by Laura Rossi
My shoulder to lean upon.
I look down to his lips and I don’t hesitate. One hand on his cheek, I move closer, pressing my lips gently against his. He closes his eyes, welcoming my mouth, his hand reaching for my face.
I press my body against his and immediately feel his strong, protective arms wrap around me.
“Filomena,” he whispers, pulling back slightly, breathing heavily, but I don’t stop.
I brush my lips against his again, pressing on his mouth urgently. Shivers run down my back, as Father Roberto’s hand snakes up my chest and through my wet hair.
Our kiss deepens.
It reaches deep down into my soul, sparking the life inside me.
“Filomena,” he moans against my mouth.
I open my eyes and stare at him.
“I can’t,” he pants, not letting go of me, leaning his forehead against mine.
“I’m sorry.” I shut my eyes tight, unable to face him for a moment.
What am I doing? What am I thinking? A priest!
“I shouldn’t have,” I mumble, meeting his eyes briefly before looking down.
“It wasn’t your fault.” He shakes his head and smiles again, his eyes seeming a little lost as if he is in search of the right thing to say.
Confused.
He’s confused.
My lips part then and he lowers his stare to my mouth.
This is wrong, so wrong. I can read the torment on his face.
So wrong.
But he’s tempted. He wants to. I tempt him.
“Baciami ancora.” Kiss me again, I murmur, my lips dangerously close to his.
Father Roberto had looked up then, his hazel green eyes sinking into mine, and he saw me.
Me.
Not Donna Filomena, not Alonso De la Crux’s wife.
Filomena: a strong yet so terribly fragile woman, lonely, hurt and desperate for warmth, something human. Real.
And he’d closed the distance, holding me tight against him.
I’d tasted the heat of his lips, devoured the passion pulsing between us, hungry to feel alive again. My head had spun as life was breathed back into me. He kissed me like I was the most precious being he’d set eyes on, he kissed me like he’d been holding back for so long, consuming, tormented and tense.
I’d never kissed a man like him before, so deep and intense like our kiss. It had felt desirous and liberating, like a rebel yell.
Silent tears run down my face, and I catch him staring at me, hurting to see me cry.
“I can’t, Filomena.” He breaks the kiss again, gently peeling my hands off his face, avoiding my stare.
Don’t push me away.
I clear my throat, looking down at our hands for a moment.
Don’t let me go. Don’t.
I look up again, pushing back the tears.
I read his eyes. Those eyes don’t lie, they never did.
You feel the same way as I do.
“Look me in the eyes and tell me you can’t,” I demand, my voice husky.
His grip around my hands tightens as he measures the words, trying to steady his breathing.
“Tell me you don’t feel what I feel,” I press on, not waiting for his answer. “Tell me, you didn’t feel what I felt when I kissed you. Tell me you didn’t feel something inside you break free.”
“Filomena,” he whispers, and then kisses the inside of my hand—his lips brushing against my wrist, causing me to suck in a breath and let out a soft moan. “You are an amazing woman; an amazing mother. I thank God for the day he put you on my path…” Father Roberto purses his lips, never looking me in the eyes, his head low.
“Tell me,” I say again, my eyes watery. “Tell me you don’t feel for me, the way I feel for you and I’ll leave this instant. You’ll never see me again.”
I’ve made another mistake. I’m confused.
I begin to convince myself that what I’m feeling isn’t real: it’s in my head, again—another wrong man for me. I try to stand, but his hands pull me down, closer to him, making me gasp.
“I fell for you the first day you stepped into that booth.” He searches my face, and I see torment in his eyes. “Without even seeing your face, I fell for your voice, your suffering. And then when you left, I couldn’t get you out of my head. I fell hard for you, body and soul.” Father Roberto speaks quickly, in haste, like the words are too much for him to take.
Another tear streams down my face.
“You’ve brought me back to life,” I whisper. “You saved me.”
“I haven’t. I wish… I wish I could save you, keep you here,” he says, his voice husky as he runs a hand through my hair, staring into me like only he knows how.
“Let’s stay here. Let’s pretend for a moment that we can. That is possible,” I whisper, tilting my head back, the look in my eyes a silent a plea.
“Oh, Filomena.” He brings my hand to his lips and kisses my knuckles. I open my hand and cup his cheek, reaching up to kiss him again, urgent, deep and tempting.
I play with his lips, and our tongues touch sending shivers surging through my body.
“Love me,” I murmur against his mouth, opening my eyes to meet his. “Here, now…” I kiss him again and then search his eyes, my fingers moving to the buttons of his vest.
“Filomena…” His voice is hoarse; his chest moves up and down frantically.
My fingers are already drawing circles on his bare chest when my lips part and brush dangerously over his skin.
He lets out a groan of pleasure, his head tilting back, his fingers lacing around my dark hair as I my tongue danced up to his neck.
“Ti amo, Roberto,” I moan, kissing him all the way up to his chin, then softly on his lips again. “Ti amo, ti amo.” I sob the words out like they were ripping my soul apart.
