by Bethany-Kris
Cara quickly got up off the couch and made her way to the door, when the knocking became slightly more persistent. “Just a second, I’m coming.”
She pulled open the door to find an unknown, older woman standing behind it. For a long moment, she only stared at the woman, taking in her ashy blonde hair, green eyes, and the way she smiled ever-so-slightly at the sight of Cara. The woman’s gaze dropped to Cara’s slightly rounded midsection, and then just as fast, flew back up to her face.
“My, you are quite a beautiful thing, aren’t you?” the woman asked. “He always did have an eye for the ones that could stand out in a crowd. I believe it’s because he never learned how to blend in, either. He always had to be front and center, a prince waiting to be a king.”
Cara held the door, unsure if she wanted to close it or not. “Do I know you?”
She looked familiar.
“Under different circumstances, I am sure we would have known each other very well,” the woman said softly. “It’s Cara, right? Cara Rossi?”
“I am dangerously close to shutting this door,” Cara warned.
The woman laughed, her crow’s feet becoming more apparent around her eyes. It was that laugh, and the way her features changed enough, that Cara thought she might know exactly who this woman was. It also could have been the French accent coloring up the woman’s words that did it for Cara, too.
But that woman wouldn’t come here, would she?
She wouldn’t seek Cara out, right?
After all, Cara was the whore, the mistress, the piece of ass on the side. She wasn’t worthy of the family name, she couldn’t sit beside her man in church, and her very presence was a dirty word for some.
Surely that woman, would not come to Cara.
Surely not.
“Celeste Guzzi, Gian’s mother,” the woman said, smiling softly again. “It’s nice to finally meet the woman I’d heard all those rumors about nearly a year ago. Gian wouldn’t budge an inch, when I asked. Your aunt is an old friend, from way, way back.”
“Oh,” Cara said dumbly.
“She thought I might like to meet you.” Celeste’s gaze dropped to Cara’s stomach again. “For obvious reasons, sweetheart. And she was right.”
“Not that you’ve given me a reason to think this, but to what, tell me to crawl in a hole somewhere?”
Celeste frowned. “Not at all, dear.”
“Sorry, knee-jerk reaction.”
“I can understand why.”
Cara stepped back, widening the apartment door a bit more. “Would you like to come in, and maybe have a tea or something?”
Celeste nodded once. “Oui, I think I would.”
“Does Gian know you’re here?”
“Oh, no.” Celeste laughed as she walked into the apartment. “I get to wait until tomorrow for breakfast to see him. We’re going to have so much to talk about now.”
Cara shot Celeste a look from across the way. “I’m not sure if you mean that to be a good or bad thing.”
“Well, it’s both. I understand the predicament my son found himself in, and not just with you. Between his grandfather, all the rules and expectations they shoveled onto him over the years, and then his wife …”
“I’m not sure I want to know anything about her,” Cara said, trying not to sound trite.
Celeste shrugged, as if to say, do what you will. “Perhaps you should learn about Elena, or at least, learn why she is where she is with my son. I wish more people had looked beyond the surface when they married years ago, or for that matter, paid attention to it all. No one thought to, and it’s no wonder he’s found himself—” She looked over to Cara, then said, “It’s no wonder he’s found himself in this situation. A man or woman can only be so unhappy in every aspect of their life, before they eventually start looking for something—or someone—to fill that void.”
Cara turned the electric kettle on. “I never thought about it in that way.”
“You don’t know her. Elena, I mean,” Celeste said, her assumption spot on. “But that is not my place to say, either.”
“Is it your place to be here?”
The older woman didn’t even hesitate. “No.”
“Yet here you are.”
“Here I am, Cara.” Celeste smiled wider. “Now, tell me about my first grandbaby.”
Cara stared at the tubs of ice cream in the store’s freezer, trying to decide which flavor—or rather, favors—she wanted to buy. Shrugging, she pulled several mini tubs out and dropped them into her cart. If she couldn’t decide on just one flavor, then she would try them all.
