I pieced it together on my own. “If you divorce her, you’re afraid he would sell Cibo Degli Dei.”
“I know he would, or he would make it into something else entirely.”
My chest squeezed at the thought. There was something magical and resilient about the place. One man’s will made into reality. The icon of vision.
“And…” he was especially soft-spoken now. “Ruby is not mentally stable. I’m afraid of what she would do if I did leave her. I’m uncertain I could live with myself, should the result be…”
I pressed my hands down my thighs, finding them sweaty. “Why doesn’t she get help?”
“She’s too paranoid to let someone in her head. We went to a therapist for a while, it’s where I learned the grounding technic. But she stopped going. No one understands the gravity of what she lived through when she was a kid.”
I scooted forward to see him better. “But why do you have to be the person to mend her?”
“Catholics don’t divorce.”
“I didn’t realize Ruby was Catholic.”
“Ruby isn’t anything. We weren’t married Catholic, but I still have my own beliefs. You’re the one that claims marriage is forever, regardless of what happens, and you aren’t even Catholic.”
“Yes, but this is a bump in the road for Noah and me. You aren’t going over a bump, you’re scaling Mount Everest. She keeps doing this to you over and over and with different guys,” I said.
“I don’t need to be told what I can handle.”
“I wasn’t telling you what you can handle, I was telling you what you deserve. You deserve someone who doesn’t want to hurt you,” I explained. “Love is kind—”
“And keeps no record of wrongs,” he cut me off, quoting scripture I didn’t realize I was beginning to quote myself. “Not all love is pure and sweet, Lydia. You haven’t been in love or hurt enough times to know that. Sometimes love is twisted and painful.”
“But is that the brand of love you want?”
He didn’t answer.
“Why won’t you tell your family? Everyone is dying to know why.”
“You learned that at Thanksgiving?” he questioned.
I guiltily looked away. “No… your sisters may or may not have my phone number, and we may or may not talk on occasion.”
He smiled again and I was glad because I worried he was mad at me for making him talk about it.
“Come,” he stood and started leaving the pew. “There is more to Little Italy.”
LORENZO
I walked Lydia to Mulberry Street Cigars, where the gangsters used to hang out. To the shops, bakeries, café’s, the Italian American Museum, St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, John Jovino Gun Shop. She was jumpy as a cat on a hot tin roof in there, and I took her to the old police headquarters.
When we explored Mulberry street, the art drew her the most. The murals made her stop and stare. She appreciated the work, being so diligent herself, I could see how it touched her.
It was a good afternoon.
When I found out she’d never had a cannoli, I thought my heart would quit. So, I took her to La Bella Ferrara. Her expression after the first bite made every penny worth spending.
And since that day, for the next two weeks, her newest pregnancy craving was cannolis from La Bella Ferrara.
RUBY
Being nearly caught by Noah’s wife was degrading. My affairs with men never led me to their homes. I never saw or met their families, and I certainly never had to hide from them.
But Noah has made me want him.
Not just physically.
As opposite as we are, all I can think about is being his. Making him mine. I want to replace Lydia. I want to be Lydia. I admire and hate her all at once. She’s the part of me that died a long time ago.
There’s no room in my life for church Sundays, or women’s Bible studies, or volunteering. I’m an independent woman with a high-powered career, but I find myself dreaming about what it would be like to live for Noah. For Noah’s job, for Noah’s passion.
What would it be like, to carry his child, to make his bed, to wear his ring?
And just like that, I see Lorenzo. A man who loved me at my worst. The man who took my fear away. The man who passionately loves me. The man with dark looks, sharp features, tentative hands, devotion. I love his body, tall, lean, muscled, battered ruggedly from the beating I’ve given his heart.
Yet, when I am with him, like right now while we sit through an awkward and obligated dinner with my father.
I think of Noah.
Noah.
Noah.
Noah.
My husband and father discuss politics to fill the silence. The masculine hum of their deep voices makes my mind wander.
Then I think of Lydia, and envy rages through me. She’s so plain, so dull, so meek, so childish. I would know, I’ve snooped through his cell phone while he sleeps. She isn’t pretty. She doesn’t maintenance herself for Noah.
She’s naturally attractive, I see that. Flawless skin, a set of full lips, thick lashes, a tight, thin body, large eyes.
But she is frumpy and strict in her apparel.
Unadventurous.
Prude.
It doesn’t matter, that’s what I tell myself, as I excuse myself to go to the restroom. Because it all still boils down to me. If I’m willing to release Lorenzo and let Noah be my savior.
Because I need one. I need someone. I need Noah.
As soon as I’m alone in the bathroom of the affluent restaurant my Dad selected, I lock the door and unbutton my blouse, revealing the cold steel-colored lacey teddy I’m wearing underneath my clothes. I snap three risqué photos, and send them to Noah, reminding him none too gently which of his two women have the most to offer.
