Chapter 15 Aurelia
Aurelia
I sat at the dining table in Sofia’s home, still in my work clothes that smelled like a kitchen.
The tightness of the scrunchie holding up my ponytail started to make my temples throb, so I pulled it through my long hair until the strands came free.
It relieved the tension in my scalp—but not the stress in my heart.
Sofia stepped into the room with a pile of clothes over her arm.
“Good thing we’re the same size.” She gave me a warm smile before she laid the pile of clothes over one of the dining chairs.
Then she moved to the barista-level coffee maker and brewed me a fresh cup of coffee before she brought it to me, along with a little jug of milk. “It’s decaf.”
“Thank you.” I brought the mug close, the smell of coffee always welcome, regardless of the hour.
“And thanks for letting me stay with you.” I stared into the cup and saw the lighter-brown foam sitting on top .
. . and immediately thought of Constantine’s eyes. “I know this must be awkward for you.”
“Not at all.” She pulled out the other chair and took a seat. “You’re my family, Aurelia—and not just because you carry my grandchild.” Her hand moved to mine and rested there for a moment before she pulled away.
The watery sensation started in the back of my eyes, but I quickly looked down at my coffee and waited for it to wane. “You remind me of my mother.”
She paused.
I continued to look at the foam, watching the small bubbles start to pop and dissipate.
“I take that as a great compliment, honey.”
When I recovered from the emotion that nearly took me down, I looked at her again. “I love him with all my heart, and we’ll work it out. I’m just so angry right now.” I grabbed the milk and poured it into my coffee, letting it rise just below the top.
“I don’t blame you.”
“You don’t?” I whispered.
She shook her head. “I heard the whole thing. Con didn’t come off very well.”
At least I wasn’t overreacting. “I know it didn’t mean anything. I believe everything he says. I just . . . feel disrespected.”
“I know.”
“He could have told me beforehand, but he didn’t.”
“To be fair, it sounds like he tried to avoid it as much as he could. And from what I know of Cosa Nostra, you have to be a man of your word or you aren’t a man at all.
He made this deal long before you, Aurelia.
It’s complicated, I understand that. Love isn’t jealous, but it is jealous when a line is crossed—and that line was crossed. ”
I didn’t expect his mother, of all people, to be on my side with this. “I just picture him with this hot twenty-five-year-old, while I’m caked in tomato sauce at work, looking like hell.”
She gave a quiet chuckle. “You do not look like hell, Aurelia. And she’s only a few years younger than you. You’re still so young and so beautiful.”
“Thank you, Sofia.”
Our moment was interrupted by a loud knock on the door. Loud, distinct, angry . . .
The corner of her lip upturned in a smile. “Ready for this?”
“I really don’t want to see him right now.”
“Well, if I don’t open that door, he’s gonna break it down.” As she rose from the chair, he pounded on the door again, this time harder, shaking the whole house. She walked out of the kitchen and disappeared from sight.
From the other side of the house, I heard the door open and shut, but no conversation. Constantine’s footsteps could be heard down the hallway before he rounded the corner and stepped into the kitchen.
I kept my eyes on my coffee, even though I could feel his stare pierce me like bullets.
He stood there for a while, staring at the side of my face, before he pulled out the chair his mother had occupied a moment ago.
My heart raced with adrenaline. My fingers felt numb and sweaty the second he was in my space.
“Sweetheart.”
My eyes stayed on the coffee.
“Look at me.”
“I just want some space, okay?”
“Well, that’s too fucking bad, isn’t it?” He didn’t raise his voice, but his tone was sharper than broken glass. “Because you’re my woman and you’re carrying my baby and I’m not letting the two of you sleep under someone else’s roof.”
“It’s your mother’s—” I raised my chin and looked at him.
“You’re my responsibility. Not hers.”
“She said she doesn’t mind.”
“Of course she doesn’t mind, but that’s not the point,” he snapped. “We resolve our issues at home. We don’t run from each other.”
“I said I need some space,” I said calmly. “Just a day. You really can’t give that to me?”
His furious eyes burned white hot into my face. “Just a day.” He repeated the words, clinging to them like life rafts filled with hope.
“I understand nothing happened. I believe everything you say. But I’m still disappointed . . . and I need time.”
He sank into the chair and stared at the painting on the wall for a beat.
