Chapter Six
Giovanni was not going to have this conversation at her parents’ house. After making their excuses, he left, driving the short distance home. It was then he realized Mia’s mother had never visited her. None of Mia’s family had visited her.
“You know, if you wanted to, you could invite your family over,” he said. He didn’t know if she would need him to extend an invitation to bring her family here.
“That’s fine,” she said.
He glanced over toward her, to see if she was happy. Mia still wasn’t.
“You’re not close?”
“No,” Mia said. “The only people I’m close to are my friends.”
Liana, Clarissa, and Tatiana. He gripped the steering wheel tightly.
They were already close, and he had to admit he was a little jealous of the relationship she had with her friends.
He didn’t like it. Actually, that was a lie.
He knew her friends had her back, unlike some people in the Colombo Mafia, who only liked to stir shit.
He arrived back home, parked the car, got out and moved around to her side to open the door. She climbed out, and he fucking hated the outfit she wore.
The moment he realized her style had changed, he’d gone hunting through the wardrobes to see if he could see any sign of the old Mia, and there was none.
He liked the way Mia dressed. He had no problem coming home to find his wife with her hair tied in a messy bun, in dungarees and covered in mud.
Mia liked to get her hands dirty. That was why his staff adored her.
They had also been a little terrified, because she did seem to get stuck in absolutely everything.
Rather than have this conversation in his office, he took her hand and led her upstairs. They never seemed to have too many troubles upstairs, apart from the fear of what he had done. He didn’t like the thought of taking advantage of her.
“Seriously, Giovanni, why do we have to come to our room to have this conversation?” Mia asked.
Giovanni made her sit on the edge of the bed, and then he couldn’t help it as he paced, glanced over to her, and then started to pace once again.
“Look, I know you heard that shit I said about you, and no, I never meant for you to hear it.”
He watched her shoulders slump. “It’s fine. I mean, I’m used to it. My parents tell me all the time that I’m a child and need to grow up.” Again, she shrugged. “I guess I should be used to that now.”
He didn’t like how dejected she looked. He ran fingers through his hair.
“I don’t consider you a child,” he said, and then stopped in front of her, crouching down, so they were at eye level. “Fuck me, I was the one having a temper tantrum that night.”
He saw the frown cross over her face. He smiled, reached up, and touched her forehead.
“Yeah, I know, it’s hard to believe. Me having a temper tantrum.”
“Why?” Mia asked.
“Because you looked so amazing in your dress, and we had all these fucking guests, that, to be honest, were pissing me off. I didn’t even want my friends there.”
“Why not?”
“Because I wanted to be alone with you, Mia. I happen to like you very much, and I don’t think you’re childish.
I love how you’ve not been tainted by the hard shit that goes on in this world.
I love that you’re excited about each new part of the year.
Do I always get it? Fuck, no, but I love it, because you do.
I love seeing how happy it makes you. To me, you’re not a child. ”
He saw the tears in her eyes.
“It’s all my parents ever called me,” she said. “It was always like some kind of dirty insult. I was never good enough because I didn’t behave like them. Men wouldn’t find excited children attractive.”
He saw her chin wobble. “You’re not a child, and I don’t think of you like that.”
The tears started to fall, and it was breaking his fucking heart.
“But you said it, so you must have thought it!”
He shook his head. “No, I didn’t. It’s fucked up, right?”
“I don’t understand.”
“I was angry because I wanted to spend time with you, and the guys were just being the guys, and honestly, I think we were all making shit up, because we’d heard our parents do it before us.
” He shrugged. “It fucking backfired, because I had those damn security cameras I forgot about. All of you heard. Emilo doesn’t even have a mistress. ”
“What?” Mia asked.
“Yeah, and this thing with Tatiana is not going well. They had a really good relationship, and now everything is messed up.”
Mia nibbled her lip. “Does Tatiana know?”
“I think she does, but she doesn’t believe him.” It was a fucked-up situation, and this is why you don’t say shit in the heat of the moment. He had been pissed off that once again, he was having to share his wife, and he’d wanted a quiet night alone with her.
It was stupid, because he had even agreed to the party, and there had been a small part of him that had been looking forward to it. Only, he had a bad fucking day and just wanted to make love to his wife. Instead, she overheard him saying shit, and they didn’t have sex for a long time.