LYDIA
“Oops,” I muttered, stirring the very burnt stew I made. Sara was right, reading Leslie McAdam’s books and multitasking was not wise.
When the fire alarm in the upstairs hall went off, Noah came rushing in from outside.
“Are you okay?” he panicked.
“Yeah, just dumb,” I turned off the burner and wrinkled my nose at the horrible smell.
“You aren’t dumb,” he grabbed two potholders and took the pot off the stove. “You have pregnancy brain.”
“What is that?”
“I just saw an article about it. Basically, you’re too distracted to focus.”
I laughed. “That’s my regular brain.”
He set the pot on a hot plate and then tossed the holders. “You didn’t burn yourself?”
I shook my head.
“Did you see the yard yet?” He grabbed my hand, dragging me outside.
“I didn’t realize you were done.”
He hurried me down the steps and turned me to face the house. Sundown left the sky dark enough to make the place look whimsical. Old Christmas lights like the ones from the fifties were strung on every ridge and framed the arches. It was perfect, especially the Santa slay, and reindeer mounted on the roof.
I turned and bugged my eyes. “No way!”
“I found them for cheap online. I wanted to surprise you.”
I squealed. “It looks so real!”
“I know! And look,” he went to the house and flipped a switch. Snowflakes made of light started falling from nowhere against the house. I followed the illumination to a little projector hidden in the sleeping grass behind me.
“This looks fantastic,” I held my hands together and looked it all over. “You’re so good at this.”
“It’s a gift,” he boasted with his arms crossed.
I snorted and he laughed.
“Next year, maybe we should get one of those blown-up snowmen,” he said as we came back inside. I rubbed the cold off my arms.
“That’s a good idea, but we need to consider the neighbor’s cat.”
“Ugh,” he grunted. “I forgot about Tinkers.”
Tinkers is a cantankerous old cat that loves to ruin outd
oor décor.
“How old would the baby be in December of next year?” he asked, getting a bag of chips from the pantry.
I counted on my fingers. “He or she is due in Juneish… so… Five or six months depending on the date of arrival.” I went to the fridge to come up with dinner plan B.
“They can see by then, right?”
“Oh yeah,” I pulled some ground beef. “Definitely.”
“Then we are getting the inflatable snowman and Tinkers is going to leave it alone or become a lawn ornament.”
I laughed, a snort on the tail of it.
He saw my book and raised both brows. I had laid it under a hand towel, but when he tossed the potholders, they must have brushed across it, revealing the cover.
Leslie McAdam’s Sombra was looking back at us. I binge read book three and four, and Sara had lent me this one, book two of another series.
“What’s that?” he asked.
I went over and picked it up. “Sara lent it to me, it’s um… like a…” I tried to think up a lie. “She said I would like it, so I skimmed it.”
He came and I handed it to him. “Is it erotica?”
I opened my mouth to say, no. It is erotic, but Leslie’s books were so much more than that. They were real life, real people, real situations. Connection. They were couples with issues and incredible chemistry. But there was sex. Mind-blowing sex that I’ve never experienced, with men that seemed to want to make their women wild. Men that liked their women to be strong and feisty. Men that didn’t need perfect and innocent women. And those women were like heroes to me. Each one. Different in each book but getting me every time.
“Romance,” I corrected. “It’s a romance book.”
“With a shirtless guy on the cover?” he teased.
I shrugged. “I mean… they come together… the characters, but, I’m an adult woman with a husband. I can read about sex.”
“Are they married?”
“No.”
“Isn’t this sort of like porn?”
I frowned. He was cheapening the books that I escape into. “No, it isn’t porn.”
He flipped through the pages and stopped somewhere. I couldn’t be so lucky for him to stop at a clean part.
“The view of her straddling me with those perfect breasts and pearlescent skin and candy-colored hair—”
I reached for it, but he held it away with a smirk. “Honey, it’s porn. Would you want me watching porn?”
No… you sleeping with someone is far better than you watching porn.
I couldn’t find a reply that wasn’t snarky.
He put the book under his arm. “Is it… are you looking at stuff like this?”
I held my braid between my fingers. “I like this author’s books.”
“Is it because… we haven’t been…”
“I don’t read her books just because of the sex.”
“But you do like it?” He tried to sound less accusing. “I know we haven’t been intimate, it’s my fault, I’m worried about you and being pregnant.”
“Pregnant women have sex.”
“How do you know? Did you read about it in your smut book?” he teased.
“It’s not smut.”
“If you read stuff like this, our love-making might not be as special to you. It might give you an unrealistic expectation just like porn does for men.”
I thought of Lorenzo and how he told me that men that don’t go down on their women are selfish. All the men in Leslie’s books were givers. Lorenzo says that’s normal. But Noah doesn’t do those things with me.
“Like oral sex?” I asked.
He looked shocked. “What?”