I loved him, and it had hurt, just as much as it had healed. I’d loved again, for real this time, but I loved someone I’d never be able to have, someone who could never love me the way I’d wanted—the way I’d so desperately needed.
I’d been a prisoner, a possession, and he was a man of God.
But I’d loved him, no matter how impossible it all was. I’d loved him in every possible way.
“Ti amo anche io.” I love you, too, he says quietly, closing his eyes tight for a moment, cupping my face. “I love you, even though I shouldn’t.”
And there it was: the truth.
I’d smiled, never looking away.
No matter how impossible, how absurd, love doesn’t care about rules. It’s fearless and unapologetic. It moves mountains and shakes us to the core—ready or not.
Holding me tight against him, Roberto had reached for the door and locked it then stared down at me, as I’d slowly unbuttoned my silk shirt.
I take his hand and guide it over my heart then slowly around my breast. His skin feels so warm against mine.
I bite my lip as his other hand runs down my back.
“Fai l’amore con me.” Make love to me, I moan, pulling him closer as I take a seat on his desk. I pull open his vest, placing both hands on his lean torso. Hot and smooth, his chest moves fast. I can feel his heartbeat wild under my touch.
His hands move to my skirt, pulling it up slowly, all the way up to my holdups, and his fingers trace circles over the lace rim. A look of desire flashes in his eyes. “I want you.”
He towers over me, and I tilt back, wrapping my arms around his neck, my legs around his waist.
“Even if this means hell, I want you.”
“Si,” I groan, eager to feel him inside me.
His face moves down to my neck; I feel his lips, his tongue on my skin and moan again, pulling him closer, between my legs.
He kissed me, all of me, making love to me in a way I can’t even possibly begin to explain. Our bodies had sway, mesmerized at every touch, closer at every thrust, deeper down my soul...
I’d held him tight, quietly moaning in his ear, whispering my pleasure, my desire to feel hi
m inside me.
I’d arched my back, welcoming him, asking him to never leave.
Someone that knows the worst of me, still loves me nevertheless.
We stayed that way for I don’t know how long, until the rain had stopped falling, until our heartbeats had slowed back to normal. Until reality struck and we’d been forced to unlock that door, face the truth and the consequences of what we’d done.
Chapter 12
I waited for guilt to hit me. I waited alone in bed, with my eyes jarred open that night.
Nothing, never came.
Neither did sleep. My emotions had been all over the place. I’d held onto those moments spent with Roberto, in his office.
In his Church.
I still cringe a little at the thought.
God forgive me.
I’d committed maybe one of the most contorted sins of the flesh. I’d violated the house of the Lord. I’ve always believed, always respected God and Christianity, but now… look what I did.
Violated a sacred place.
Taken a man of God down with me to hell.
My emotions had been all over the place, yes. I’d been crossed between a new energy, a new found hope and worry, for having betrayed God, condemned Roberto.
And going against my husband. If he were ever to find out… I’d shrugged that thought away quickly, wiping my conscience clean.
Stop punishing yourself.
Stop judging yourself.
You and only you know what it’s been like these last few years with Alonso. You owe him nothing.
I hadn’t and that was exactly why I hadn’t allowed myself to feel guilty.
I wasn’t in love with Alonso. As soon as I’d been able to say it, I could admit it to myself.
My marriage had been a charade: I’d had an unfaithful husband, a violent abusive man beside me, and I’d owed him nothing. He’d taken too much from me already—more than I’d ever wanted; more that he’d ever deserved.
During the long sleepless night that followed, I’d told myself I wasn’t the one cheating; I wasn’t the one breaking an oath. I’d been humiliated both physically and verbally so many times by the man I’d married, that if my father had still been alive he’d have him killed. Or he would have tried to kill him himself.
If only you were still here, father.
Now I know why, why you hesitated—what that look in your eyes meant.
Doubt. You’d been doubting your own choices. It hadn’t felt right to hand me over to Alonso.
But you did it anyway, because of money, power.
Business.
No, I didn’t feel guilty. The men in my life had done nothing but let me down. I was on my own, from that moment on. I’d decided my fate, my destiny, and I wasn’t going to sit around, be used like a doll, like a prize for a business agreement.
I was taking my life back in my hands.
To sin is human, to forgive is holy and to perseverate is diabolical.
We’d perseverated: we kept seeing each other. I remember walking back in the church a few days later, not knowing what to say, what he’d say, what would become of us.
Our love had been impossible. I’d known it wouldn’t be forever. No way we could work in the outside world: a priest and the wife of a drug lord.
He’d never leave his church; I’d never be able to leave my husband.
But between those walls, where no one could see us, we’d created our little world, and it was mostly perfect, but surely real.
“We need to stop this.”
Roberto had tried to reason with me about our relationship. There were times when his conscience would have the best of him. He’d pace the office or the church when we were alone, ruffling his hair, torment written all over his face, his hazel green eyes filled with sorrow and guilt.
