Aunt Arianna guided her onto the terrace, where a striking woman stood alone. Her eyes were a bluish green which provided a vivid contrast to her tanned olive skin and chestnut hair.
“You must be Lita,” she said in an engaging voice. “I’m Ornela.”
Lita nodded. A clatter of plates caused Aunt Arianna to excuse herself.
“I wished to meet you under different circumstances, but…” She shrugged. Her laugh made Lita nervous.
Lita frowned slightly. “Nice to meet you, but…” Lita turned to go inside.
“Oh, you mustn’t go yet. My son would want me to send his regards. You must remember Aldo.”
Lita crossed her arms, hugging herself. She didn’t want to remember Aldo. “I have nothing to say to him.” Lita turned to leave.
Ornela grabbed her arm. “You broke my son. He loved you.” She shook her head. Her tiny, dangly earrings shimmered.
Lita’s throat choked. Sweat prickled her neck. “He cheated on me. That’s not love.”
“Prude.” Her hand remained on Lita’s arm, cold and sickening.
“Lita.” Lorenzo’s footsteps clicked on the patio and stopped. “Ornela.” His voice chilled.
“Lorenzo, so lovely to see you again.” She kissed his cheeks.
Lita gripped her arms tighter. How did Lorenzo know this woman? Lita’s stomach turned. It was bad enough, remembering her last boyfriend, Aldo, and how he’d cheated on her, told her she wasn’t a real woman, told her she’d never be enough for any man until she grew up. She’d first gotten together with him because he’d reminded her of Lorenzo. Then she’d started to care…But he wasn’t who she’d thought he was. She rubbed her arm.
“I wished to meet your wife. I’ve heard so much about her,” Ornela said.
Lita stared at Lorenzo, willing him to shut Ornela up.
“Are you okay?” Lorenzo asked Lita. He put his hand where Ornela’s had been.
Lita shrugged his touch away. “How do you know Ornela?” she said. She gripped her throat to stop her bitchy tone. He said nothing.
“I should leave you to comfort your wife,” Ornela said. “He can be a great consolation when one is in need. Though only in the bedroom, it appears.”
Lita fisted her hands and her eye twitched. She closed her eyes. Another one of Lorenzo’s women? And she was acting like more of a jealous bitch than even Lita had on the plane. Lita bit her tongue to keep from screaming.
“Shut up, you bitch,” Lorenzo said.
Lita’s eyes shot open. He advanced on Ornela and grabbed her arm.
Ornela laughed. “You have offended your sweet wife. She doesn’t like such talk. It seems even I know her better than you do.”
“Shut up.” The sickening, stinging feeling bubbled up into anger, the capped explosiveness of a shaken soda bottle.
Lorenzo threw Ornela’s arm away from him and faced Lita. Ornela’s words tracked though her mind on repeat: “only in the bedroom, only in the bedroom, only in the bedroom…”. She couldn’t stand here in the same space as Lorenzo and some woman he’d screwed. She shook her head. She ran, pushed through the groups, and stumbled down the front steps into the shadowed, strange street, Ornela’s laughter pursuing her. Footsteps pounded in an unsteady rhythm over the cobbled street. Lorenzo caught her, pulled her into his chest. Their breathing panted, their heartbeats drummed in her ears. She hit his chest with her fist.
“Why?” she whispered. “I want to go home.”
He led her to the car and shut her in. She pulled her knees to her chest and buried her head in the folds of her dress. The car hummed to life and Lorenzo drove the windy road back to the villa. Not home, but it was all she had in that moment. When the car rolled to a stop, Lita glanced up and uncurled herself.
“I feel dirty somehow. I don’t like it.” She reached for the door handle.
“No.” Lorenzo gripped the steering wheel.
Lita laughed. It sounded as bitter as the taste in her mouth. “Ornela? When did you sleep with her?”
“Last time I came here—before we kissed.”
The last time Lorenzo had visited…When she’d wanted, needed him to comfort her after months of being alone, grieving for her father, managing his estate…Lorenzo was off having sex with Aldo’s mother. Bitterness seared her throat.
