Chapter Twelve
Lindsay
THIS IS THE second time that I’ve been bundled up onto Ciro’s private plane. But this time, it’s as his forced, pregnant bride.
I don’t know what happened to him caring about me having my freedom back.
It’s the sex. I should never have introduced it. I should never…
It’s not like it’s all him. Not like he’s the only one who’s lost the plot. I’ve been deep in fantasies that are impossible, and it is because we started sleeping together. And talking to each other. Sharing hopes, and dreams and regrets.
But you can be a family. Your baby will have a family.
There’s something about that thought that makes my stomach go tight. What if I could keep the baby? What if I could stay with him?
What if we can have sledding and cider and Christmas, and brand-new bikes that he teaches our child to ride?
It’s such a tantalizing thought. And yet it doesn’t seem right.
It’s one thing to talk about those things like they’re wild dreams.
Another entirely to actually buy into the idea we could do it.
I am…dysfunctional. I don’t know how to take care of another person.
My entire life has been all about taking care of myself, and even though he won’t admit it, I know Ciro is the same.
But he wants to try this. He wants to do something different.
And I’m having a difficult time disentangling that from the love that I feel for the unborn child inside of me, and the need that I feel for him.
It was so much easier to be detached. To think only of the greater good before I felt my child move inside of me every day.
And before Ciro and I had made love.
Now things feel muddy. Muddled. And that’s my fault. But what if you could just have it?
I’m just tired; that’s the problem. I’m tired of fighting everything all the damn time.
One of the reasons I capitulated the way that I did back at the house is because I…
I want it. I want it, and I’m tired of fighting against addiction.
I’m tired of fighting to be the bigger person, the better person.
I want to surrender. To him, to my driving need for him physically, to my desire to have a more comfortable life, and this secret need that I’ve never even let myself acknowledge to have a family.
A family.
The very idea seems radical.
“Where are we going?”
“London,” he says.
“Not Rome?”
He shakes his head. “I’ve made my home in London these past years.”
“I…”
I feel a pang as I say goodbye to my Italian dream. To all of the things that I was going to be. Am I just going to be this man’s wife now? This baby’s mother?
And even as I have those thoughts, I realize that there is no justice in it.
I’m not going to look at it the way that my parents did.
Where I was secondary to what they wanted, which in their case was getting a fix, and of course, a career is better than that, but still, I’m not going to perpetuate that cycle.
Yes, I wanted things to be different. But the fact is, this child exists.
It’s all gone wrong from the way that it was originally planned.
But I’m not going to sink into hopelessness.
I’m not going to sink into despair. That has always been my superpower, and I’m going to make it serve me now.
It isn’t the same, though, because I’m not the same.
I cared about one thing when Ciro found me. My career.
Now I care about way too much and that feels terrifying in a new and horrible way.
“I just didn’t picture you in London,” I say.
“Why not?”
“I guess because I don’t really see you as British. But I suppose you’re as British as you are anything.”
He laughs. “Yes, though my father would’ve been very insulted by that.”
He almost smiles. My heart lifts. He is so beautiful. And my desire for him feels intensely complicated by everything.
“So…when are we going to have the wedding?”
“When would you like to?”
“I don’t know. After the baby is born?”
He looks pained by this.
“Oh, come on. Don’t tell me you have opinions about children being born out of wedlock.”
“I can’t help it. There’s Catholicism that runs deep in my veins, even if I don’t practice it personally, and the idea of an illegitimate child—”
“You kill people,” I scoff. “Also, you were just going to take the baby and send me on my way.”
“But that was different. That was before we…”
“Oh, don’t tell me. Sex has changed things for you.” I shake my head. “You’re getting soft, gangster.”
“I assure you,” he says. “I’m not soft.”
And I marinate on that for a while.
I’ve never been to London, and when the plane touches down, I feel a rising excitement inside of me. This isn’t the end of all my dreams. There are going to be experiences I can have with him that I couldn’t have had otherwise.
His money makes a lot of things possible. And the kind of people who say that money can’t buy happiness are the kind of people who have always had it.
