Chapter 8 #4
Giulia was twenty-eight and extremely methodical. If she was late, she stayed past her hours to make up the time. If I was late, I paid her overtime.
“You’re as stubborn as a mule, you know that, right?”
“It’s fair, darling.” She kissed my face. “You pay me to take care of your handsome, precious little boy, and I do it without sacrifice. And it’ll only be three hours.”
Heithor entered the kitchen with Lucca minutes later.
“Holy Mother, Ella, I don’t know what was dead inside him, but he shit it out.”
“You’re so dramatic!”
“Seriously, Ella, what have you been feeding this little guy?”
“The same thing I feed you.”
“Woman, I’m telling you, there’s something wrong with that formula.”
I rolled my eyes, barely holding back my laughter. “You didn’t need to bathe him because he pooped, Heithor. That is completely normal. You only had to—”
“He shit all over himself and on me.”
It took me half a minute to understand, then I started laughing, going to get my baby, oblivious to the indignation of his silly father still grumbling about the poop incident.
“Oh, did you poop on Daddy, little lion? That’s Mommy’s boy!”
Lucca opened a huge smile, and even Heithor couldn’t help himself.
***
From the balcony, where I was relaxing with Federico Moccia while Giulia finished folding and putting away Lucca’s clothes, I watched Thor move through the living room.
I narrowed my eyes, suspicious, then curious… coveting.
Thor looked edible in his low-slung jeans and white T-shirt tight against his strong abdomen, his hair still damp. He was pure concentration.
Don’t look at him like that! He doesn’t even look that good…
Thor looked good enough for me to want to run a hand through his hair, devastate his mouth with mine, and pull him between my…
“Have you seen my keys?”
I probed over the book. “Aren’t they on the table?”
He moved his gaze from the table to the Rolex, cursed irritably, running a hand through his hair and planting the other on his hip. “Damn it! I can’t be late.”
Late for what?
When I got tired of watching him rummage through the living room with the keys right in front of his face, I said:
“Did you look on the shelf by the TV?”
Thor stomped over there… and ta-da!
He shoved the key ring into his pocket.
“I have to go out. I’ll be back in two hours,” he said, without sparing me a look.
My suspicion climbed three meters above the sky.
Giulia joined me while Heithor closed the door.
“I wonder where he’s going.”
“Does it matter?”
“No, but aren’t you curious?”
“No,” I lied.
“Then you’re a saint.” She sat in the other chair. “I’d be dying to know where he’s going. And he smelled so good. Did you see how dressed up he was?”
I set the book aside and focused on her, half shooting daggers, half suspicious.
“All right. Is he paying you?”
Giulia looked at me, confused, then shrugged. “Do you think he’s meeting someone? The other times, he went out at this hour too.”
My heart twisted with envy, dead with jealousy over a hateful man who had humiliated me and stepped on me… who had taken unrecoverable pieces from my life.
And yet…
“Do you think it could be with one of the mothers?”
“Or nannies,” she pointed out, considering. “There are some who would make any man break his neck. I don’t know why people hire such beautiful women to take care of their children. Either they like danger, trust their game too much, or they’re just fools.”
I changed the subject before jealousy got the best of me.
“How was your appointment?”
“I’m still infertile,” she said, with a heavy sigh.
I stretched my hand out, touching hers.
“I’m sorry, Giulia.”
“No, it’s okay. It isn’t anything I didn’t already know. My hormones have been working against me since adolescence. I had plenty of time to rage and accept the fact that I may never conceive. Now I just get upset.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Give me Lucca.”
“Something else.”
She patted my hand, still smiling. “You’re listening to me, darling. That’s already something. There’s nothing to do except stick to the treatment and cross my fingers.”
“My fingers and toes are crossed for you.”
We laughed. She filled two glasses with juice and offered me one.
“Medicine has advanced a lot in that sense,” I commented, wanting to comfort her somehow. “And you can always adopt as a last resort.”
“I know. A watercolor of options, huh?”
We kept silent.
Giulia focused on the horizon, her head seeming far from here.
“Will I ever find someone who wants a serious relationship, even though I can’t give him children of his own?” she asked no one in particular.
“Only a huge idiot would reject you for that, Giulia. You are an intelligent, honest, very hardworking woman. You deserve someone who knows how to appreciate you as you are.”
“Oh, Ella, thank you so much,” she sniffled, then composed herself. “If he at least looks at me the way Heithor looks at you, I’ll be set for life.”
I gave her an incredulous look.
“What? So you don’t know?”
I didn’t know, and I wasn’t even sure I wanted to.
“He looks at you with demented fascination. It’s so raw and intense… I swear, Ella, anyone could fall in love with you through his eyes.”