“I needed you.”
“You have me now.”
She glanced at him. A sob choked her. She felt the irrationality of her thoughts, her anger, but she couldn’t understand why, she couldn’t seem to stop it. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Come inside,” he said. He got out and led her into the darkened house.
Chapter Twelve
The room was hazy. He embraced her. She gripped his shirt, rumpled it in her desperation to draw him closer. He tightened his hold until her breathing joined his, their hearts beating in time. A breeze whispered across the floor, the sea shushed like a mother comforting a crying child.
“She was just another woman. She didn’t mean anything to me.”
Lita pushed on his chest. She cringed, as if he’d struck her. Lorenzo caressed her back.
“You must’ve meant something to her. Spiteful bitch,” Lita whispered.
“Right. So don’t let her get to you.” Lorenzo kissed her forehead. She trembled slightly, her skin chilled. He rubbed her arms, smooth as the angel statue in Uncle Enzo’s foyer.
“I went out with her son for awhile.” She fiddled with the buttons on his shirt.
Lorenzo blew out a breath, trying to push out the hot wisp of jealousy. Lita was his. He hadn’t realized Ornela was that vindictive. He hoped none of the other women he’d had sex with were. Lita shouldn’t have to suffer for his indiscretions.
“It didn’t end well?” Lorenzo led Lita to the sofa, pulling her down next to him. He held her against him.
Lita sighed into his chest. He fingered her hair, slightly moist from the misty air they’d been out in.
“No. He cheated on me.” Her voice was muffled in his shirt.
He tightened his grip on her. He swallowed. Lee had told him about this Aldo guy, but not that he’d cheated on Lita. Maybe even Lee didn’t know that. From Lee’s description, Aldo sounded a lot like him, a player, a charmer. Lee’d been happy when Lita had broken it off. Maybe that experience made Lita insecure, wondering if he’d cheat on her too.
“Why did you say you felt dirty? My past has nothing to do with you.”
“I don’t know. I guess not dirty...” She snuggled closer to him. He stroked her hair. “Aldo, and most of the guys I dated, used to tell me I wasn’t woman enough. Sometimes I feel like they’re right.”
“They’re not.” Unpleasant heat seared him. Assholes, telling her that bullshit. They’d just wanted to shame her into sex. He turned and cupped Lita’s chin, forcing her to look at him. She darted her eyes. “Look at me, kitten.”
Lorenzo fingered her rings. He didn’t know how to be married. But he loved Lita. That was a start.
She met his gaze. “I don’t want to talk about him, or any other man.”
“Good. We’re talking about you. Do you trust me?” She nodded. “You’re a beautiful, kind, sweet, sexy woman. The only woman I want.”
“But…” Lita exhaled. Tears shimmered in her eyes. “I want to believe you. I want to believe I’m enough for you. But you’ve had so many women…I’m not…”
“You’re everything. Those women are in my past.” He fingered the heart necklace he’d given her. “This is yours. My heart is yours.” More than his heart—Lita had him, body, mind, heart, and soul. She consumed him…He prayed his past wouldn’t burn them both. He vowed again he wasn’t going to be like his father—cheating, lying, hurting.
She gazed up at him, brushed his lips with her warm fingertips. He kissed her with a gentle caress.
“Make me forget,” she said.
She slid her hands onto his back. He frowned slightly. She fused herself to his chest and kissed him. His head tingled with knowing. She want
ed to forget his past, she wanted to forget her insecurities.
“Make me forget,” she whispered again.
He studied her. He grew slightly nauseous with the weight of what she asked, the responsibility he felt for her, her happiness, her security, her love. A sacred trust. He shut his eyes. He kissed her, slowly, softly. He lifted her into his arms and she rested on him, transferred the weight of herself, her hurt, to him.
He walked upstairs, entered the bedroom and eased her down. She stood near him. He quickly peeled off his clothes. Hers he removed with the careful pace you would a fragile package from its outer box. He kissed her cheeks, touched each blessed inch of her. His hands trembled like those of a devout pilgrim who has uncovered a holy relic.
