There Are No Words (The Morelli Sisters #3)

Chapter Eighteen

Allegra

Maria: Pedro wants to meet Isabella.

Bianca: What do you want?

Allegra: That’s sort of ballsy of him. What, did he just come right out and say it?

Perla: That’s your call. Pedro doesn’t really get a say.

Maria: I don’t know. I think it’s too soon.

Allegra: I always knew you two wouldn’t last.

Maria: I didn’t say that.

Bianca: Rereading the text. . . . Yep, Maria definitely did not say that.

Perla: She might as well have. Read between the lines, Bibi.

Bianca: Whatever. I think Maria should be able to do what she wants. Did you know Knox thinks I have too many shoes? He says I need to part with some of them. Well, I don’t want to.

Allegra: Oof, that’s rough. Guess you’ll have to say goodbye to them.

Bianca: Nah. Last night we made love, and I wore nothing but a pair of my heels. You know the black ones with the cute, oversized bows in the back? He thought it was hot.

Perla: So naturally that’s the answer.

Maria: I don’t follow. So now that you’ll make love in the heels, you don’t have to part with them?

Bianca: Bingo!

Maria: I don’t get you two.

Bianca: The point: he’s making more room for my shoes. Says I should be happy.

Allegra: Something tells me this is about him being happy, but fine.

Maria: Anyway, how’s the pregnancy? And Brady?

Allegra: Baby is doing just fine. Meanwhile, Brady still wants to be with me.

Perla: So no news there.

Maria: You know he’s not going to let this go. He likes you. Seems like a non-issue.

Bianca: You’re standing in your own way, Allie. If you ask me, you should ignore that little voice in your head telling you it’s not a good idea.

Allegra: Sure, so I’ll do that and be happy, blissfully so probably. For ten seconds. Then he’ll realize he made a big mistake, and I’ll be alone. Again.

Perla: Seems like you’ve got nothing to lose.

Maria: Oooh, Perla! What did you do, have an extra shot of sass in your coffee this morning?

Perla: Sorry. It’s just that Frankie’s going to be gone again this weekend. He’s working a wedding weekend in Croatia.

Maria: You can come over and hang out with me on Saturday. Dom is taking Isabella to an ice-skating birthday party for one of her friends.

Bianca: Sounds fun, so why aren’t you going with them?

Maria: Dom has been on location for a modeling campaign, so he missed Isabella and asked to have some time with her.

Perla: Sold! I’d love to come over.

Allegra: Any thoughts on what to do about Brady?

Bianca: Yeah, go on a date with the guy!

Maria: I hate to say this, but I agree with Bibi. You want to, and you should.

Allegra: What I want is to jump his bones. Then go out on a date. Then jump his bones again. Anyway, I’m literally waiting for Veronica to give me a tarot card reading right now. Maybe my answers will be in the cards.

Perla: Maybe. It could tell you being with Brady is a great idea.

Allegra: Or it will tell me what I already know, which is how it’s a bad idea.

Bianca: You’re already having a baby with him. You two are always going to be in each other’s lives, and if you don’t see if you two can go anywhere now, you’re always going to wonder.

Allegra: The problem is, I know we can. I just don’t know how long it will last.

Maria: No one knows that. You just have to take a chance.

Perla: Pot meet kettle.

Bianca: She’s referring to Dom, by the way.

Maria: I got that. You guys are not subtle.

Allegra: Got to run. It looks like it’s my turn. Bye!

“Allie,” Veronica said, calling me to the back. “I’m ready for you now.”

We sat down at the old wooden table, her tarot cards stacked to one side. “We’re doing a tarot card reading today, right?”

I nodded. “Please.”

“Then let’s begin.” Veronica pushed her hair back and put her glasses on, her bracelets clacking with each motion.

She shuffled the cards and spread all seventy-eight of them out on the table before me. I leaned forward and watched Veronica as she let her intuition guide her, pulling and flipping over three cards, each one in turn.

I’d done this enough times to know she chose three with the intention of me gaining insight into my past, present, and future. Which I needed. Now more than ever.

And with my new situation, I believed the selected cards would be relevant to the here and now.

I looked at the cards as she tapped the first one. “Your origin card,” she started and closed her eyes, letting her finger trace the edge of it. “The Two of Swords. You’ve been confused or indecisive recently. You have a decision to make that is scary or difficult.”

I nodded, seeing the truth in it. “My baby’s father wants us to be a couple,” I confessed.

She turned her attention to the middle card. The Fool. I already knew what that meant. I’d had it drawn before. “The Fool. New beginnings lie ahead,” she said and smiled, looking at my belly and nodding. Then she tapped the third card in the line up, the trajectory card, which was always a bit of a suggestion. “This one is the Ace of Cups,” she said, reading it. “There’s huge potential within you, and you have this sort of emotional energy, maybe a deep romantic connection, and you need to decide where you want to put it.”

I sat back and sighed. “Exactly what I’d feared.”

Veronica wiggled her fingers, looking for me to take her hands. “Allie, my dear, you hold within you all the answers. What you need to decide is what’s right for you and your baby girl.”

Gasping, I covered my mouth with a hand. “How’d you know?”

“Why, the Ace of Cups,” she said and winked. “And you’re carrying your baby weight like only a woman pregnant with a girl does.”

Laughing, I stood up. “Thank you. I think I took up enough of your time. I appreciate you squeezing me in like this.”

“Are you going back to the office?”

“I am,” I said and hung my purse strap from my shoulder. “Really, Veronica, thank you. I have a lot to think about.”

She followed me out as she agreed, saying, “That you do.”

I grabbed a taxi to the Bellissima office and the whole drive over, all I could do was think about my reading. I had been confused lately. Brady was making me confused. All his talk of wanting to be together and carrying his baby, I was a mess and not sure what I wanted anymore. I mean, I knew I wanted Brady, but enough to let go? To let go of all my fears that we weren’t compatible?

I didn’t want history to repeat itself. If I hadn’t been down this road before, then it’d be one thing, but I had, and the scars (though not physical) may as well have been those from a four-hundred degree oven. I was afraid to go there again.

And every time I thought about it, my mind reeled with the same thoughts it always had:

Things never worked out.

Men grew tired of me.

They grew tired of my fascination with astrology, zodiacs, and things like tarot card readings.

I felt like I was always given options—change who I was or wind up alone.

I supposed by not wanting to change, I chose the latter by default.

I mean, I always had the option of hiding myself from them. But that seemed stupid and, quite frankly, pointless. So I supposed lately I’d preferred to make the decision for them and just not let them in to start with.

That’d been exactly what I’d done with Brady.

But what if I was right? What if he grew bored of me? Or hated me?

What would that do to our daughter?

What would that do to me?

If I never took a chance, though, what then, I wondered. Wouldn’t that be worse? Maybe I’d been so fixated on my fears and stuck on my past relationship fails that I hadn’t considered the new beginnings that awaited me. Irony that it was, the middle card was more appropriate than I even realized because, in this scenario, I thought I might’ve been a fool.

So, if I gave myself to Brady the way he was asking, could there be huge potential there like the third card suggested? And I wasn’t just thinking potential for heartbreak, but for a real connection. All I had to do was give my energy to that.

Could I do it? Could I succumb to Brady and see where things went, to embrace our present and future and let go of my past?

And if so, how in the hell was I going to do that? Because there was no way he was going to just believe me when I told him I suddenly changed my mind when I was hell-bent against it for so long.