Chapter 5
Heithor really was determined to make my life difficult.
First, tormenting me with that snake.
Second, his disbelief in me.
Third, pushing Benjamin away—and I know he did that on purpose.
Calmly, I washed my hands in the kitchen sink and dried them on the dish towel. Then I turned, leaned against the cabinet, and fixed my angry gaze on the bastard.
“Why the hell did you give him time off?”
His shameless features took on a serious shadow. “I didn’t think I needed to justify giving my employees time off. He did his job. An extended break was more than deserved.”
“Yes, you don’t have to justify your reasons for giving your employees time off or not. But when that directly interferes with my life, I have the right to at least be informed in advance, don’t I?”
“I don’t see how this interferes with your life,” he said in an apologetic tone. “Unless there’s something I don’t know. Do I need to know something, Antonella?”
Was he interrogating me?
“What is your problem?”
“None. Do you have one?”
Thor advanced a step, very close. Too close. Enough for his scrutiny to throw me off, coloring my cheeks and making me nervous.
My irritation drained away a little.
“N-No… Yes… I mean, no. I do have one! If Ben is on vacation, who’s going to take me to UCLA? To classes at the school? To the sessions? Are you going to give me my car back? Or will I have to use Uber?”
“Can we eat now, please? It smells delicious.”
I looked at him, stunned.
He looked at me with accusatory horror.
“Are you going to deprive me of eating your food? You made it, right?”
“Yes… Eat whatever you want.”
Heithor joined me. I served myself, and then he served himself. In a mechanical gesture, I placed the napkin on my lap, grabbed the silverware, and poked at the food on my plate. I had decided to face the kitchen because I really wanted salmon with sautéed potatoes and wanted to make it myself.
“God, this is delicious,” he said, eating a mouthful.
I stared at him, still unsettled, annoyed, and confused.
Heithor ignored my questions with the boldest nerve.
I slid my gaze to my plate and dropped the silverware with a huff.
“What is it? Are you nauseous?”
“What is all this?”
“We’re having lunch.”
“I’m not talking about the food… Listen, are you crazy and trying to make me crazy too?”
Heithor set his fork down on the plate, wiped his mouth with the napkin, and drank from his glass. Everything so drawn out my screaming impatience nearly snapped.
Caution reflected in his expression. “Here’s the thing.
Benjamin has been providing his services to me for quite some time, and I have no complaints.
He’s a fucking good employee. I may look like an executioner and even behave like one sometimes, but I’m not an idiot.
I have always treated my employees well and pay them even better so they do the job with excellence.
Benjamin hasn’t had any time off since he started working for me.
It’s only fair to give him a few days’ rest.”
“Are you going to give me back my car?”
“No… not yet,” he said after a pause.
“What does that mean?”
“I’m at your disposal. Pietra too, if you prefer.”
If it were possible, my jaw would have joined the salmon on my plate.
“Let’s just suppose I accept this… Pietra and I have two classes at the same time.
The rest are separate and at different times.
Not to mention the fact that she has a life, you know, a boyfriend and her own things to do.
Same for you. I’m not going to be dead weight in both your lives. This is madness.”
“You won’t be dead weight, Antonella.”
“It doesn’t matter! I’ll feel that way.”
“There’s no re—”
“Let me speak, va bene? We all have a life, each of us with our own commitments. I’m not going to disrupt anyone’s life because you want to play the lunatic.
A lot of pregnant women get around by taxi, Uber, bus, subway, and even drive.
Why the hell am I, exclusively, not allowed to use any of those? ”
“There’s no reason to run risks, even small ones, when you can avoid them.”
“Seriously?”
“If my concern gives me the title of lunatic of the year, I’m fine with that.”
“Unbelievable! You are unbelievable! Why are you doing this?”
“I’m only taking care of both of your safety.”
“No, you’re not! You’re making my life difficult ever since you arrived. Do you want to see me upset? Do you want me to lose control? Will that make you feel better? I can do that. I love my baby…”
“Our,” he corrected me, going back to eating as if we weren’t in the middle of an argument.