Winning, Cara thought.
Pregnancy was no fucking joke.
Neither were the late-night cravings.
“Is that one any good, do you know?”
The question came from Cara’s left. She had been so involved in her task of getting the last, but most important, thing on her grocery list, she hadn’t been paying attention to her surroundings.
Cara found the woman who the voice belonged to, and damn near tripped over her own two feet. Elena Guzzi.
Elena stood only an inch taller than Cara, but that was probably because of the sky-high heels the woman had on her feet. She certainly didn’t look dressed to be grocery shopping in a black knee-high, pencil skirt dress with a beige trench coat overtop. Her makeup was flawless—impeccable, with nothing over or under done. Even her blonde hair laid straight down her back, and not one stray hair was out of place.
She was beautiful.
Perfect, even.
Yet, cold in her eyes.
Cara recognized her instantly, but Elena looked at her as though she didn’t have the first clue in the world who she was.
“I-I’m sorry?” Cara managed to ask, finally coming out of her shock.
Elena leaned over Cara’s cart, balancing her basket with nothing but wine inside, on her hip. “That one right there—the peanut butter one. Is it any good?”
“That one is, but I don’t know about the rest.”
“Oh, good. I like peanut butter.” Elena moved around Cara’s cart, seemingly unaware that she was being watched like a bug under a microscope. “Although I don’t think I have the same excuse as you do to be snacking on these, do I?”
“Pardon?”
Elena pointed at Cara’s stomach peeking out beneath her opened jacket. “How far along, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Oh, God.
Cara did not want to be having this conversation with her lover’s wife, especially considering the woman didn’t seem to know who in the hell she was. Didn’t that make it even more wrong on some level?
She was going to hell.
“Twenty-nine weeks in a couple of days,” Cara said quietly.
“Almost there, then. Boy or girl?”
“Boy.”
Elena smiled, but Cara couldn’t help but notice how it didn’t feel true. It certainly looked warm enough, but the iciness in Elena’s gaze was hard to hide. Cara wondered if that was just a part of who Elena was inside her soul—perpetually cold, always distant.
Cara didn’t have any right to speculate on those things, anyway.
“Have you thought of any names?” Elena asked as she put a couple of tubs of the ice cream in her basket.
“Um, his father likes Marcus. A family thing, I guess. I haven’t said yes or no to it.”
Cara’s awkward tone did not go unnoticed.
Elena shot her with an apologetic look. “Oh, my gosh. I’m so sorry. You probably think I’m a creep or something, randomly questioning a stranger in a grocery store about her pregnancy. Don’t mind me, really. Babies just make me curious, and so does pregnancy.”
Cara knew better than to ask, and she should have just taken the chance to get out of the conversation while she had it, but she didn’t. “Why is that?”
“I lost a baby, nearly four years ago, shortly after I married my husband. We haven’t been able to … well, you know.”
Guilt and shame compounded hard in Cara
’s chest, squeezing the fucking life out of her heart.
“I’m sorry,” Cara said lamely.
What else could she say?
I’m sorry your husband knocked me up?
Elena smiled widely at her, as though her admission meant nothing, and neither did Cara’s apologies. “Well, enjoy your ice cream, and have a great day.”
“You, too.”
Cara watched Elena disappear down the aisle. It was the strangest, most random interaction of her life.
Worse, was the fact Cara didn’t even know if it was random.
Cara balanced the four bags of groceries in her one hand and arm as she tried to get the main doors to her apartment building open. She felt his presence slide in beside her before he even spoke. He slipped the bags from her grasp easily, and his sweet kiss landed on her cheek without a word.
An arm slid around her waist, and Cara’s body reacted as though heaven had just come to wrap around her soul. She leaned into Gian’s embrace as he kissed her cheek once more.
