Chapter 8
Chapter eight
Present Day
Nerina splashed her rubber toys beneath the bubbles, soaking me as her young mind drifted into an imaginary world of fairies, unicorns, and talking frogs. I smiled, listening to her imagination weave silly conversations between her characters as I lathered her black curls with shampoo.
“Head back and close your eyes, please,” I ordered, holding my hand over her forehead to rinse.
Of course, it was like any other night, despite it being her birthday. The dramatics erupted as she squealed and flopped about like a fish, doing everything in her power to escape from me. Why? Why was it always the rinsing that set them off?
“Neri! If you stay still and let me do it, it will be over much quicker!”
“No! Ow! Ouch!” she protested, even though nothing was hurting her at all. “You’re mean! It’s my birthday!”
“That doesn’t mean you can go to bed with shampoo in your hair. Fairies need clean hair, too.”
“I’m not a fairy anymore! I’m a princess!”
Forgive me for not keeping up.
“Well, princesses definitely have clean hair.”
“No, they don’t! They live in the forest!”
“What princess lives in the forest?”
“Sleeping princess!”
“I thought she lived in a tower?”
“No! That’s Rapunzel, Papi!” Clearly, I needed to brush up on my Disney films. “The sleeping princess lives in the forest with the fairies, then pricks her finger because of the evil fairy and falls asleep.”
“Okay, well, she still has clean hair.”
“No. She’s sleeping.”
Why the fuck was I arguing with a four-year-old? I’d never win.
“As you should be! Out you get, then.”
I picked her up and wrapped her in a huge towel, forcing her out of her mood by tickling her as I dried her, then flipped her upside down and walked towards her bedroom with her flung over my shoulder.
How she still had so much energy after running around, screaming and playing for hours was beyond me.
She kicked and roared with laughter until I stopped dead at her bedroom door. What the—
I slowly put her down and let her race into the middle of the room, which had somehow been transformed into a movie set for a fantasy twilight scene while I had been bathing her.
Who the hell had done this? Elle? Alessio?
It was… incredible. I stepped into the room, my eyes wide, taking in the magic as Nerina squealed even louder with every new thing that caught her attention.
There was a projector hidden discreetly in the middle of the room, inside a soft tree trunk made of twine, wool and sparkling woven threads, which reached up to the ceiling of her room, where fake flowers, leaves, and floating fairies hung from all the branches.
The walls were illuminated with moving images from the projector.
Fluffy pink clouds on one wall, My Little Pony characters and unicorns flying through them.
On another was a forest scene with rabbits hopping over logs and butterflies and fairies fluttering between the trees.
The third wall displayed rainbows, with Nerina’s name lit in neon beneath.
A large fairy castle made from real sticks and twigs sat by the forest scene, and a life-sized cuddly Rainbow Dash stood against the cloud wall next to a beanbag throne, with a hanging sign reading ‘Princess Nerina, Ruler of Equestria.’ My heart flipped when I saw it.
Rainbow Dash is the best.
No, surely not.
“Papi!” Nerina flung herself at my legs, squeezing me tightly. “Grazie, Papi! Grazie!”
“I, uh, this wasn’t me,” I whispered as she dashed over to the fairy castle and started playing. Yeah, there was no way I was getting her to bed on time. I glanced over my shoulder and beckoned Filo over, Nerina’s main bodyguard. “Who the hell did this?”
“It all arrived an hour ago. Signora Barbieri signed it off and oversaw it being put together before she left.”
Elle. I pulled out my phone and called her. She answered on the second ring.
“Finn.”
“I don’t know whether to tell you that you’re the best godmother she could have or to kill you, because there’s no way she’s going to sleep after this.”
Elle laughed down the phone. “Don’t do either. It wasn’t from me. I just helped set it up.”
I frowned, my heart doing that traitorous flip again because I knew. “Who’s it all from?”
“Enzo.”
My jaw clenched, and I gripped the phone a little tighter. I wanted to be furious. I really did, but the radiant joy on Nerina’s face wouldn’t let me.
“He called me an hour ago and said he had a surprise for Nerina and asked me to help with it. He didn’t even want me to tell you it was from him. He said I could pretend it was from me. He just wanted to do something nice for her birthday.”
“He doesn’t even know her,” I gritted through my teeth, turning my back on my daughter so she wouldn’t hear, not that she was paying me any attention. She was too busy having the time of her life.
“I don’t know,” Elle said softly. “He seemed to know all her favourite things.”
