18. I Will Haunt You
EIGHTEEN
I WILL HAUNT YOU
W alking into Dante’s office, she hadn’t expected it, but her heart had skipped a beat upon seeing him again. However, with the look of his icy exterior, she doubted his had done the same.
Seeing him start to get up, she stopped him. “You can stay there. This won’t take long.”
“This won’t take long?” he questioned, stunned, and froze in place from rising out of his chair.
“Yes.” She waited for him to slowly lower himself back down to his chair before she began. “I don’t know what you planned to say to me, whether you were going to ask to see me again or not, but when I leave this office … it will be the last time you see me.”
It was easier this way, because if she heard him say he no longer wanted to see her, it would break her heart. But what would hurt even worse was if he did ask to see her again. Then she wouldn’t have the strength to do this.
Nadia couldn’t see anything in his hardened face, only the slight flex to his jaw.
“May I ask why?”
“I hate casinos.”
“You hate casinos?” he asked, confused more than ever.
“Exactly.” She nodded firmly.
“Then don’t play in my casino. I don’t care.” Dante seemed to have an easy fix, but when Nadia shook her head, telling him it wasn’t that easy, he continued, “I’m sorry, but I’m not understanding why that means you plan to never see me again once you hit that door?”
“We’re two different people—” It was him this time who was going to interrupt her, but she wasn’t done. Softly, she spoke the words containing the hard truth, “And you’re in love with someone else.”
Dante sat back in his chair, knowing exactly who she meant. “I will always love my wife. It’s not like she walked out on me, Nadia. She died … because of me.”
“I know you will, and I wouldn’t want that to ever change,” Nadia said, taking a breath. “But you’re not willing to share that love with anyone else, and as amazing as that night was with you, I know that’s all you could ever give me, and it would never be enough.”
She had to look past him now, the words too much for herself to bear saying, and Nadia couldn’t witness the pain beginning on his face from talking about his wife.
“You can blame yourself for her death all you want, Dante, but she knew the consequences of being with you … just like I do, which is why … I can’t.
I don’t choose a life where I will wonder if my next step will be my last, or if you don’t pick up the phone, it might mean you’re dead.
” She spoke the name of the ghost that haunted his ice-blue eyes. “Melissa did … I don’t.”
Dante stared at her for several moments, having to take in what she said, and when he finally went to open his mouth, there was a knock on the office door before it flung open.
One of his men, holding a folder, paused upon seeing her. “Oh, sorry, I—”
“That’s okay. I was just leaving,” Nadia said, wiping away the tear that had fallen before she turned for the door.
Standing from his chair, Dante waved his man on. “Sal, can you give us a minute?”
“No, please stay,” Nadia urged him, and the man didn’t know what to do, but she kept him in place when she went to the door herself.
“Tell your men I can make it home myself, and that I won’t be needing their services.
” Turning, she gave one last look at the man who had stolen her heart and would never be able to give his in return. “Goodbye, Mr. Caruso.”
Dante fell back down in his chair, watching where she had just disappeared without giving him a single chance.
“Sir …”
“Sal, give me a fucking minute!” Dante yelled at his soldier, who quietly left, closing him in alone with nothing but his thoughts and a memory he had hidden deeply …
“Where is your mom?” Dante asked a young Maria as she came running in with her pink floppy dress from the direction of the kitchen.
Melissa had said she was going to take a nap while Leo was having his, so he had gone to his study to take care of a few business matters that were important, or he would have taken one with her.
Dante gave a silent curse at the missed opportunity. His wife and he hadn’t been able to have one since Leo’s birth.
Maria brushed her golden locks out of her face. “Have you checked her garden?”
“Tell Lucca to start dinner. I don’t want your mother extending herself any more than she needs to.” His son was only a young teenager, but his mother had already taught him well enough that he didn’t need supervision to cook anymore.
Walking outside, the crisp air, along with the beautiful scents of her blooming flowers, caressed him. He always loved the smell back here. It was exactly how she smelled.
Glancing around, he was almost ready to go back inside when he caught sight of his wife on a ladder at the side of the gazebo, fiddling with a hanging planter well above on her head. Dante started running when her fingers brushed against the heavy glass planter and it wobbled.
As he snatched Melissa off the ladder, the planter fell down, crashing to the ground.
