Chapter 11 Aurelia #2
“I don’t need your pity, bitch.” She marched off to the back to look for Beatrice, cutting me down like I’d personally wronged her.
I almost didn’t hold my tongue. Almost went after her and gave her a piece of my mind.
But I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
Constantine was the man I would spend my life with, and my stomach might not look any different, but the life we’d made together was growing deep inside and had changed us both irrevocably.
I had his present and she had his memory.
I had his heart and she had his regret. She wasn’t worth my time, so I got back to work and tried to forget the conversation had even happened.
I took a taxi home and found Constantine playing with Medusa.
She couldn’t chase down tennis balls anymore, but she could stand still while Constantine bounced a ball off the ground and she caught it in her mouth.
He held a handful of green tennis balls and threw them one at a time, and she’d snatch them in her jaw, squeak it once, and then drop it to catch the next one.
When Constantine finished the balls in his hand, he rubbed her on the head. “Attagirl.” He stood up and looked at me, and as always, his eyes lit up like I was his whole world and the universe that surrounded it. He walked over to me and pulled me close, kissed me like he’d missed me all day.
I couldn’t believe I got to come home to this every day. And I got to do it for the rest of my life.
“How was work?”
The confrontation with Isabella flashed across my mind, but I didn’t want to ruin our moment together. I decided to keep it to myself. “It was good. Just a bunch of arancini and pizza.”
“I know.” He leaned in and kissed me on the temple. “I can smell it in your hair.” When he pulled away, he had a smirk on his lips. “A smell that’s permanently tattooed inside my nose at this point.”
“And you think our new restaurant will smell any different?”
“We won’t be the ones cooking, so who knows what it’ll smell like.”
Medusa came over to me in her walker and let me give her a rubdown.
“I love how well you’re doing, honey.” In the last month, she’d progressed so much.
Soon, she’d be able to take off her cast and do more physical activity.
I was excited to see her run around the terrace on her own, to go on hikes to Mount Etna with Constantine, to be a dog again.
We headed back inside the house. “Want to go out or stay in?” he asked.
“I could go for some Roman pizza, but I know we won’t be able to find any of that.”
“The chef can make it.”
“That’s not really a dinner, though, right?” Normally, we had a piece of fish or chicken with vegetables and rice or potatoes. It was pretty boring because Constantine eyed his macros all the time. He still lifted twice a day like he had gangs to police every night, not that I minded.
“Sweetheart, we can have whatever you want. It’s your house.”
“My house?” I asked with a smile. “If it’s anyone’s house, it’s Medusa’s—and she just lets us live here.”
“Can’t argue with that.” Constantine pulled out his phone and sent a text to his chef downstairs. He made himself a drink at the bar while I went upstairs to shower and change. I tried to cover the aroma of the kitchen with perfume, but only a deep scrub could get the smell out.
I changed into little cutoff jean shorts and a blouse, enjoying my wardrobe as long as I could before I couldn’t fit into it anymore.
When I stepped onto the terrace, Constantine lounged in the dining chair and stared at the sea, relaxed in his T-shirt and jeans, his hand absentmindedly rubbing Medusa’s head beside him.
He had a glass of water sitting there for me because all the good stuff was off limits.
Constantine turned his focus to me across the table, his stiff drink on the table before him.
“I’ve never seen you drunk before,” I said as I remembered the wedding.
He smirked. “Kinda lost it, didn’t I? I haven’t been drunk like that in over ten years. Hope I didn’t take anything too far.”
“No, you were fine.” Just named our unborn daughter if we had a girl.
“You’re still here, so I guess that’s true.”
“I like drunk Constantine,” I said with a smile. “And it would take a lot to chase me away.”
“Well, you won’t see me like that again.”
“What about at our wedding?”
“No,” he said quickly. “I want to remember it all. I don’t remember much after the dancing started. It’s just uncommon for all my cousins to be in the same room together like that, so it got wild quick.”
“How many cousins do you have?”
“Fuck, I don’t know,” he said as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Both of my parents each have five siblings . . . so probably like fifty first cousins. Something like that.”
“And they’re all here in Taormina?”
“They’re a bit spread out across the island, but all local.”
I was envious. I didn’t have a single sibling. Never felt like I had a tribe, even when my mother was still alive.
Elio appeared a moment later and brought out two Roman pizzas with a set of plates so we could share. He also presented a green salad with seared prawns on top, probably because Constantine wouldn’t eat much of the pizza.
After Elio left, I took a bite of the margherita pizza and felt the crunch of the dough, the crispiness I hadn’t had since we were in the city.
I hadn’t thought about Rome much since we’d left.