“Lucky guess,” I groaned, rubbing the nape of my neck.
“Most four-year-old girls like ponies, fairies, and unicorns. Still, that doesn’t give him the right to try to win her over with this shit.
I know that’s what he’s doing. If he thinks he can use my daughter to get back into my life, he’s twisted, and I won’t stand for it. ”
“Calm down, Finn. I honestly think he heard it was her birthday and wanted to make her happy. Did he go a little overboard? Yeah, okay, he could have just bought her a Barbie, but this is Enzo.”
“Exactly,” I growled, hanging up. I shook my head, pinching the bridge of my nose. Fucking Enzo, always doing shit I couldn’t ignore.
I let Nerina play in her room while I took a shower and slipped into fresh clothes, knowing Enzo would arrive in less than an hour.
I was wired, full of adrenaline, anger, and frustration.
How dare he, after everything? But at the same time, urgh, it was slowly melting the steel cage around my heart. I had to be stronger than this.
After I had Nerina tucked up in bed with the enormous Rainbow Dash teddy, I bent down to turn off the projector.
“No! Please, Papi. I want it on all night. It’s magic.”
I sighed, brushing her hair from her face, then kissed her forehead. “Okay, Stellina. Just tonight because it’s your special day.”
She smiled, snuggling down under the covers.
“Sweet dreams, Sleeping Beauty.”
“Is magic real?” she whispered as I crept towards her door. I paused and glanced back at her.
“Magic is always real. Do you know how I know?” I whispered. She shook her head. “Because you are here. And you’re my magic, Neri.”
“Ti voglio bene, Papi,” she sighed, twisting onto her side and hugging Rainbow Dash’s neck. I melted on the spot, as I always did when I heard those words.
“I love you more than the whole world.”
Closing her door, I nodded at Filo, who took his position on the landing, and made my way downstairs. My head of security told me that Enzo’s car had been parked outside for the past hour. Persistent bastard. God, why had I asked him to come back tonight?
I wasn’t sure I was strong enough for this.
Meeting him in the morning would’ve been a different story.
I’d be able to sit across from him, switch off my emotions, and hear what he had to say—most likely plans about the Americans.
But right now, it felt too... fragile. I felt too much. Anger. Hate. Frustration. Love.
I grabbed a beer from the fridge and watched my gates open on the security feed on the TV as his car crept slowly up the driveway.
My heartbeat quickened with every inch he drew closer to my door.
I saw him get out, fix his hair, and straighten his shirt.
He was nervous. Good. It was nice to see he was still affected by me and that it wasn’t all one-sided.
My housekeeper, Gloria, opened the door and led him into the kitchen.
The sound of his shoes on my tiled floor echoed over the rush of blood in my ears.
I still wasn’t sure whether I wanted to punch him, kiss him, or scream at him to fuck off and leave me alone.
Because I was doing okay. Before he barged back into my life, everything had been going well.
Now I was back to obsessing over him constantly, tossing and turning at night.
Old memories of us curled up under sheets, his hands on my hips, his lips on my collarbone.
Conversations we had into the early hours.
Laughter. I tried to remind myself of the pain—the feeling of not being enough for him, the betrayal.
But it was the good times that kept me awake.
The longing, the desire, the intensity of him.
Since then, I’d been with other men, trying to find something more meaningful than random hookups, but nothing ever compared.
And then I had Nerina. A void was filled, but not entirely—just enough to feel good again, to feel happy.
But he’s back, reminding me I’d never truly been free of him.
“Don Aiani,” Gloria announced him and then walked away, leaving us standing alone together on either side of the kitchen island. The silence echoed. The tension thickened as I glared at him and lifted the beer bottle to my lips.
He exhaled, shoving his hands deeper into his trouser pockets. “Did the party go well? I’m sorry again for turning up like that. I didn’t know—”
I slammed my bottle onto the grey cement countertop, the noise snapping off the walls and silencing him. His blue eyes widened. My nostrils flared, and my fist tightened around the glass bottle, tempted to hurl it at his head.
“What are you doing here, Enzo?”
There was no warmth in my voice. Just ice. But he didn’t even flinch, as if he’d been expecting it.
“I wanted to talk to you.”
“No, what are you doing here? In my house. On my daughter’s birthday. Sending her fucking fairytale Narnia. It isn’t appropriate. You agreed to keep this professional.”
He swallowed, shuffling on his feet. “Did she like it?”