“Why don’t we do… that? Why don’t you do it to me or why don’t I do it to you?”
“Because we never…” he was so flustered now, red-faced and nervous. “See, this is the kind of thing you didn’t ask before.”
“Because I didn’t know.” I went back to making a new meal.
He came to hug me from behind. “Honey, if you want to try… we can, I just don’t want you to feel degraded.”
“Why would I feel degraded?” I froze, about to open the meat.
“That stuff can be messy and weird.”
“How do you know if you never tried?” I tested, bristling. “We were one another’s firsts… weren’t we?” I grilled. “How do you know?”
He laughed a little. “Well, yes and no.”
His arms feel like a prison.
I faced him. “Yes and no? What is that? I was a virgin when we married. Were you?”
He kept me close and I hated it, my book still under his arm. “I mean…” he swallowed. “There was one girl… one… and I was in high school at the time. It didn’t mean anything, and it was long before I pledged myself to Christ.”
The floor seemed to shake under my feet. “You said you were a virgin too.”
“I was. I asked God for forgiveness. I was a youth, and once he forgave me, the sin went away.”
“That’s not the same,” I put my hand to his chest so he wouldn’t try to kiss me. “I’m your wife and you lied. I’m not upset that you had pre-marital sex. I’m upset that you lied about it.” I set my jaw. “The lie is what hurts. Not the deed.”
He faked being a virgin. Who does that? And why did it come out now? Because he’s covering the fact that he and Ruby likely do oral.
We looked into one another’s eyes a long time, and then I took my book from under his arm and started for our room upstairs.
“Lydia,” he said. “Are you still going to read that?”
I stopped on the first step and faced him. “I am.” I held the book to my chest. “And if it’s wrong, it’s between myself and God. He talks to women too.”
Chapter Sixteen
LYDIA
December nineteenth brought about a frenzy in me. I had too many people to shop for and not enough time.
Noah and I made up from our argument, but it made me see that lying isn’t new for him. He’s been lying, and with ease.
But so have I.
I don’t tell him about my friendship with Lorenzo, and I haven’t told him that I know about his affair. I’ve begun to justify it because what he’s doing is worse, but is it? A lie is a lie.
Lorenzo and I are never inappropriate. We’ve never touched. We don’t look at each other that way. We’re both in love with someone else. But our being alone together so often and the friendship being secret, is still stretching the line between right and wrong.
But I feel that without his friendship, I would lose my sanity. Noah would never accept me having a male friend. Especially not his lover’s husband. Therefore, be it wrong or not, it’s my secret to keep.
Getting home from shopping, I got a text from Noah saying that he was staying over with Lark for a guy’s night. I know that if I text Lorenzo, that Noah is lying. He’s meeting Ruby and spending the night with her.
I sat in my work corner and started repairing the paint on dollhouse furniture, belonging to a big dollhouse, made in 1917. It’s all so delicate and so brittle, but with my magnifying glasses, and specialized tools, gloves on and super bright lighting, I’m getting peace. Until I think of Christmas.
Who will Noah spend Christmas night with?
What excuse might he have to go see her?
When will he cut it off?
How far along in the pregnancy will I be?
My hands start to tremble, so I stop to breathe and then resume my work.
Some little girl used to play with this. Her dreams are in here. I start trying to picture how she might have looked, and in the process, I start to wonder how my own daughter will look.
Brown hair like mine and Noah’s.
Green eyes like his.
Pink lips.
I smiled now, from the heart.
He’ll come back to me when he sees her. If my heart can weld tighter to his at the thought of her, then he will bind to me when he sees her for real. I don�
��t consider if it’s a boy because deep down I sense it’s a girl. I’ve always sensed it.
After three hours of work, my lower back begins to protest, as it has been doing for a week straight, and I can’t comfortably do my work. If I rush, I could ruin my project.
I get up and go to the corner where my scrapbook container is. This is something I can do standing up, and the project I’ve been working on these past weeks is a high priority.
I pick up the container and walk it to the kitchen table, but as soon as I let go, I feel a flood of heat between my legs and light cramping in my lower abdomen. I bend at the waist and breathe through it, but hurrying to the bathroom, I discover that I’m bleeding. Not just a little. My body begins to shake, and my skin feels cold all over.
In a panic, I called my doctor and got a taxi to his office.
On the way, I called Noah repeatedly, over twenty times in a row. Each time, his phone went to voicemail, and each time, my animosity grew.
When my doctor found no heartbeat for the baby with his equipment, he sent me for an emergency ultrasound.
The woman working with me, said very little, checking all around for a heartbeat and a visual. I could see the peanut that was my baby, on the screen, but they wouldn’t tell me anything until I returned to my doctor.
Apparently, the baby stopped growing after eight weeks. I’m now at nine, approaching ten, meaning he or she passed sometime shortly after my last doctor appointment.
The Affair (The Relationship Quo Series Book 5) Page 19