CHAPTER 31
NINA MARCHESI
“No.”
My mother’s loud, categorical voice pulls me out of the restless sleep I feel like I only just fell into.
It was a shitty night. No. It was a very, very shitty night. I felt like a stupid girl, unable to stop crying, hurt and guilty, and it was impossible to hide that from my mother.
I greeted her from a distance when I got home, throwing out a quick good night and an apology for worrying her before running upstairs to shut myself in my room. She showed up half an hour later, bringing a sandwich I couldn’t eat and a mug of tea I mercifully drowned in.
She didn’t ask questions. She didn’t say the infamous—and deserved—“I warned you.” My mother simply held me and let me cry in her arms until my tears dried up, leaving me with nothing but a silence stirred by the chaos of my own thoughts. I still don’t know how I feel.
Guilty? Absolutely—and what else? Hurt? Yes, that too, but I can’t tell if I even have the right to that. The way Nero looked at me, the way he spoke to me—I never thought I’d be on the receiving end of so much contempt from him, and that raises a million other questions.
“Please, Rosa, I need to see her. I need to apologize.”
The sound of Nero’s voice lifts my body as if I were marionette and his deep tone were the puppeteer pulling my strings.
In seconds, I’m at my bedroom door, ignoring the sting of the cold floor against my warm feet and the many times my eyes feel the need to blink away the fog of sleep and exhaustion. I don’t cross the threshold, though.
I just stop there and crack the door open, sharpening my hearing to catch the argument happening downstairs.
“You are not coming in, Nero! My daughter cried all night! I knew this wasn’t a good idea, boy! I warned her, but in my heart I still believed you’d be decent! That you’d treat my daughter the way she deserves to be treated! Nina is a good girl, from a good family, Nero!”
“Rosa, please, I know all of that.”
The way he agrees with her sounds so defeated, so sad. “I just need to look at her. If she doesn’t want to talk to me, I swear I’ll leave.”
The silence that follows makes my heart jump in my chest.
“She finally fell asleep just now. I’ll see if she’s awake and if she’s willing to talk to you. If she’s sleeping, I won’t wake her,” my mother warns, then adds after a breath, “and you won’t stay here waiting for her to wake up.”
“I just need her to know that I’m here,” Nero says, and I hear the door close.
I don’t bother abandoning my spying post when I hear my mother climbing the stairs. She finds me standing in the doorway, the door still half-open. Her hand is gentle as she pushes it wider.
“You heard?” she asks, caressing my cheek softly. I nod. “And what do you want to do? I can send him away—just say the word.”
“You didn’t let him in?”
“No.”
“But people—”
“Let them all go to hell, Nina. No gossip will ever be more important to me than your wellbeing.” I nod again. “What can I do for you? Do you want some tea?”
“What time is it? Aren’t you going to the shop today?” I ask, already turning my head toward the clock hanging on my wall. The hand points to seven in the morning.
“It’s still early, but if you need me, I’ll happily perform my duties as a mother and nothing else today.” I smile sadly and take a step forward before wrapping my mother in a tight hug.
I stay there, held in the warmth of her embrace for a long time. That’s what gives me the strength to make a decision. I can’t keep letting these feelings rot my chest from the inside.
“I’ll see him, Mom. You can let him come up.”
“Are you sure? I can send him away with a broom if you want.” The laugh that escapes me at the image is genuine.
“I’m sure. You can let him up.”
***
Nero finds me standing beside the bed when he enters my room. His eyes examine every inch of me—from the comfortable pajamas to my swollen eyes and red nose—lingering a bit longer on the last two.
“If you came to keep fighting, please come back next week, because I’ve already exhausted the tear supply I had reserved for this,” I feel the need to say when the silence stretches too long.
“Fuck, Little Fae!”
He growls, taking two steps toward me, but I step back two as well, keeping the distance between us.
That makes him stop. “I just need to touch you.” The words are an unmistakable plea, and I let out a dry laugh, hoping it sounds as hateful as the ones I was forced to hear leaving his lips last night.
“That’s quite a change from yesterday.”
“I was an idiot.”
“Please, go on.”
“I’m not going to be a hypocrite—I don’t like that you hid things from me, Nina, but—”
“I never lied to you,” I interrupt. “I may have omitted information, but I never lied to you.”
“Half-truths are fully told lies, Nina, and I won’t apologize for that certainty—but I will for everything else. I’m sorry.”
His voice softens on the last two words, and I lower my head, staring at the floor.
He’s right. I’d love to stand here playing the offended party who did nothing wrong, but I can’t.