She sighed, her relief released into the air. He led her by her hand to the bed. She waited, her body nestled across the bed. Her curves shimmered in the moon glow. He hovered over her, now invincible, two celestial creatures experiencing the pleasures of the earth. He closed his eyes. He would help her see herself as he saw her. He’d try, even though he knew in the end she’d have to believe it for herself. Just like she couldn’t take away his fear, he couldn’t take away hers. But he’d damn well give her every experience of being loved and cherished that he could.
Her eyes sparkled with trust and love. This woman—this sweet, innocent, beautiful woman—gave herself completely to him. She’d given him courage to change. Now he’d give her security. Invisible wings lifted him then brought him to her in a complete embrace. He filled her, but she possessed him, illuminated every dark corner in him with her light. He radiated warmth and love for her, because of her. Her breath was hot on his neck. She tightened around him, flowed into him as he did her.
He closed his eyes again. His love for her flooded in him. He felt like he was drowning. Frantically, he went deeper in her. He grunted as his skin smacked against hers, her tiny delicate body. No, not rough like this with her, not now. She whimpered and he shook away the fear, the sinking feeling. He forced himself to stare into her eyes. A brief flicker of pain before the sparkle returned. She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him, kissed him until he relaxed into her, complete and spent.
They held each other while the night dimmed the room by degrees, yet his eyes adjusted every time. His heart still beat in an irregular, rapid rhythm. Heavy against him, Lita relaxed and tickled her fingers over his chest. He may have helped her forget, but their making love caused him to know too much.
His temples throbbed with his mind’s efforts to discern the truth. He frowned. They were together. He wasn’t going to be like his father. He wasn’t. Or maybe that was only a beautiful, treacherous lie luring him, lulling him into complacency so his base self could corrupt Lita without the tiny shard of goodness in him knowing. He blew out a breath, pushed out the thoughts. None of it mattered, only Lita mattered. This was their honeymoon, what they’d waited for.
She cuddled her head into his neck, like the golden retriever puppy Uncle Enzo and Aunt Angela had given him for his seventh birthday. Bile rose up in his chest. The puppy he’d found lifeless on the burgundy living room rug, blood sticky on its silky fur, so much blood from an almost undetectable hole in its head.
His father’s voice reverberated. “You’ll never escape who you are, my son.” First said, the first time of many, while he oiled the shaft of his small handgun.
Lorenzo sat up and thumped off the bed. “I’ll be right back.”
“Okay.” Lita’s voice was tinged with disappointment.
He trudged into the bathroom. He stared at himself in the mirror. A tiny patch of light from the window reflected next to his image. His father’s eyes. In every other way, he looked like Uncle Enzo, except his eyes. People called them the windows to the soul. His stomach clenched. Then his soul was black, vacant, a hollow shell always grasping, taking innocence and beauty in a vain effort to assuage its hunger. He gripped the counter.
“‘Don’t you forget about me,’” Lita sang, giggling at her rendition of the Tears for Fears song.
He tensed as he struggled to push the feelings back into their lockbox. But he risked trapping love and kindness there too. He stretched and shrugged as he reentered the bedroom. Lita smiled, her teeth flashed in the grey light.
“I’m thirsty,” he said. “Would you like something? Maybe a cherry soda?”
“If you want,” she said. “Do you want me to come down with you?”
“You relax. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
He pulled on lightweight pajama bottoms and trotted downstairs. He went into the kitchen and picked up the phone. Ringing, once, twice… seven times. He tried the restaurant.
“Sal’s.” It was Sal. Thank God.
“It’s Lorenzo.”
“Hang on.” Muffled directions, probably he’d interrupted dinner preparations, but they wouldn’t be open yet. “Something happen?”
“He’s in me. I can’t seem to stop it. Everyone’s been right and Lita’s too good for me. I never should have broken down. I should have kept to what I said and stayed away from her.”
“It’s too late for that now. You just got married,” Sal said.
“I’ll hurt her.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing really. I just see him there, sometimes I hear him in my head,” Lorenzo said in a gruff whisper.
