Sighing, I lean against the doorframe of their shared room. One side is painted pink, the other plum. Even if color didn’t separate it, you would be able to tell which side belonged to which girl. I thought they would have grown out of wanting to share a room, but they haven’t.
I watch them sleep, like the beautiful angels they are. Beautiful, protected angels who I will make sure no one ever ruins ever.
I glance at the windows and see they are locked, but I already know they are. We checked them together, all three of us. No one will sneak in here and put thoughts in their heads they shouldn’t have.
The nightlight is glowing a soft yellow, so when they wake in the night, they will see no one is standing at the end of their bed, watching them. Plus, the security system that was installed by my cousin Cyrus is said to be unbreakable. I have tested that theory … several times.
Every night, every single night for all these years, I have slept like shit because the man who was there, even when he wasn’t visible, who always protected me, is now gone. He’s gone when he should be protecting what our love created.
I hate him for it.
Pushing myself off the doorjamb, I sigh as I pull my hair up into a messy ponytail and slide the elastic band from my wrist to tie it. Then I walk into their room one last time to kiss their foreheads and glance around before walking out the door, locking it behind me, knowing they are safe, sleeping, and protected by me, their mother.
Walking down the down the stairs, I see the picture of him proudly displayed on the same walls that pictures of our girls hang. He may have betrayed me, them, us, but I would never let them know I felt that way. I want them to know that the man who was their father was good and strong, and would have loved them had he not been killed the night he slayed the dragon.
Walking into my room, I move past the bed, open the doors to the balcony, and look up at the stars. Using my finger, I outline the constellation of Orion as he shines down over us, reminding me of Franco.
Nine Years Ago…
Waking to the empty bed, I stretch and take in the scent of him, of me, of us, of passion and sex and lust and want and need.
My body is sore, deliciously so. My insides ache, not only from the all-night love making session we shared, but the need for him to fill me again.
Hearing the water in the bathroom running, I force myself out of the bed and make my way into the bathroom. The glass shower door is fogged over, as is the mirror. I open the door to find it empty.
“Franco.” I laugh as I yell out his name, knowing he has done this to toy with me, because I tricked him in the same way.
I grab the white terrycloth hotel robe and wrap it over my body as I walk out of the bedroom and into the suite.
Seeing Aunt Joe at the table, with her husband Thomas standing beside her with his hand on her shoulder, I look around.
“Valentina, sit please.” She pushes out the chair that is beside her.
I shake my head because, in her eyes, in her voice, in her unmistakable likeness to her mother, my grandmother, a memory is triggered. The memory of the day my parents’ plane crashed.
Unlike Grandmother, she doesn’t insist, she stands as her eyes fill with tears.
I step back when she reaches toward me.
“Dominic?” I ask while retreating.
“He’s on his way home from Italy to be with you,” she says, taking another step toward me.
“Then who?” I ask, knowing by the emptiness in the room and the one that is quickly filling my heart that the answer is Franco.
“He was shot,” she whispers, no longer allowing me to walk away as she grabs me and hugs me.
I sob, and so does she.
“He killed Benito,” she whispers repeatedly, as if to sooth me, but it doesn’t.
Today and nearly every day for the past nine years, I wish I had possessed the strength to kill him myself; kill Benito DeLuca, the man who made a desolate and worried little girl trust him by telling her that, when the rest of her family was gone, he would make sure she was all right, because Segrettis die, but DeLucas live forever. When no one else was there to ensure I was taken care of, he told me that he would, and that I would be his. Hearing that from a man after being sent away with the blessing from my everything, my brother Dominic, gave me hope … until I found myself pregnant and he denied my calls.
When my private school contacted Grandmother, she made me promise to never mention it to Dominic, to protect him by keeping the secret that would ruin him, the family, the business, and what was left of my reputation. It wasn’t until then that I found out that was why Dominic wanted me gone, because he thought I would be safe from the danger he saw, the one I took refuge in because, at that time, I was too innocent to know men like Benito existed.
I hate him. I hate him for everything he did to me, to Franco’s sister, and to my girls; my beautiful girls who don’t know the man who slayed dragons for us all—their father, my one true and beautiful love.
Walking down the hallway, I kick off my shoes. My cousins’ wives always comment on them. It starts with how beautiful they are, and then gradually becomes something along the lines of: how the hell do you wear them all day, every day? I wonder how the hell they don’t, but to each their own.
As I walk down the hall, I can’t help admiring our home. I was pregnant when I purchased the beach house. It wasn’t done without consideration of space, security, location, and privacy. In all honestly, I can thank Dominic, Aunt Joe, my cousins, and Vincent for making me truly consider all those things.
Without them, I have no idea what kind of mother I would have become.
Capitolo Due
I look down at the white shag carpet in the middle of my office, amongst the overwhelming number of unopened packages awaiting reviews and video reveals for my followers, and sigh.
The boxes, once forbidden from touching the rug, disturbing the piling, matting it, and making it appear less than perfect, made me unreasonably irritated. Now they not only touch the edges, but some are atop it.
The premiere party girl, the socialite with an unbreakable bank and thousands of followers who held her to an almost god-like esteem, would have frowned and thrown a tantrum seeing this. To be honest, it still sometimes causes my perfectionist ways to rear its impeccably made-up head, until I let realization settle in.
When my beauties were just about three, Play-Doh was their favorite form of entertainment. Aunt Joe was here with them as I worked. They had come in to bring me a pastry that they had just made with her and sat and ate them with me at my desk.
When we finished, Joe and I continued talking about where this hobby, this lifestyle blog, could go and weren’t paying attention to the fact that the girls had brought in their beloved Play-Doh and were not just playing with it in my office, but on the rug.
Do you know what Play-Doh does to a ten-thousand-dollar imported shag rug? Nothing good.