Chapter 51
Chapter Fifty-One
Maurizio
“Ilove Sophie, always have and now more than ever I want to make things right and live a long and happy life with her. She and the children are my family and my future and Flora was no more than a dream that could never be.” My brother had been goading me all night.
We had eaten dinner, the five of us and then watched a movie, but I was wound up.
I tried to hide my fear of Sophie’s diagnosis and the impact on my children whichever way it worked out.
Nico stared but said nothing, even his silence was him poking the bear.
“Is that what you want me to say? What you think I should say because the mother of my children has cancer?”
“I don’t want or expect you to say anything, brother, nothing that isn’t true.”
“Nico, I am scared, for the children, Sophie, and for myself, but there’s so much more than that. I do love Sophie, but not like I love Flora, however, I need to be there for Sophie and to support her through this.”
“That’s understandable and the decent thing to do, so, what’s the problem?”
“What if Flora finds this too much, or she won’t wait?”
“What precisely is it she is waiting for?”
“For me to be free and able to make her mine.”
Nico frowned. “You’re making a lot of assumptions here. What if she will wait or maybe she won’t need to wait because you’re already free and she is already yours from where I am sitting.”
“I don’t want to mess this up because she’s the one.
Sophie and I were good together, or so I thought, but then I met Flora and she made me see that there was always something missing.
She is everything.” I carefully considered my next words, remembering what I had falsely said about Sophie when getting riled by my brother who I perceived to be suggesting my future might be with my ex-wife.
Although, I did know that he was simply playing devil’s advocate.
“I love Flora, I think I always have and now more than ever I want to make things right and live a long and happy life with her. She and the children are my family and my future.”
He offered a slight cock of his head. “Then you make sure she knows that because apart from anything else, she has one hell of a scary sister.”
We both laughed as Nico half-filled our near empty glasses.
The following morning, I woke to the sound of my brother’s whistling and my children’s laughter. I had clearly passed out judging by my appearance, on the sofa, and I was still fully dressed. My mouth was dry and resembled the bottom of a bird cage, while my head thudded and my stomach lurched.
A cup filled with coffee wafted beneath my nose and if that wasn’t almost enough to see me lose the contents of my stomach. Nico laughed.
“How are you not hung over?” I asked as I pulled myself into a semi-sitting position. Seeing me conscious, the children made a beeline to join me and then when they caught a whiff of my hungover aroma, they shuffled away.
“Because, little brother, I can handle my drink far better than you.”
I flipped him the bird once I knew the children weren’t watching.
He laughed again. I swear he never used to be so jolly. Something about him had changed but I couldn’t dwell on that when I needed to keep my stomach from churning, take something for my head and shower, before calling Flora.
“Flora!” I shouted, already up on my feet and immediately regretting moving with such speed. My brain was rattling against my skull for sure.
“Flora isn’t here today, Daddy, it’s the weekend.” Rosie gave me a confused stare.
Grabbing my phone, I sent a quick message to Flora to explain that we would need to move breakfast to lunch.
“I know that, baby, but I was going to see Flora today and make her breakfast.” The attention of my children and brother were rapt.
“Why?” Craig asked.
This was not how I had intended on conducting this conversation.
“Because we’re friends.”
“I thought she was our friend and our nanny,” Rosie replied as if correcting me.
“She is.”
“Flora is everyone’s friend.” Craig threw in for good measure while my brother looked on with an amused smirk and a slight grimace, too.
“She is,” Nico agreed. “She is my friend, and Maddie, but sometimes we have extra special friends we like to cook breakfast for.”
“Bea said Seb cooks her breakfast,” my son said innocently.
“And Seb and Bea are friends.” Despite my hangover, I felt rather pleased with myself for that response right up to the point where my daughter threw in her contribution.
“Seb and Bea are special friends, though.” She giggled. “They’re boyfriend and girlfriend and they kiss.” She full on belly laughed now and I couldn’t help but join in with her.
“Daddy kissed Flora in the car and then Mummy came home,” said Craig.
The room fell silent until Sophie’s laughter sounded around us. “Yes, Daddy did kiss Flora, didn’t he, and I did come home. But that must mean that Daddy wants Flora to be his girlfriend.”
I didn’t know what to say or do but as I watched my children return their attention to the TV and my brother beginning to gather his belongings, I realised I didn’t have to do or say anything.
“You might want to throw yourself in the shower before you consider breakfast or kissing.” Sophie seemed in good spirits considering the last few months but especially the last twenty-four hours.
Last night she had been incredibly upset during the movie and it was fortunate that Nico had been there to stay with the children so I could take Sophie away for a while and allow her to cry which as distressing as it had been, was possibly more appropriate than her earlier indifferent persona.
Sophie was right though, if I was going to cook lunch for Flora, my girlfriend . . . how weird did that sound? But if I was, then I needed to get showered and dressed and make myself presentable before laying all of my cards on the table including making me and my tesoro mio official.
Half an hour later I was washed, shaved and dressed and ready to knock on Flora’s door. I checked my phone and saw that my message had gone unanswered, read, but unanswered. I knocked on the door, unsure what reception was waiting for me if she’d read my message and made no reply.
No answer. I knocked again, and again, and again, but still nothing.
What the hell was going on. Reaching for the door handle, I hesitated .
. . but I needed to know what was going on.
Opening the door I was greeted with, well, nothing.
Silence. No sign of Flora’s presence. Moving through the flat I noticed things looked strange, tidy, not that the place was ever untidy, but it looked bare somehow.
“Shit!” I rushed through the place, the bathroom, the bedroom, everything was gone.
She’d left, but why? We’d been on good terms last night.
She had encouraged me to spend the evening with Sophie and the children.
She’d message to let me know she was home after dropping Maddie off at the station.
Is that what this was about, that she missed Maddie?
That made the most sense. She had gone home to her sister.
That stung to imagine her thinking of anywhere other than here, with me being home.
I needed to go after her and talk to her, make her see that this is where she belonged, here, with me.
If she needed to be closer to Maddie, she could move in too for all I cared.
As I passed the kitchen again, something caught my eye, a note resting against a cup, a note with my name on it and her keys.
A shudder chilled me as I picked it up, but that was nothing compared to the ice that replaced the blood in my veins as I read the contents of it.
Maurizio,
I love you, but I love myself too much to be an option rather than a choice.
Good luck with your future, one with your family.
You’ll never know how sorry I am to have been a dream that could never be.
Flora x
“Fuck!” She’d left me.
Rereading the note, I recognised her words. She must have come downstairs and overheard me speaking to Nico. Overheard and completely misunderstood. I needed to find her and explain what she’d heard, or should that be not heard, and that she was never an option but always a choice. My only choice.
Running back through the house, I found Sophie and told her that Flora had misunderstood something and had left, and that I was going to bring her home.