“You do realize that I used to sleep with Isabella every day? Used to tell her I loved her every day? That I wanted to marry that woman. Bought a fucking ring. None of that bothers you at all, but Gina, a woman I don’t even know, is enough to push you over the edge. ”
“You obviously don’t get it, Constantine.”
“Then explain it to me.”
“It hurts me because it’s the last thing I expected you to do.
You aren’t a pushover, you don’t concede a fight, but you spent time with this woman and let her believe you were available.
She’s sitting there thinking she just won the fucking lottery and that you might be hers, but you’re supposed to be mine. It feels like a betrayal.”
It was the first time he winced, like my words had actually cut him.
“And you knew this was a situation beforehand and didn’t tell me.”
“Because I assumed it would go away if I dodged it enough. And then the lunch was literally on the spot, and Tommaso guilt-tripped me hard. Believe me when I say I felt like shit for being there, but it was just a means to an end. Sweetheart, you know you’re the only one for me.
You said yourself that I make you feel loved every single day. ”
“I know that, Constantine.”
“Then forgive me and let’s go home.”
My eyes moved back to the coffee.
He released an irritated sigh at my reaction.
“I forgive you and I love you and I want to spend my life with you.” I stared at the coffee for another moment before I raised my chin and looked at him again. “But I’m still so angry with you.”
His eyes hardened like armor, wanting to protect his heart from the bite of my words.
“I just need some time.”
He inhaled a deep breath, his chest rising and expanding, and then he let it out in a painful whoosh. He didn’t say a word before he left the chair and walked out of the dining room. A moment later, I heard the door open and close—and then he was gone.
His mother cooked us dinner, cacio e pepe with a side salad and fresh garlic bread.
I offered to help, but she was practically indignant at the request. I watched her as I sat at the dining table, in the change of clothes she’d given me.
I’d washed my face, but since I didn’t have any makeup, I wasn’t able to doll myself up again.
I would have to go to work like this in the morning, not that I cared all that much.
Sofia set the table. “Thought you’d like a taste of home.”
I smiled when I looked at the Roman pasta, something I used to eat all the time. “I will always have a fondness for Rome, but Taormina became my home the second I met Constantine.”
She took a seat and smiled. “I’m glad to hear that.
Love the fact that the two of you will always be here.
Nothing makes me happier than seeing Constantine leave behind a dangerous life and settle down.
It’s not as exciting as guns and drugs .
. . and whatever else he used to do. But it’s far more meaningful. ”
“Yeah, definitely.”
She opened a bottle of wine and poured herself a glass. We ate together at the table, talking about the restaurant and her fellow restaurant owners and neighbors.
“So, did you talk with Lucia and Isabella?”
“I sure did,” she said. “Gave that brat a piece of my mind.”
“Oh no.”
“Lucia is my best friend. I’ve known her since we were kids. I’m not worried about our friendship. She kept her silence out of loyalty to her daughter, but her eyes told me she knew Isabella was wrong. How could anyone argue otherwise.”
“I don’t want the dust to be kicked up like this.”
“Well, that’s how life is,” she said simply. “The skies will be clear one moment, and then a cloud of dust will approach the next. It’s always changing, never the same, not even for a day sometimes.”
“Yeah.” That was how my relationship with Constantine suddenly felt.
We finished our dinner, and she left the room and returned with a photo album. She sat beside me and opened to the first page. “Would you like to see pictures of Constantine when he was a boy?” she asked with a smile, as if nothing would make her happier than to show her collection.
“Absolutely.”
“He was just as handsome then as he is now, just much less testosterone,” she said with a chuckle.
We flipped through the pictures together, seeing him as a baby and then as a toddler, and then he was a young boy at the beach.
There were pictures of him with his hands dirty, helping out at the restaurant.
Pictures of him with his father in the living room.
I studied his life in pictures, watched him grow into a teenager and then a young man, every part of him growing bigger and stronger.
The only thing that didn’t change was his eyes.
He wasn’t the muscular man I knew now in any of the pictures, as if he didn’t bulk up until he left Taormina.
“You raised a wonderful man, Sofia,” I said.
“I know how lucky I am.” Even now, when I was pissed off at him, I still loved him with all my heart.
My jealousy burned me alive, and I was wounded by the way he’d caught me off guard.
But my feelings for him had not changed, and they would never change.
Her hand moved over mine. “And I’m lucky my son brought home such a wonderful woman to be my daughter.”