Chapter Thirteen
Lilianna Genovese
“I need to go shopping today.”
I considered the same three outfits that I’d been using for Callum over the past few weeks. My wardrobe options were equally limited.
Matteo glanced up from a paper on his desk with raised brows. “I’m not your jailkeeper, Lili. You can go wherever you want.”
“I know, but I can’t have guards following two steps behind me the whole way. It scares Callum, and I’d rather this be a smooth trip.” I felt myself rambling, and I bit my tongue. I didn’t need to feel uncertain about such a basic request, but it felt like there were a dozen more important things I could be doing with my time.
He nodded slowly, glancing down at the boy. “May I ask where exactly you’re going in such a hurry?”
“He doesn’t have any clothes here. We are both running really short on options. We were only meant to be here for a long weekend, and I packed accordingly.”
“My day today is full,” he remarked, tugging his lip between two white teeth as if pondering all the things on his schedule. “But all of it can wait.”
“I thought you had canceled most of your meetings?”
He nodded and clicked his pen a few times. “My schedule tends to fill up quickly with important matters. There’s always someone who needs my attention.” He stood and brushed a hand down the front of his shirt, flattening out all the wrinkles that had built up there. “I’ll go with you.”
* * *
The first few shops had almost no selection for toddler clothing, but I managed to buy some essentials for myself. Undergarments and loungewear, specifically. Matteo had gone to great lengths to observe the undergarments, going as far as inspecting them closely before paying for them himself.
“We’ll have to try these on later,” he said with a smirk. Mischief filled his tone as he spoke the words.
“We?”
His smirk deepened as he planted a hand on my lower back, his fingers moving dangerously low. I shuddered at the contact.
“Yes, we .”
I felt my cheeks redden and my heart quicken at the thought of parading myself in front of him in these garments.
“Later,” I stuttered, trying and failing to hide my flush.
“So,” he drawled as we walked into a children’s clothing store. “How is normalcy feeling today?”
Mothers holding young infants and fathers on their cellphones strolled through the store, and I knew we’d have much more luck in here.
Callum led us toward the back of the store, holding my hand as we walked.
“It’s feeling… the same as before.” I wouldn’t lie to him. “Being with Callum makes it feel a little more tolerable. I love boring days with him. But every other day when Sophie has him… I don’t know how to feel. If it’s normal, it means we’re not being attacked. It means we’re safe.”
“That’s true,” he said.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about what it will be like returning to Italy. I’ve talked to Aunt Beatrice, and she’s excited about her garden and the blooming flowers of the season. She talks about her job as a saleswoman at a boutique. It all just feels so…”
I couldn’t decide on the best word to use.
“Mundane?” Matteo proposed.
I nodded. “Exactly.”
Callum grabbed a handful of shirts from a rack and tugged them downward. The rack rattled as the shirts released. “Dino shirts,” he said, shaking them in front of him.
I grabbed the shirts from him and selected the right size before handing it back. He ran deeper into the store excitedly.
Mundane.
Mundane was the one thing I’d been striving for, and Callum deserved that. I deserved that. Matteo crouched beside Callum as he reached for a table full of shirts, and I paused as I watched them interact. Matteo held Callum’s wrist gently, guiding him away from destroying all the folded shirts. Whatever he said had Callum smiling and nodding profusely. Callum said something back, and Matteo tipped his head back, laughing genuinely.
I moved forward, taking in every facet of the scene before me. With both of them smiling, the resemblance was uncanny.
Fortunately, Matteo didn’t look at him any differently, or with any realization on his face.
“What are you two doing over here?” I asked, crouching beside them both.
“Shirts,” Callum said.
“We made a deal, isn’t that right?” Callum looked at Matteo as if he had two heads. “You ask before picking up shirts, and we’ll get them for you. We don’t mess up the table.”
Callum giggled and flung himself at Matteo.
Matteo took a small step backward when the weight of Callum landed in his arms, but he accepted the hug nonetheless.
Matteo’s eyes moved to the rack behind Callum, and he reached for it, grabbing a bright green shirt with a large T-rex roaring on the front.
Matteo presented it to Callum with a smile. “Do you like it, buddy?”
The look in our son’s eyes melted my heart. He took the shirt and held it to his chest, shouting, “Mine!”
“Callum seems to like you,” I whispered with a shaky voice, not sure if I wanted him to hear the words.
“He has good taste,” Matteo teased.
“’Teo, daddy.”
My heart skipped a beat, and I lost the ability to breathe as the words came from Callum’s lips. He had no idea that Matteo was his biological father. At two years old, Callum only really understood what it meant to have friends. He knew I was his mother, and he’d never once asked about a father.
“What?” Matteo asked, his mouth falling agape.
“Daddy,” he repeated, pressing a hand to Matteo’s chest.
Matteo smiled sadly. “You have a daddy, little guy, and I’m not him.”
Matteo had no idea, and guilt overwhelmed all of my senses as he looked toward me. I saw his silent plea for backup, but I couldn’t find the words to help him.
“He’s never met his dad,” I told Matteo. The lump in my throat nearly silenced me. “He doesn’t know him.”
But he did know him. He knew and loved him. I was depriving Callum of a relationship that had the potential to be so damn good. I knew it. I had no doubt Matteo would be phenomenal as a father.
But it was too late to tell the truth.
It would do nothing but harm our relationship. The lie would kill Matteo. Matteo already treated Callum like his child, and he didn’t even know the truth. Would it make a difference if he did know the truth? Matteo’s relationship with Callum could be incredible, even if he didn’t know it.