I’d nodded. Every time I’d nodded. He was right—I knew he was. I’d made him betray the Lord.
Do you believe in temptation? In that evil force that drives human beings, pulls them down to their lowest? Do you believe in the good and the evil, as two separate entities?
Roberto was the good and I was the evil. He was spiritual and I was carnal. He was kind and giving, while I’d been demanding and selfish.
I was selfish for destroying his spirituality. He’d never accused me, never said a single thing, a bad thing against me, but I’d felt so anyway.
Still, despite all his good intentions, he’d never stepped back—never let me go.
“Io ti amo, sopra ogni cosa.” I love you above all things, he whispers to me in the confession booth on a Sunday morning, just before mass, my husband sitting on a bench in one of the front rows of the church with Alejandro and fifty other people.
“Anche io, Roberto.” Me too, I whisper back, my forehead against the thick net that separates the two sides.
He presses his against mine, then looks down at me, sucking in a breath, his eyes misty.
“I can’t stand you going home to him. Some days, the pain of knowing you there with him is too much to bare. I’d push down that door and take you away.”
“You can’t,” I whisper back, tilting my head to the side. “Just as I can’t ask you to leave this place.” I smile a bitter smile then placed a finger over his lips. “Think of Alejandro—think of him. I can’t risk leaving him with his father.”
Roberto nods, resigned.
There had been no way out, no future for us. The present was all we had and we’d cherished every moment.
I realized I’d fallen in the arms of a man I knew so little about. Only later I’d asked about his upbringing, his life before becoming a priest, and he’d told me he was born and brought up down in Sicily, which had explained so much to me.
His amber skin, green eyes and chiselled jaw, the deep tone of his voice, the accent so melodic like an old, nostalgic love song…
“I know the mafia, very well. My father was killed by a Mafioso,” he murmurs one day, as I lay on top of him, completely naked, sprawled on the floor.
My stomach turns and twists as I make sense inside my head of all the things we’ve talked about.
Take the kids off the streets, give them something to do, a good education, a good life and keep their hands clean, away from the mob, the easy money making. Give them a decent job, an honest living.
“I was born where the mafia was born.” I see his jaw twitch nervously. “I saw my father die in the middle of the streets of Palermo, because he was a judge. He was shot to death for doing his job, sending mobsters to jail.”
I hold on to him a little tighter.
“Vedi, Filomena, vedi.” You see, Filomena. “I could have taken a gun, found who’d killed him and avenged my father. And I won’t lie to you, for a moment I lost my reasoning, my human side and thought of going out on a man hunt. I breathed, in and out, in and out, letting those thoughts rush through me without moving. The vicious part of me, I let it spit venom, yell at me to move and do my father justice. But I never moved. I waited—I waited for rage to become something else. Slowly, it turned into something deeper, something rational and yes, painful. I mourned my father and honoured him the best way I could think of. I gave him a decent burial and found all the energy and strength I needed in my faith in God. I came to Rome, became a priest and vowed to help people on the streets, not wait for them to ask for help, but go out there, in the ghettos, and make myself available to them. Give them an alternative, a way out.”
“If you openly go against the mob, they’ll come for you too…” I whisper, biting my lip, stopping it from trembling.
“I can’t say what I’d like to say,” he tells me. His arms wrap around me a little tighter, as if he feels my body go cold, my voice falter a bit. “People rely on me in this neighbourhood.”
They did. Everyone loved him, but I’d also heard that his growing popularity had been monitored from afar by some of the oldest clans in the city.
Which meant by my husband, too.
I’d shivered and thought
of what Alonso could do to Roberto if he’d see him as a threat to his trade. What he’d do to him if he’d found out I’d been sleeping with him.
The world is held together by a thin thread. One wrong move, just one, is all it takes to destroy the balance.
And your life turns into pieces.
Chapter 13
Alejandro had been six when I found out I was pregnant again.
I’d taken the news, hiding my feelings behind that hard, cold mask I’d built to protect myself over the years, where I’d pretended nothing could come through, nothing could get to me, really get to me.
Another child.
I’d touched my womb and watched Alejandro play in his room.
Happy and joyful.
He’d been growing up beautifully and all thanks to me.
I was a present mother, while Alonso had seemed to have little if no interest in him whatsoever.
Little interest in me also, due to his expanding trade. By then, he’d managed to get his hands on every street corner in Rome, selling his drugs, making money corrupting politicians, building an empire.
Being more and more often out of the house, had given me piece of mind.
We fought less, but nothing had changed.
He’d remained the same filthy, disturbed man, who didn’t want me to talk back, who wanted his trophy wife to be his pride and nothing else. Quiet and devoted in bed. Nothing more… or else.
Time hadn’t changed Alonso, but it had changed me. I’d no longer been the young, inexperienced woman that he’d married. I’d become a woman that plotted, studied and crafted her own fate.
I’d become Donna Filomena.
I’d had my own friends, my own eyes and ears in The Market. I’d taken all the information I could from the wives of the other mobsters.