Now, he didn’t even know if he could touch her. Especially after what the drug had done to her.
Mia reached out and put her hand to his cheek.
He covered her hand with his. “I’ve seen your wardrobe, and please burn everything.”
She giggled. “What?”
He tugged on the piece of skirt just over her knee. “Get rid of this, because this is fucking ghastly.”
“This is a designer piece, and didn’t you like it on that woman you saw at the nightclub?”
Giovanni frowned. “Nightclub?”
“You know, the one who was there the night I went home and we had sex,” Mia said.
The moment she took that fucking drug.
“Leanne.”
“If that was her name.”
“She is a business associate, and trust me, that wasn’t a good meeting, and I do not find Leanne attractive. She’s business. Nothing more.”
“But she looked really pretty.”
“I don’t care if she is the most gorgeous fucking woman on the planet. You’re my wife, Mia.”
“But men have ... mistresses.”
“Not me,” Giovanni said.
“You don’t?”
He took hold of her hands, covering them with his own. “There’s no one else. Not since the moment I met you,” he said.
“You want me to believe there has been no one else, like ever, when you met me at eighteen?” she asked.
He didn’t break eye contact with her. “There was no one else.” He saw that surprised her. “There was only ever you. There is no one else.”
Giovanni didn’t know what to do as she threw herself at him and wrapped her arms around his neck.
He held her tightly, not wanting to let her go, but all the while he couldn’t get that horrible feeling out of his mind, knowing what they had done while she had suffered the aftereffects of that drug.
****
Two Weeks Later
“And he said all of this to you two weeks ago now?” Clarissa asked.
“Yep, and I haven’t seen him since. He’s been MIA all this time.” Mia looked at the large bottle of scotch on the table. This was Giovanni’s good scotch—the kind he saved for special occasions. She spun around to look at her friend. “Do you want a drink?”
Clarissa frowned. “I don’t drink, not anymore.”
Mia sighed and then laughed. “Can you believe that MIA, is Mia. Oh, my, that is so funny.”
“Have you already been drinking?”
“Nope. I haven’t even touched a drop, but you know, I think I’m going to do what our men do and just have a little taste to see if it is worth the time.” Mia opened the stopper, lifted the large decanter to her nostrils, and inhaled. It didn’t smell good at all.
Still, Giovanni liked this, and seeing as he had pretty much bared his soul and abandoned her, she was feeling rather shitty.
She had even donated all the new clothes she had purchase to charity and decided to wear her old ones.
Like now, she wore her dungarees and a black shirt, with her hair pinned back.
She happened to like this outfit, and if Clarissa had arrived for a visit, she would have gone out into the yard to clean something, or just to get dirty.
Mia wasn’t the biggest fan of garden work, but she had also concluded she didn’t like sitting at home doing nothing. She didn’t like ordering people around, which is what her mother always did. She was nothing like her mother, or her father, or her brothers. Not that it made her special.
She put the decanter down and lifted the glass. “So, how are things with your love life?”
“Me and Lorenzo are ... I don’t actually know how we are at the moment.” Clarissa shrugged. “I know that I’m ... boring.”
“You’re not boring.”
“I heard what he said, and a lot of what I do is very singular. I get it.” She sighed.
“I just, after my sister died, I had a lot of nightmares. I mean, my dad got so upset, and my mom wasn’t sleeping because I was waking the whole house with my nightmares.
My sister died in my arms, and she was the oldest and the prettiest, and she should be the one married to Lorenzo.
I think there was even a slight arrangement when my sister was alive. Nothing committed.”
Mia poured out a second glass of scotch. Clarissa rarely talked about her trauma of the past, because the truth was, her best friend never wanted to relive it.
“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be a pain about this,” Clarissa said.
“You’re no pain, honey. Trust me, however, you can drink this or not.” Mia handed her a glass and sat beside her on the sofa, curling her feet beneath her.
She had every intention of drinking her scotch, but just holding it made her feel a little guilty, because she hadn’t even asked Giovanni if she could have a glass.
“My parents were at their wits end. I couldn’t go to therapy, and then, I don’t know what happened exactly, but my grandparents on my dad’s side came to stay with us for the summer.
I was not in a good way. I was terrified.
I don’t know if you know this, but my grandmother was an avid seamstress, knitter, and crafter. ”
“I didn’t know.”