Because money can buy a great many things that bring happiness if nothing else.
There is a car waiting to take us into the city, and I spend the drive in awe of the views.
The city is beautiful, and what shocks me the most is how close all of the very famous landmarks are to each other. Suddenly I’m looking at Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and so many other things I’ve seen in movies and on TV, but never imagined I would see in real life.
I remind myself that this is the kind of adventure I still have left in front of me. But I’m not giving up on everything. I’m not totally surrendering and sacrificing myself on the altar of Ciro.
Though, it feels like it.
The car pulls up to a sleek modern building, and I knew that it would be nice, but what I’m discovering is that while I might know nice on the scale a regular person might use, I don’t know billionaire nice.
The building is glorious, and also very secure. Just walking into the lobby requires biometrics from Ciro, and once we get through the pristine lobby, we get into an elevator that requires a code.
“What happens when you have visitors?”
“You have to make sure they know at the front desk. They can let someone in.”
“Why do I get the feeling you’ve never had visitors?”
He smiles. “Because I haven’t.”
His residence is on the top floor, and when the elevator doors open, I realize it’s the entire top floor.
And I laugh when we go inside, because it’s exactly the kind of place I pictured him having if he designed it.
Sleek and mainly black. Concrete and stone. Clean lines and nothing sentimental.
The views of the city are stunning, though. And I find myself drawn not so much to all the state-of-the-art equipment in the kitchen, or the glorious furniture in the living room, but to the view below.
The glory of London arrayed before me.
The door closes behind us, and he enables what I assume is a security system.
Then he looks at me. “This is one of our homes. My homes belong to you as well.”
I think about my little apartment in Rome, which had my few meager belongings in it. “Do you think that I could have my…? All of my things are still there.”
Including my sewing supplies, and a great many designs that I’ve made.
“Anything that you need I can replace for you.”
“That’s…that’s great,” I say. I’m imagining the sewing room that I could have. A career I can still have. And it makes me feel giddy.
But then, that’s something I need to discuss with him.
“I want to finish school.”
He looks at me, and frowns. “You have no need to worry about money.”
“It’s not about money. If I just wanted to make as much money as possible, I would’ve gone to school to become the CEO of an evil corporation.
I want more than that. I want security, yes.
But my dream is to be a fashion designer.
I still want to go to school. Even if I never have to make a dime, that’s what I want. For myself.”
“We’ll see,” he says.
And I recognize that I’m not going to get anywhere with him right now. But I’ve said it. I’m not afraid to have a fight with him. But the reality is, both of us are in entirely new territory at the moment.
There will be a time when it will be worth trying to advocate for myself, but it’s not now.
I stand there, and rest my hand on my baby bump, looking out at the city below.
This is the kind of house our child will grow up in. And I can set everything else aside knowing that. The stability…
The beauty of it is incredible.
I start thinking ahead, to what sorts of schools they might go to. All of the lovely things we can buy for them. The holidays that we’ll have.
Everything we never have.
Yes, I have a dream of pursuing a career in fashion. But I also have a dream now of making a life for our child that we could never have.
Something filled with stability and warmth. Happiness. Good memories.
Memories that aren’t sitting in front of the TV eating cereal while the rest of the family blissfully leaves them alone.
He moves up behind me, his large, imposing presence making me shiver. I feel his heat. His strength, even though he isn’t touching me. He sweeps my hair to the side, and leans in, kissing my neck as he moves his hands to my hips. “This is yours. And you are mine.”
The note of steel possessiveness in his voice shocks me.
Until that moment I really thought it was all about the baby.
All about giving our child the nuclear family that neither of us had.
But the way he says that—that I’m his, that I’m his like I’m a possession, something that he wants—makes me freeze.
Maybe I should be upset about it. Maybe I should even be offended. But nobody’s ever really wanted me. My parents certainly didn’t. They did the bare minimum to stay out of prison. To keep CPS from taking me away, though, I often wonder why they ever bothered. I was only ever an afterthought.
And when I left home at fifteen, I doubt they ever thought of me again.
But he wants me. This way. And I’m overcome by how much I want that. By how much I need it.