“Our baby,” I repeated through my teeth. “I love him, but I haven’t become some Mother Teresa. If you want a scene, just say so. You don’t have to drive me crazy.”
His hardened gaze censured me.
“How can you think something like that?”
“Then stop! Stop trying to make me crazy, for God’s sake.
If you don’t want to accept that I revised my views, that I changed, I’m sorry.
Don’t think it was easy for me either. It hasn’t been easy.
I’m stressed to the point of feeling suffocated!
I don’t want to feel this way. It isn’t good for me, and much less for the baby.
” I paused, taking several breaths, and calmer, forced out the words.
“You moved on with your life, and I’m happy for you.
But don’t forget that I have a life too, and it isn’t fair for you to interfere in it this way. ”
“All this because I gave Benjamin time off?”
“Enough, do you hear me? Enough! Stop this! This has nothing to do with Benjamin, and everything to do with me and you. I have no idea why you insist on this point. But since you want to hammer on it with every word we exchange, let’s make a few things clear.
Did I hate him? Sì. Did we become friends?
Obviously! He was on my heels every holy minute of the day, and unexpectedly helped me.
So why would I keep hating someone who willingly reached out his hand when I needed it? ”
A muscle in his neck pulsed.
“Forgive me. Just don’t forget that I wanted to help you too. Actually, I tried in every way, but you never accepted my help.”
“Maybe because you always tried to shove your opinions down my throat, and never truly stopped to listen to me or even try to understand the reason behind things, huh? Maybe if you had put yourself in my shoes even once, for one minute, a lot of things would have been avoided.”
Heithor said nothing. He just stayed there, staring at me with an indecipherable look and a tight jaw.
“Listen, I’m not a child. It isn’t fair for you or P to stop your lives for mine.
Actually, I don’t even want that… Just listen, please…
P and I only have two time slots together.
Three times a week I have classes at Deborah’s school, and every other week I have a session with Gamble…
And another thing, I don’t like being trapped in the mansion.
I want to go out too. And I don’t want anyone to have to deprive themselves of doing their own things to be at my disposal.
I don’t feel good about that. Is it so hard to understand? ”
He shifted in the chair, and I waited for his answer, hopeful.
“Pietra won’t mind taking you to your appointments and the places you want to go. When she can’t, I’ll take you myself.”
“Did you even hear what I said?”
“Apparently you’re the one who didn’t hear a word I said.”
“I don’t accept this,” I objected, and he only looked at me. God, I wanted to slap his face! “At least put another one of your lackeys in Ben’s place.”
“I don’t trust anyone else.”
“You are definitely crazy and trying to make me crazy too.”
I threw the napkin on the table and stood, making my dramatic exit.
“Where are you going?”
To fucking hell!
“To my room.”
“You didn’t eat anything.”
I stared at my untouched plate, then at the bastard, and at my plate again. Too tempting to abandon. I narrowed my eyes and then took possession of my plate.
“Don’t you want to have some juice too?”
It was the middle of the night when I was awakened by hunger and my bursting bladder.
The mansion was in shadow and complete silence, allowing the calming sound of the waves to seep through the walls. It was soothing.
I had gone to sleep early, before dessert had even been served.
I hadn’t seen Heithor after our conversation, and he hadn’t appeared at dinner.
Probably, he was with her.
He should be with me, I thought, in my bed, not hers. With her.
What killed me most was knowing that everything could have been different if I hadn’t sabotaged myself. Stupidity should have been my middle name.
In the kitchen, I sat around the island with a generous piece of pistachio cake.
Between one forkful and another, I licked the frosting from my fingers.
I stood to get the bottle of milk. I filled the glass, took a sip, and decided it would be better to warm it in the microwave, then returned to my place.
I was about to sit at the same time I lifted the glass to my mouth…
I caught sight of a shadow at the other end of the kitchen.
“Dio Santo!”
Everything happened at once… My scream, the glass falling to the floor, scattering shards and milk everywhere, while I brought a hand to my chest.
Frozen to the bone.