“What did I tell you, mon ange?” Familiar, comforting dark eyes looked her over, before moving onto the contents of her grocery bags. “Come on, tell me.”
“About what?”
“When you need something, Cara.”
“Gian, I am not getting someone to grab my groceries. I can handle it—”
“Then take someone with you to help you carry all this shit, love.”
Cara shrugged. “You showed up. All is well.”
Gian sighed, and gave her a quick kiss on her forehead. Cara smiled, and managed to get the main doors open at the same time. Quickly, the two slid into the building, and Gian led the way. His arm stayed firmly tucked around Cara’s waist, his palm hidden under her jacket, resting flat to her swelled stomach.
“I didn’t expect you so soon,” she said as they climbed the one stairwell to her floor.
“I should have come sooner,” he replied. “Things got in the way.”
“Like what?”
“Life,” Gian said roughly, “and nothing that matters, to be honest.”
Once the two were safely hidden away in Cara’s apartment, she stood back and let Gian put all the groceries away. He never missed a beat, sliding things into cupboards as though he had lived there for as many years as she had. He really did pay attention, and he didn’t forget things.
At least, not where she was concerned.
“I want to apologize for something,” Gian said, his voice muffled by the freezer as he shoved in the mini ice cream tubs.
“What’s that?”
“My mother showing up here the other night.”
Cara’s tension released in a laugh. “She’s a wonderful, interesting woman.”
“Wonderfully interesting is one way to put it.” Gian closed the freezer door, and looked back at Cara. “Still, you shouldn’t have been put in that position. I should have told her first, and then—”
“You’re right, you should have.”
Gian nodded. “She let me know that. Repeatedly.”
“I like her.”
“She likes you,” he replied with a smirk. “I knew she would, it was just everything else that I didn’t know about, I suppose.”
Everything else, like his wife.
Cara thought to tell Gian then and there that she had run into Elena, but only decided against it because what would be the point? His wife clearly hadn’t recognized her, and she hadn’t done anything wrong or rude. If anything, wasn’t Cara the one in the wrong, just by being pregnant with Elena’s husband’s child?
The meeting was random. Nothing more, nothing less.
Cara did have other questions, though.
Things she wanted to know.
“Gian?”
“Yes, amore?”
“Why did you marry her? Why her, Gian?”
“Why her, Gian?”
Gian tensed at the question, but only because he knew there would be no one, easy answer. It was several events, mixed-messages, and dumb feelings that had led him into the mistake of marriage with Elena. A sense of duty.
When he stayed silent, mulling over his reply, Cara took a seat at the table. “So, you’re not going to tell me?”
Gian meet her gaze, unashamed. “Of course, I’ll tell you. It’s just not an easy question.”
“You’ve asked me before, if I wanted to talk about her or the marriage. What is so different this time? Because I asked?”
“Because I wasn’t expecting it. Because back then, I was prepared to explain and knew how to say things. When you spring it on me, I don’t have time to consider ways to wall myself off from shit I don’t like to feel.”
Honesty was the best policy.
Gian had learned his lesson about lying.
Cara played with the tablecloth as Gian got one of the mini tubs of ice cream from the freezer, and then spoons from the drawer. He pulled a chair out from the table, and set it opposite to Cara, so the two were facing one another.
“Wine would probably be better for this conversation,” Gian said with a smirk, “but since you can’t drink, neither will I, and the ice cream will have to do.”
“It’s that bad for you that you need wine?”
“Whiskey, preferably. Even beer wouldn’t be enough.” Gian shook the ice cream container. “And today, it’s ice cream only.”
“So, why her?”
Gian handed Cara a spoon, and used his own to pull through the top of the ice cream. He stared at the rolled-up treat on the tip of the spoon, considering whether or not he wanted a bite before he spoke. His mouth worked first.
“I met Elena Canali shortly after her twenty-second birthday, at a restaurant, actually. We married when she was twenty-three. Just a random pass by, she was at one table alone, and I was at another with a date, of sorts. I recognized her, but only because we had previous run-ins with her father. Gabriel is a boss of another organization—one not entirely like ours, less controlled, but still Italian-based. Not that it matters.”