When I look up again, though, I don’t find accusation on Nero’s face—I find the same misery I’m sure is written on mine.
“I was impulsive and I was an asshole,” he says quietly, but clearly enough that there’s no doubt what he means.
“You were.”
Nero rests one hand on his hip and brings the other to the back of his neck, rubbing it there. He turns his face away and a humourless smile stretches his lips.
“The idea,” he says, looking back at me, “that it was so easy for you to hide something that could pull us apart, when I can barely breathe with you away from me, pushed me to a limit I’m not proud of, Little Fae.”
I hold my breath as his confessions spill from his mouth. My heart, once tight and erratic, turns completely unhinged as I blink at Nero, wondering if there’s any chance I misunderstood his words.
He bites his lip and tests taking a step toward me. When I don’t retreat, he takes another, then another, until only a foot of space remains between us.
“There’s no excuse for the way I treated you, Nina,” he whispers, slowly leaning his face toward mine, as if it’s impossible for him to restrain himself now that there’s no longer a whole room between our bodies.
His words lift part of the weight from my chest, but the other part—the one I can blame no one but myself for—refuses to leave, at least not before I make my own confessions.
I turn my face away, escaping his gaze, as I admit, “I know I’m not innocent in this, Nero. I should have told you sooner.”
“You should have.”
“I was scared,” I confess—to him and to myself. “I was terrified that telling you the truth would put an end to a story I shouldn’t even have allowed to begin. I just—”
He interrupts me, closing the distance with a single step and cupping my cheeks with both hands, forcing me to look at him despite my shame.
Most of his fingers slide into my hair until only his thumbs are stroking my face. I blink, focusing my eyes completely on his.
“I’m sorry,” I finally ask as well. “I should have told you sooner. I know I should have. But I didn’t want to admit to myself that my desires had changed. I spent so much of my life focused on my plans—the idea of giving them up for—”
“You don’t have to give up anything, Nina,” he says firmly, cutting me off, and presses his forehead to mine. “Not for me. Never.”
Nero pauses and takes a deep breath, filling his lungs with the air we’re sharing. “I told you before, Little Fae. We can buy a bed anywhere, and a couch, and a nightstand.”
The beginning of a smile blooms at the corner of my mouth as I remember that conversation we had weeks ago, the first time I went to his new apartment.
“I should have told you that day.”
He shrugs. “We can’t change what’s already passed.”
“We can’t.”
“But we don’t have to repeat our mistakes. I don’t care how much time you need—I’m not going anywhere.”
“The programme lasts almost two years, Nero. And I need to complete all of it.”
“Then maybe I’ll need to go to Dubai a few times a month,” he replies simply. “It doesn’t change the fact that I’m not going anywhere away from you.”
“You’re making ‘staying scared’ a very difficult task for me.”
“Thank God!” he exhales with a laugh, and I laugh too. “I want you to feel safe, Nina. I know you think we happened too fast, but why does that have to be a problem? I spent thirty years of my life without you. That was enough.”
I bite my lip, feeling every crack in my heart being filled by Nero’s words until it feels new and bright again.
I step closer, pressing our noses together and closing my eyes. I breathe him in—every fibre of my body sings with his proximity and leans toward Nero. His hands slide down, caressing me softly until they settle at my waist.
When I try to fit our lips together, though, Nero steps back, pulling away just enough that I can’t reach him, while still touching me. I frown, confused, and he quickly explains.
“There’s nothing I want more right now than to kiss you until my body forgets it needs to breathe and we both pass out from lack of air, Little Fae, but your mother is right next door, and I’m almost certain she’s probably listening behind the door.”
I roll my eyes.
“You’re afraid of an Italian woman who’s barely five feet tall?”
Nero removes his hands from me and lifts a finger toward me before his face twists into an angry caricature and he speaks in a high-pitched voice:
“My daughter deserves respect! She’s a good girl from a good family!”
His imitation of my mother pulls a loud laugh from me, and I sincerely hope she’s not actually listening behind the door. Nero smiles at me.
“From now on, I promise I’ll put nothing but these smiles on your face, Little Fae.” His thumb brushes the tip of my swollen nose.
I step forward to try to kiss him again, but he retreats once more.
“Nero!” I protest, but he laughs.
“Keep your hands off me. I’m a good family boy!” he mocks.
I narrow my eyes and open my mouth, then cross my arms, indignant.
“You just made me vows of eternal love and now you’re running away from me?” I tease—but the mood shifts from light and playful to suddenly terrifying when I realise the words that just left my mouth.
Before I can try to patch them up, Nero answers.
“I think I love you, Little Fae.”