“Forgive me. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Thor’s voice infiltrating my horror should have made my heart slow down. It should have. The thing was, as he spoke, he turned up the light… and my heart beat even harder.
Thor wore black sweatpants and a white tank top. His hair was messy, the way I remembered it looked when he woke up. His feet bare.
The domestic image made me very aware of him, of the sudden desire hissing inside me like a fire burning slowly.
My gaze drank him in appreciatively upward, and then I blushed violently. Caught in the act. I swallowed hard, licking my lips, nervous. I looked away, but not before catching the faint gleam of satisfaction in his intense eyes. There was curiosity too.
I cleared my throat.
“No… It’s okay.”
“Insomnia?”
“Sometimes I get hungry in the middle of the night.”
“Craving?”
“Just hunger. You?”
“I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to come down and drink some water.”
I swept my gaze over the floor, registering the extent of the damage.
“You’ll have to put on some slippers, unless you’re not in a hurry and wait until I clean up the mess.”
“What?”
“There are glass shards scattered across the floor.”
“I can help you.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Right, right. I’ll wait right here.”
I fetched a dustpan and broom from the laundry room, then gathered the shards. After that, I went for a bucket and a mop. Heithor appeared at my side before I had the chance to grab the bucket of water.
“Here, let me do that.”
“Your feet,” I said, looking down.
“I’m not going to let you carry weight. You already picked up the glass. The least I can do now is clean the floor, since I caused the mess.”
“Va bene. I’ll get a cloth to clean the cabinets.”
I started cleaning, and a minute later, huffed in irritation.
I looked up and found Thor watching me, brow furrowed and a slight smile on his face.
I huffed again, indignant at my brood-hen condition.
His eyes probed me before understanding mirrored in them. He held out his hand, palm up. I handed him the cloth and pointed to where to clean.
“Anywhere else?”
“No.”
He scratched his chin.
“Yeah, it didn’t turn out that bad.”
“Mariah won’t say the same.”
“What can I say? I wasn’t trained for housework.”
He smiled so deliciously that I couldn’t help smiling back.
The atmosphere shifted again into a different tension when his eyes dropped, fixing on my belly and lingering there as if he could see past my clothes and skin. Then he brought his gaze level with mine.
“May I?”
I froze.
Thor had never shown interest before. I had even come to think he was averse to it. And now he was here, wanting to touch me. It was… I don’t know. I didn’t know what to think…
“It’s all right, I…”
“No… I mean, yes. You can touch if you want. It doesn’t bother me.”
But it did bother me, because I wanted more than a light paternal touch. I wanted the touch of the man, of the lover… wanted more… wanted to be able to go back in time.
How pathetic was I?
His scrutiny studied me, and then he nodded, moving away to the sink. He washed his hands and dried them. All very calm and controlled.
I, however, was taken by a wave of euphoria and anticipation.
Even if there was no malice, if his touch was only curiosity, to have this symbolic connection with our baby. My body sang, reacting.
My heart, suddenly, was climbing up my throat.
I tried to calm myself and tell myself that this was no big deal. That worked until I saw him walk back to me. I was almost swallowed by anxiety.
I wasn’t ready for this moment.
Maybe I never would be.
The thing was, I wasn’t moving. The room seemed to shrink when Thor stopped in front of me, all his size covering me. The urge to flee was as great as the urge I had to throw myself into his arms and hold him forever.
I felt tiny. Vulnerable. A little ant.
And suddenly, I had this idiotic urge to cry.
Don’t cry, damn it!
His eyes moved from my belly to my face, asking my permission. I nodded, smiling, encouraging… I just don’t know if it was him or myself.
I focused on his hands.
Thor touched my belly with excessive care, as if the slightest pressure would split me in two. I smiled like a fool, emotional.
The touch. The heat. The sensation.
Everything was so right, so correct.
Sublime.
Thor had a concentrated expression, his gaze fixed where he touched me.
For one second, only for that sacred moment, I felt complete, as if the missing piece of the puzzle had fit into the proper place. I was back on my axis. And when his hands moved…
… Our boy kicked very hard.