“I did. Was that…wrong? Should I not have?”
Sabina was growing more confused as he stared at her.
“No.” He caught her arm and pulled her
against him. “Marry me.”
Even as the rush of adrenaline made her
knees weak, she laughed. He was making a joke. He had to be, and it
was safer to remember that. They’d been together in this way for
one week only. It was a figure of speech. She laughed again and
sought her head for something equally impish as a rejoinder.
“I’m asking, Bina.”
Her mind skidded to a halt. “What? Carlo,
I…I…”
Yes
. The word she wanted to say was
yes
.
Yes
!
But one week. One week only. Fifteen years
of captivity, a month of recovery, a little more than one month on
her own, and one week with Carlo. How could she know that it was
not her heart only telling her that this life was the right one,
and that she would not lose herself in it before she’d even had a
chance to find herself?
“Carlo. I love you. But…” She dropped her
eyes and couldn’t finish. She couldn’t tell him
no
, or even
not yet
, any more than she could tell him
yes
.
He let go of her and took a sharp step
backward. “God. I’m so sorry, Bina. I told you I wouldn’t push. I’m
sorry. Forget that.”
She reached out and caught his hand. “I
don’t wish to forget it. I wish to treasure it and keep it safe.
For later. May I?”
“For later.” His smile was a little sad, she
thought. “Yes. For later.”
~oOo~
For thirty minutes or so, there was an
awkward space between them, a space filled by the two words of his
proposal. In that time, Sabina began to wonder and worry whether
that space would grow roots and stay between them. But then, as she
was helping distribute slices of the store-bought cake and thinking
wistful thoughts about what had happened in the kitchen after her
cake had fallen apart, he was behind her, his hand possessive on
her back. He kissed her bare shoulder.
“We okay?”
Relief overcame her, and she tipped her head
to meet his. “Yes. Oh, yes.”
“I love you. There’s no rush.”
She nodded, and he kissed her cheek, his
lips lingering.
As they stood there, a plate of cake
forgotten in Sabina’s hands, John came over.
“Carlo. We have a situation.”
Carlo and Sabina both turned to him. “What
is it?” Carlo asked.
John looked stressed and serious. Carlo
grabbed Sabina’s hand, and she saw him scan the yard, relaxing when
he found Trey attacking his grandfather with a rubber shark.
“You need to come in. Luca’s got it under
control for now—he headed her off before she came through the gate.
He’s corralled her in the living room.”
“Fuck, John,
what
?”
“Jenny’s here.”
At John’s words, Carlo pulled on Bina’s arm,
bringing her behind him. His urge to protect her flared hot—not
that sheltering her behind his body would protect her, or Trey, or
him, from whatever was about to happen.
“What the fuck?”
John nodded. “I guess she just pulled up and
headed up the driveway, like she was invited. She brought a gift.
You need to get in there, big brother. She’s threatening to make a
scene.”
He turned around and pulled Bina close. She
was looking concerned and perplexed, but she clearly hadn’t worked
out the full meaning of what was going on. Neither had he, for that
matter.
“I need to get in there and deal with
her.”
“Her? Jenny—she is Trey’s mother?”
Carlo’s tongue froze at the thought of
answering in the affirmative. “She’s…she was.”
“Carlo…”
“It’s okay, baby. Stay out here with
Trey—keep him from going inside, okay? I’ll deal with her and then
I’ll be back.”
The furrow in her golden brow had gotten
deeper, but she nodded, and he kissed the crease away. “I love
you.”
“I love you.”
She went to Trey, and Carlo and John went
into the house.
The last time Carlo had seen his ex-wife had
been here in Quiet Cove, at the beach, for Trey’s last birthday.
Since then, he’d spoken to her twice, early on, while they
finalized their annulment. He tried to formulate something in his
head, to prepare something, for when he saw her again. But nothing
would come; his head was too full of worry for Trey and for
Bina.
As he turned the corner that brought him
into the front hall, he saw Luca standing in the entry to the
living room. Luca turned. He looked angry and grim.
“Sorry, Carlo. I thought tying her up and
throwing her in the trunk of her car would make too much
noise.”
Carlo laughed a little. “Probably. Thanks
for keeping her from the party.”
“No sweat.” Luca turned and looked into the
living room. “This cunt is not on the list.”
Carlo came down the hall and looked over the
half wall abutting the entry. Jenny was sitting primly on the sofa,
a box wrapped in bright paper with planets and stars on her lap.
Planets and stars had been last year’s obsession. She saw him
looking and smiled—an awkward, insincere expression. The rage and
hate could have swallowed him whole. He wasn’t sure he’d even hated
Auberon as much as he despised this skinny little bitch sitting
here.
She looked much as she had the last time
he’d seen her—rail thin, with long, straight, gold hair, dressed
carefully in a long, slim, white skirt and a flouncy flowered top.
She lifted her left hand and tucked her hair behind her ear—there
was a ring on her finger. Not the one he’d given her, thank God. He
didn’t know if it was that kind of ring at all, but it had a
diamond.
He didn’t speak until he was in the room.
John and Luca were both behind him, at the entry. He spoke over his
shoulder. “You guys can go.”
“No.” Luca’s voice was low but firm, and
Carlo turned fully around.
“What?”
“I’m thinking she’s safer if I stay. And
that makes you safer. I can see it in your shoulders, big brother.”
He nodded toward Carlo’s hands. “And look.”
Carlo looked down; his hands were clenched
into fists.
“I’m staying. I’ll keep whatever confidence,
but you need a wingman. John, get out of here, keep people
outside.” John nodded and went back down the hall.