“Hey,” Matteo spoke beside me, resting a hand on my shoulder. Shit, he’d stood up, and I hadn’t even realized it. Why the hell was I nervous? I’d made this decision, and it had been a good decision at the time. It had kept Callum safe for two years. That was the reason I’d made the difficult choice, even if I knew it had caused me a lot of pain.
“Sorry,” I forced myself to say.
“Lili, take a deep breath. I know his father isn’t in the picture, but that doesn’t make you a bad mother. I’m not judging you for that choice.”
You would be judging me if you knew the whole truth.
“I know.”
“A deep breath,” he demanded more fervently this time. I did as he asked, but with him so close, I couldn’t fully breathe. Not with the weight of the truth on my chest.
I’d managed to avoid considering this situation for the weeks we’d been here. Sure, I’d thought about it briefly, but there were so many more pressing things at play. My brother. My father. The attacks. So many things mattered more than this, but somehow this situation had still crept in when I’d least expected it.
“When he gets older, I’d be happy to be a male influence in his life if the father isn’t in the picture, Lilianna. You don’t have to worry about that. It doesn’t bother me being called ‘dad’, especially not with him. You have a great kid.”
I nodded absently, grabbing another shirt with the correct size label.
He gripped my elbow and tugged me to a stop. He whirled me around and took in every line of my face. “I’ve never known something like this to bother you so much. What is it?”
This lie was never meant to backfire, but now it felt like it ran my life.
I forced a smile onto my lips. I straightened my shoulders and counted my breaths. I couldn’t control my racing heart, but Matteo couldn’t see that. It didn’t matter.
“I hate that he doesn’t have a dad,” I told him. “It was startling hearing him give you that name. That’s all.” He didn’t look like he believed me, so I took it up a notch. I forced a small chuckle. “We used to read a book about mommies and daddies, and he started calling every man we passed ‘daddy’. I guess I thought he was over that phase.”
Matteo’s thumb stroked my elbow in a way that made a zing of lust shoot through me. My body couldn’t seem to catch a break around him.
“We’re going to work through everything together. You, me, and Callum. You trust me?”
Yes, but you shouldn’t trust me. Not when I’ve spent so many years hiding your son from you.
“Of course.” I swallowed.
He leaned in and brushed his lips across my forehead. “Then trust that you never need to worry about anything when I’m here. I’ll always have your back, Lili. Whether it’s from genuine threats or imagined ones.”
The words hurt more than they comforted me, but I leaned into him and pressed my face into his shoulder as I hugged him. I needed a moment to compose myself, and I couldn’t have him staring down at me.
“Mommy,” Callum said, holding up a handful of shirts. I took a deep breath and pulled back, smiling down at him.
“How about we go and try these on?” I suggested, looking at the various sizes he’d grabbed. I took them and held a small pile out to Matteo without meeting his eyes. “Why don’t you find the correct sizes and meet us in the changing room area?”
He nodded as we split up.
I exhaled a long breath, not allowing myself to consider everything he’d just said. I needed a moment to compose myself, and this would have to do.
Callum and I went into the dressing room area, and a chipper young woman smiled down at him. Callum rushed inside the first dressing room without waiting for me, and the young woman laughed. “I would love to take his measurements and get him a few properly fitted pieces of clothing. It’s a unique service we offer here, and the cost is worth it.”
I opened my mouth to tell her we would just try on what we had, but Matteo’s voice came from behind me. “Please, do.”
I turned and looked at him as the young woman took measuring tape, pulled the clothes from my hands, and followed Callum into the room with the items I had selected. I watched them go, and as she closed the door behind her, I glanced back at Matteo.
He surprised me as he took my wrist and pulled me into an empty changing room on the other side of the desk.
The door closed behind him before he gripped both sides of my face. He looked at me as if searching for something. “I’ve never known someone stronger than you, Lili. Don’t let this bullshit bring you down. You don’t have to avoid looking at me because you’re ashamed. There’s nothing you could do to make me feel that way about you.”
I felt my breathing quicken again, but this time, it was from the proximity of his body to mine. All thoughts of Callum and his parentage fell away. My chest brushed against his, zings of longing shooting through me so powerfully that I gasped.
A wicked grin spread across Matteo’s lips as he moved one hand to the side of my neck and the other to my hip. He slowly wound it around my waist and tugged me closer.
“Is this what you need? A distraction to calm down?” Amusement danced in his eyes.
“We’re in a children’s clothing store,” I said, my voice coming across breathier than I had wanted it to.
His lips brushed against mine so lightly that my body melted into his grip. “We’re in a changing room where nobody can see us.”
A laugh rumbled through me as I shook my head and rested my forehead against his.
“Good point,” I admitted.
His lips brushed mine, and I closed my eyes, taking in every ounce of the contact. My body yearned for it, and I involuntarily shifted closer, gripping the shirt at his chest as if my life depended on touching him.
He pulled back just long enough to gather me in his arms again.
In my ear, he whispered. “Do you have the panties we bought at the last store?”
I jerked back slightly, a laugh rushing from me as I hit his chest.
“You didn’t have any problem with the idea of trying them on in private,” he teased, hooking a thumb into the waist of my pants and pulling me closer.
“When I said later, I didn’t mean a half hour later.”
I ignored the tingling between my legs at his proximity, even as he lowered his head for another long kiss. I soaked it in, refusing to allow my mind to linger on the coming days and weeks of this war.
We were together, and for now, everything felt right. I didn’t know how long we’d be able to have moments like this, so I allowed myself to be fully present.
I allowed myself to ignore what was to come.