his child. He just fucking lost.
So no, fuck her, and her games.
“Cara, right?” Elena asked from behind the wood. “That’s her name, isn’t it? Are you screwing that whore again?”
“Go to hell, Elena, before I fucking send you there.”
She laughed at him.
He wasn’t surprised.
Story of their life …
“Elena didn’t want to come?” Celeste asked as Gian kissed his mother’s cheek.
He readied to speak the lie he had prepared, but whether or not his mother would fall for it was another story.
“She’s not feeling well,” he said.
Celeste frowned. “She was fine at church this morning. Wasn’t she, Frederic?”
Gian’s father nodded. “Seemed so, Tesoro.”
“Well?” Celeste looked to Gian. “See, even he—”
“She’s not feeling well,” Gian repeated, “and I can’t make her come to dinner when she isn’t up for it, Ma.”
“Fine.”
His mother didn’t sound particularly happy about it, though. He wasn’t about to complain that Elena stayed home.
“What’s for dinner?” Gian asked.
Celeste waved a hand, beckoning her son and husband to follow. Gian walked alongside his father, a few paces behind his mother, as Celeste described the meal that was waiting for him. As good as it sounded and for as hungry as he was, he only wanted to eat, spend a few minutes talking, and then get the hell out of there.
Cara would be waiting at his place for him.
Maybe …
He’d sent her a text earlier and gotten a reply. She had been at the penthouse then, but whether or not she still would be was another story.
Cara had a bad habit of overthinking.
Not that Gian blamed her.
“Sounds delicious, Ma,” Gian said.
Celeste preened over her shoulder. “Of course it does.”
The family had just sat down for their meal when the phone call came in. His parents’ maid handed the phone over to Gian with wide eyes before she bolted out of the room. Celeste and Frederic watched him like two hawks as he put the phone to his ear.
Gian tried to hear what Elena was saying through her panic, but he could only make out a few words.
They were enough.
They were too much.
Cops.
Warrants.
The mansion.
Get here, now.
Gian only made it outside of his parents’ place. The cops were already waiting for him there, too.
Apparently, the mansion was one of many places served with warrants, and he was just one of many men to find themselves in hot water with police. His father-in-law’s house that was just an hour outside of Ottawa was another. Gian found himself in the back of a police cruiser and his hands cuffed, before he could even tell his father what to do.
“The charges?” Gian demanded from the officer.
The man shrugged, but before he shut the door, he said, “Ask Seeley when you get to the station. He said you two had missed your meeting this week.”
Gian realized then that he was fucked.
He just didn’t know why.
Cara had forgotten how comforting and familiar Gian’s penthouse was for her. All the tall ceilings, the warm whiteness of the rooms, and the wide windows that could make someone feel like royalty looking down on the city—it was beautiful.
The walls of the penthouse had heard her secrets and given her a safe space, all those months ago. They had shut out the world and let her learn who Gian Guzzi was underneath his charming, mysterious mask. Or rather, who she had thought he was.
He’s still the same man, her mind whispered, but with added baggage.
Yes, if only it was that fucking simple.
Cara learned, as she snooped through Gian’s office and wandered into his walk-in closet, that the penthouse still held pieces of her time from before. One of her chokers hung from a small brass hook in the jewelry case, resting alongside a half of a dozen Rolex watches. Bangles she had slipped off her wrist still sat in a glass bowl. A jacket she remembered tossing over the bedpost one night in her haste to get in the bed with that sinful man had been hung up in the closet alongside Gian’s things.
Gian had no reason to keep her things; to leave the items where she had placed them, or to move them to safe spots where she could find them again.
And yet he had.
Gian kept the tiny pieces of her with him. Cara didn’t know if that was because, one day, he planned to return them. Maybe he wasn’t willing to scrub her from his penthouse or his life.
There was something else that became pa
infully obvious as she snooped. His wife held no place in his personal spaces. The woman was nowhere. No clothes, makeup, pictures, or mementos. It was as though—only here—she did not exist.
Or perhaps he didn’t want her to.
Cara also didn’t want to think on it for too long. Thinking for her almost always led to overthinking, and that was a problem. She already knew Gian loved her, and she didn’t think for a second that he would say something he didn’t mean, but it was all the rest of the details that came along with it where she hesitated.
Cara didn’t want to hesitate.
Not for Gian …
She decided, when it was just after dinnertime and she was still at Gian’s place, that it was the only reason why she was there. Comfort and familiarity. Nothing more, nothing less.
Cara was also pretty damn good at lying to herself.
And overthinking.
She should have been gone hours ago. Instead, she stayed, putting the shower in the master bath to use, and then ordering in food for lunch and supper. She had answered the one text from Gian earlier in the day, but he had yet to send another.
Cara didn’t know if that was a purposeful move on Gian’s part, or not. It would certainly be smart of him, to let her have the few hours that kept them apart without his voice in her head so she could work through her shit. She was always working through something.
It was only after supper time had long passed, that Cara began to think something might be wrong. She shot Gian another text and got nothing in response.
Cara was just slipping on her shoes to leave the penthouse, after sending another text to Gian that explained he could call her when he had time, when the elevator into the penthouse opened. Chris—Gian’s man that had kept an eye on Cara months ago—rushed into the place with a black messenger bag clenched in his hand.
He only hesitated when he saw Cara coming down the hall.
“Sorry, I thought you might be Gian,” Cara said.
Chris cleared his throat and glanced back at the elevator. “Boss brought you over?”
“Last night.”
The man didn’t even look surprised. “All right. You should head out.”
The lilt in Chris’s tone made Cara stay right where she was. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing that you need to worry about, miss.”