“Then get to what does,” Cara urged.
Gian sucked the ice cream off his spoon, then waved it at Cara. “I’m picking out important details. Think, stuff I overlooked, or should have paid more attention to. Things like a boss’s daughter being alone, without any sort of watcher or protection.”
Cara frowned. “All right.”
“She was exceptionally beautiful, and it’s one of the first things someone notices about her, even from afar. I was not an exception to that rule. She kept looking over at me, ignoring the fact I was with a woman at my table, and I caught her staring a few times. It made me curious.”
Cara took a bite of the ice cream, too. “She is beautiful, but cold, too. Even in your wedding pictures, I could see it. It’s strange.”
“It’s not strange if you know her,” Gian murmured. “Back to my story, though. I let my date go early; my mother had set it up, and back then, I didn’t mind playing into Celeste’s meddling from time to time, but nothing was coming from that.”
Gian shrugged. “Anyway, she left, and I asked for the bill. The waiter hadn’t even brought it over before Elena approached me. By the time he did get there, we were already five minutes into a conversation about who was going to run for mayor that year in the city, as the Ford family seemed like loose cannons, which teams had the best shot at the Stanley Cup, and some movie she wanted to see that was coming out.”
“Oh?”
“I offered to take her to see it,” Gian said dryly. “Call that a first date, I guess.”
Cara took a huge scoop of the ice cream. “And then what happened?”
“I mean, you could say we started dating, but it wasn’t like that really, and it was clouded by all sorts of other shit going on.”
“Like what?”
“Elena’s father was in the midst of a street war with a gang, so I had to be careful about my involvement with her seeming … to their side of things and making it appear like the Guzzi family would get involved.
Petty street wars aren’t worth much except a growing body count, and the Guzzi family doesn’t get mixed up in those sorts of things unless it’ll benefit us in some way.”
“Details again?” Cara asked.
Gian laughed. “Sort of. I thought I was the one being careful, taking her out occasionally, or having her stay over at my place, but never hers. She didn’t meet my family or friends, and I didn’t meet hers. It turned out, she was the one being careful. Elena didn’t want her father to know about me, or that she was messing around with me—that’s the best way to describe what it was, anyway.”
“But you liked her?”
“Well enough,” Gian answered, choosing his words carefully. “I liked what she gave me, the pieces of her on the surface, because she never went beyond that. I liked how she was attentive to me, only. Especially when we were together, other people didn’t exist to her. She doted on the stupid male side of a man’s brain that feeds off being the man, you know what I mean?”
Cara shrugged, but said nothing.
“Elena works best when she controls a situation, no matter what that situation might entail. And she does that with men, specifically, because she knows she is beautiful, and she knows that using her sexuality and her sweetness is disarming to men who aren’t looking for her manipulations. They are unprepared for the attack, for the gut-punch or the knife in their back when they turn away. She makes you trust her, because why would she want to hurt you, this person she so clearly adores? And then she strikes.”
“Huh,” Cara said quietly, frowning.
“I know, I jumped ahead a bit in explaining that. It’ll make sense in a second.”
“Go for it.”
Gian took a deep breath, and another bite of ice cream, letting the chocolate and peanut-butter flavors wash over his palate before he spoke again. “We had been doing our thing for a few months or so, when she came up pregnant.”
Cara stiffened.
Gian didn’t miss it.
“Or so she said,” he added, knowing it wouldn’t make a difference. The words were out there, and they hurt to know. “I had no reason not to believe her, or to think, if she was pregnant, the child might not be mine. Things moved very fast from that point—her father was suddenly involved, and all the things people heard or whispered about that man were right in front of my eyes and very true. He’s dangerous and he’s volatile. He’s manipulative and evil. But aren’t we all, in some way?”