That part of my life suddenly felt like a dream, and this life in Taormina was my only reality. “Have you told Rocco I’m pregnant?”
The second I said Rocco’s name, the entire energy at the table shifted. He didn’t say a word and his expression didn’t change whatsoever, but the anger was so palpable it felt like someone lit a fire.
I waited for him to answer me, but it seemed like he never would.
He stabbed his fork harder than necessary into the salad and took a few bites, elbows on the table, eyes down on his food.
I didn’t eat another slice of pizza, just looked at him across from me.
When he felt my stare, he finally addressed what I’d said. “That friendship is over. Already told you that.”
I loved the friendship the two of them had, the way they could be serious one moment and then joke around the next. From what I’d observed, they were both good men and great friends, and it broke my heart to see it spoil. “What happened—”
“He’s dead to me, and I never want to speak of this again.
” He didn’t raise his voice at me, but his hostility was so powerful I felt like he’d struck me down with his bare hand.
Like a wolf that growled when I came too close to his den, he was prepared to bite my face off if I tried again. The territory was off limits.
“I just think . . . he might want to know we’re having a baby.”
The ice-cold stare Constantine gave me was utterly terrifying.
He’d never once looked at me that way—like he might kill me.
“What part of I never want to speak of this again did you not understand?” Again, he didn’t raise his voice, but he was scary.
My appetite for the pizza vanished, and I boiled in his anger. I didn’t know how to sidestep it or change the subject. So I just looked down at the pizza slice I’d previously put on my plate and forced myself to take a bite . . . to hope this painful discomfort would evaporate on its own.
It was one of the exceptionally few times when we didn’t make love before bed.
Constantine was still mad as hell about my line of questioning, and I wasn’t sure if even an apology would defuse his rage.
I wasn’t sorry for what I’d asked, because I believed Rocco couldn’t have done anything that egregious.
They were just two stubborn men playing a game of emotional chicken.
When Constantine took his nightly shower, I grabbed my phone off the nightstand and quickly found Rocco’s number. I typed a message to him from where I lay in bed. Hey, it’s Aurelia. I know you and Constantine aren’t talking right now . . . but I wanted to let you know we’re having a baby.
I expected to see three dots pop up right away when he saw my message come through, but there was nothing. I put my phone on the nightstand and waited for it to vibrate with a response, but that didn’t happen either.
And when I woke up the next morning, there was still nothing.
Constantine was in a better mood the next morning, but not quite himself just yet.
I got ready for the day and headed downstairs to grab my purse. I released a heavy sigh because it was the first time I actually didn’t want to go to the restaurant. Isabella was a piece of work, and I wasn’t sure if I could look at her face and be kind. That made me dislike Beatrice even more too.
“What’s on your mind?” Constantine asked when he heard me sigh.
“Oh, just not excited to go to work.”
“Then don’t go.”
“I have to.”
He came to my side, his hand gently grabbing my elbow. “You never have to do anything. Don’t go.”
“No. I should be there.” It would make me look weak if I stopped showing up after that confrontation. And how would I explain to Sofia that her daughter’s best friend was a damn cunt?
His eyes shifted back and forth between mine like he spotted something in my gaze. “Something happen yesterday?”
“No.”
His eyes narrowed as if whatever he found became more obvious. “Don’t lie to me.”
I didn’t know how he could read me so well, didn’t know what he saw to make him so confident in his assessment. “When I was there yesterday . . . Isabella came by.”
His fingertips released my elbow, and the accusation in his eyes started to fade. His anger faded and was quickly replaced by unspoken frustration, like he already assumed that the interaction had been a shit show. “What did she say to you?”
“It was unpleasant. Let’s just leave it at that.”
“Aurelia.” He pressed me just by using my name, a name he hardly ever said.
“I tried to be kind to her, and she was hostile to me. Told her I’d love it if we could get along, and she basically called me a bitch and the other woman. I called her out on her nastiness, and that made it worse.”
“Good. I’m glad you put her in her place.”
“Well, at this point, it’s infinitely more hostile than it was before . . . and your sister will never like me now.”
“Beatrice needs to be put in her place too,” he said. “Fucking brat.”
“Don’t confront her about it. It’s not going to improve the situation, and it’s just—”
“You don’t come into my family’s restaurant and insult my future wife and the mother of my child. I don’t know who the fuck she thinks she is, but I’m going to tell her exactly what she is.”
“I don’t want to make this worse.”
“She can give me shit all she wants, but she crossed a line when she insulted you. There are consequences to our actions, and she’s about to feel the flames of my wrath.”
“I really don’t want this—”
“Then you can thank her for that. She came into my fucking restaurant and insulted my family, and she thinks she can get away with that. Nope. I don’t fucking think so.”