“What in the hell are you doing?”
“Shh … One of the children will hear you.”
“Don’t shush me. They’ve heard much worse from me.”
“Which you have promised to work on,” she reminded him.
“Why are you on the ladder? You could have asked me or Lucca.”
“I didn’t want to disturb you.” Peeling herself away from him, she went to get a broom and a dustpan from the gardening shed.
Fuming, he had to wait until she came back before laying into her again. Taking the broom and pan away from her, he started sweeping up the shattered glass.
“You don’t think me finding my wife with her head bashed in would disturb me?”
“You’re overreacting. It was a simple mishap. Don’t make more of it than it was.”
His overwhelmingly beautiful wife gave him a censuring glance.
“I’m not overreacting. What would I do without you?” It bothered him to his core to even think about that possibility.
“I have every confidence you would raise our four children with all the love you are capable of.”
His brows furrowed at her choice of words. “What does that mean?”
“You’re not a very demonstrative man, Dante. We’ve discussed this many times before.”
Dropping the shards of glass in a waste bin, he leaned the broom against the gazebo before taking his wife into his arms.
“I love you.”
“You do now, but you didn’t when we married.” She wrapped her arms around him. “We weren’t given the choice to choose.”
“Would you have chosen me?”
“Yes, once I got to know you better. Would you have chosen me?”
“If I didn’t want you, I would have told my father to choose another bride for me,” he hedged. “I loved you within the first month of our marriage. Just because I wasn’t the one who picked you doesn’t mean my love is less than a man’s who was able to choose.”
“Dante, from the moment you told me you loved me, I’ve never doubted your love for me, or our children. The problem we have is your inability to express your love to others the way you do to me.”
“Our children know I love them.”
“Do they? I worry about Lucca.”
“You should be more concerned about yourself. If I ever see you climbing a ladder again …”
“Why? You would never lay a hand on me regardless of how angry you are with me.” Patting his cheek, Melissa moved out of his arms. “Leo will be waking. I need to go check on him. Come with me?”
Dante took her hand to creep inside the nursery next to their bedroom. Lovingly smiling at the small infant gurgling in his crib, Melissa picked the baby up to carry Leo to a rocking chair.
Going to their bedroom, he filled a glass with ice and opened a bottle of sparkling water, filling it up. Carrying it into the nursey, he gave it to Melissa as she nursed Leo.
“You take such good care of me. You’ve been a good husband.”
“What brought that on?”
“I started thinking. You were right; I shouldn’t have climbed the ladder. The basket was too high. Most accidental deaths happen in the home, by people just doing things that would have been wiser for them not to do. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“Thank you. That still doesn’t get you off the hook.”
“I didn’t expect it to.” Melissa gave him one of her gentle smiles, which never failed to make him feel as if he was the luckiest son of a bitch on Earth that she had grown to love him.
“I have to admit; I’m always so worried about your safety, I didn’t take into account your feelings if something were to happen to me. ”
“I would be completely lost without you,” he said with a hitch in his breath. Even saying it took away his ability to breathe.
“You’re overreacting again. You could never be lost. You would be unhappy for a while, then I think you would find another woman to love. You have my permission to remarry if you do.”
“The same permission won’t be coming from me if I die.”
“I would never remarry. No one would be able to compare to you.”
He couldn’t disagree with that, so he didn’t try.
“I won’t, either.” His hand went to his heart as he made the pledge. “My eyes will never show love for another woman, my lips will never kiss another’s, and my voice will never tell another woman of my love for her. I will only give those promises to you.”
Her loving eyes grew sad. “Dante, if it does happen, and you do fall in love, please remember what I said. I would never want you to be alone. One day, the children will leave the home we made for them, and autumn leaves will continue to fall as we grow older. I couldn’t be happy in Heaven if you were alone without someone to love. ”
“Let’s change the subject. We’re going to have to agree to disagree.”
“Just promise me one thing, and we can talk about something else.”
Dante knew Melissa wouldn’t stop until she got out what she wanted to say.
“What do you want me to maybe promise you?”
“I want you to promise me … when you do want to remarry, that you love her before you put a ring on her finger.”
Dante glared at Melissa when she said want . He was done with the conversation.
“I will,” he said without meaning it.