“Lorenzo, you are not your father. Lita is not like your mother.”
“But—”
“No, I know there are similarities, but you have to look past that. All the circumstances are different. You and Lita are your own people. Most importantly, you and Lita love each other with your whole hearts. Am I right?”
“Yes.” God help him, if He existed.
“You must know your mother never loved your father completely and he knew it. How do you think that was for him? It must have eaten away at him, as the cancer did his body. I don’t excuse him, but I’ve been thinking a lot lately, and I see now how that must have been for him. I believe he did love her, in his way, but especially for a man as possessive as he was, it must have destroyed him, knowing your mother was loyal, but there was always a part of her he could never have. Then, when you started growing up, he must have looked on you as another rival for your mother’s love, known she loved you more than him. Maybe I’m wrong, what do you think?”
“I…I never thought about it.” Sal was right about his father. The man couldn’t stand to share anything, anyone. That wasn’t love. But Sal couldn’t know the whole truth, the reality of his childhood.
“I’m sorry,” Sal said. “We all should have done more…”
“No, you all had your own families. You’re probably right. This is different.” It didn’t change the feeling, the empty crevice in his stomach.
“What do you want, son? What do you want most in the world?”
“Lita.”
“That’s simple. So go back to her, right now. She loves you, there’s no reason you can’t work this out, is there?”
“No. Thanks.”
This man should have been his father. Is that how his children would feel—would they wish for a different dad, maybe Joey or Michael?
“Take care. Take care of your wife.”
Lorenzo hung up. His hands felt the icy cold of the glass soda water bottle, the cool metal of the spoon he used to mix in the cherry Torani syrup, but inside he dulled, retreated from the uncomfortable emotions. He gripped the two tall glasses in his hands and walked upstairs.
He smiled at the sight of her, reclined in their bed, her arms stretched overhead. She invited him in. He accepted and remembered all he’d promised himself they would do. Flower petals on the bed, champagne and strawberries waiting. The two of them on the yacht, the waves rocking as their bodies twisted together. Lying on the beach, caressing, kissing, warmed by each other and the sun. Swimming in the clear water, swirling together like sea grass. Days and nights spent only with each other, exploring every centimeter of her until he knew
her better than he knew himself.
Their scents mingled, merging into a new fragrance. He gave in to the intoxication, the blur. Lita caressed him, sighed underneath him. Nothing else mattered.
Chapter Thirteen
Lita slid her feet to the floor. She wiggled her toes on the lush blue carpet of their room at home. Home. She smiled. They’d been home for a week. Remembering the bad times in her life, the attempted rape, the fear and loneliness, her failed relationships, the insecurity she felt about sex, especially when confronted with Lorenzo’s past, had almost made her want to close herself off, but their honeymoon, Lorenzo’s romantic gestures, his encompassing love, had opened her.
She was grateful for so much, even this room, where she and Lorenzo had made love every night, christening the bed, the sofa chairs, the shower in their new bathroom, the huge closet, and the spot in front of the fireplace, with their love. Yet, almost every night, Lorenzo was late from work, even though he’d said he wouldn’t be. He did like to work. Now they were home, he probably felt compelled to get back to his routines.
Except, every time Lorenzo was late, Lita recalled Lee’s words, about the designers and other women Lorenzo tried to hire. She’d thought so much about it…She’d searched the web and found year-old articles from the society section of the paper about Lorenzo and some of the women Lee must’ve been talking about. Beautiful blondes, accomplished in their professions, modern and sophisticated. Lita flopped back on the bed. Lorenzo loved her. Twisting her rings, she rose and walked to the bathroom.
***
That afternoon, Lita and Lorenzo said goodbye to Uncle Enzo. He was leaving early for Vincente and Gina’s wedding. Celeste was already there, helping Gina.
“We better get ready,” Lita said. “We don’t want to miss the wedding.”
Lorenzo followed Lita upstairs, grabbing her from behind as they reached the top. She shrieked but laughed as she broke away and ran into their room. She fell onto the bed and Lorenzo jumped on her, but not really because he never put his full weight on her. He chuckled when she smiled at him.
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