Knowing his brother was right—he felt
violence heating his blood—Carlo turned back to his ex-wife. “What
the holy
fuck
are you doing here?”
She tried that plastic smile on again—why
had he thought Trey had her smile? Trey’s smile was bright and
beautiful. This was just a gash across her gaunt face. Had he
thought her pretty once? Lovely?
Elfin
? “It’s Trey’s
birthday. I wanted to see my son on his birthday.”
“As far as I know, you don’t have a son. You
need to leave, and you need to do it now.”
She rolled her eyes, and Carlo’s fists
tightened. “Why? Are you going to hurt me? This thing right now
with Luca—is that little show supposed to make me afraid? You won’t
hurt me, Carlo.” She sighed and set the gift on the table in front
of her. “Look. I don’t want ugliness. I miss my son. I was wrong to
give him up completely. Maybe I was wrong to give him up at all.
But I miss him. I want to be in his life. I would like to work that
out with you. Just you and me.”
This was not a Jenny with which he was
familiar. She was too composed, too seemingly confident and
prepared. The woman he’d known was flighty or anxious, her control
always obviously a necessary effort. The Jenny he’d known should
have been vibrating with stress right now. “No.”
“What, no? You can’t just say no and think
that’s the end of this. I’m his mother.”
Carlo took three angry steps forward,
ignoring Luca’s warning mutter of his name, and stood towering over
Jenny. “See, you’re not. You signed your rights away. You are
officially
not his mother.”
She crossed her skinny arms over her chest,
and Carlo saw a break in the unfamiliar, artificial calm she’d been
projecting. “Rights can be reclaimed.”
Thinking about Trey’s recent weeks of
confusion, his renewed memories and questions about his mother and
where she was, and thinking how all of that turmoil had settled in
him again since they’d come back to the Cove, how he was back to
himself and happy in the life he had now, without her, and thinking
of Bina and how good and calm and maternal she was already, how
easy and true she was with Trey just by instinct, and how much
better they all were now, and how this bitch before him could fuck
with that, Carlo snapped. He reached down and grabbed Jenny by the
neck and yanked her to her feet. “Are you really that fucking
stupid?”
He squeezed, and her hands clawed at his
wrist. His hand clenched and clenched; Carlo didn’t feel like he
was operating his own body. He was having an out-of-body
experience, his sense gone and his fury left behind.
And then Luca was there, and Carlo was being
shoved back by his brother’s brawny arm. “And this is why I stayed.
Okay, you little cunt, put that bony ass back down and shut the
fuck up. You’re fine.” Luca turned and grabbed Carlo by the
shoulders, forcing him to sit in their father’s big chair. “And you
sit here. I’ll just stand right here in the middle.”
Luca stood between them like Mr. Clean, his
arms crossed over his broad chest. Carlo ignored him and glared at
Jenny. She was rubbing gingerly at her throat.
“Now you know I
will
hurt you. What
you did to Trey—you will never get the chance to fuck with his head
like that again. You walked away. You disappeared in the night like
a coward, and you left my son to wonder why. So no. I will kill you
before I let that happen again. And if you are so stupid to think
that I will let you even try to take this to court, then you
deserve to fucking die. I will unleash everything to keep that from
happening. Do you understand what I’m saying, Jenny?”
“And if I’m sorry?” Her voice had taken on a
rough, wavering edge. Her façade of cool control was gone.
“I don’t fucking care. There’s no sorry that
fixes this.”
“Carlo, I really miss him. He was the only
thing I was ever good at—being his mommy.”
That struck him funny—outrageously funny—and
he laughed hard enough that Luca cocked an eyebrow at him. “You
think you were good at being his mother? Jenny, if you were good at
being his mother, you’d still
be
his mother.” He stood. “I’m
done with this. You’re leaving. On your own feet or thrown over my
shoulder, you are leaving now.”
Jenny just sat there and stared at him. But
he hadn’t been exaggerating, so he moved toward her with every
intention of yanking her up by her hair and throwing her over his
shoulder. She must have sensed that, because she stood, quickly,
her hands up.
“Okay. I’ll go. But will you please at least
give him the present? It’s a solar system mobile. He’ll love
it.”
“He doesn’t care about astronomy anymore,
Jenny. That was last year. A lot has changed. Take it with you. He
doesn’t want it. He doesn’t need you or your present. Get. The
fuck.
Out
.”
They glared at each other for several
poisonous seconds, and then Jenny simply drooped. She nodded, and
Carlo stepped back. When she walked away from the gift on the
table, Carlo retrieved it.
“Take this with you.”
She turned and accepted it from him, and he
could see that she was fighting back tears.
He didn’t care—no, wrong. He cared. He was
glad. He hoped she felt searing pain right now.
Luca dropped his hand on Carlo’s shoulder.
“I’ll see her out, make sure she goes. You go back to your kid and
your woman.” He laughed sourly. “And Jesus fuck, I am never hooking
in with a chick. What a fucking mess.”
~oOo~
Before Carlo could go back out to the party,
before he’d be fit for the company of Trey and Bina, he had to get
himself under control. He went into the kitchen and grabbed one of
Luca’s ‘good’ beers and drank it dry while he was still standing in
the open cold of the fridge.
He thought he really would have killed her
if Luca hadn’t been there. He wanted to kill her now. He closed the
door and leaned his forehead on the cool stainless steel.
“She’s gone, bro. Toss me one of those, will
ya?”
Luca was behind him. He opened the fridge
again and tossed him a bottle.
“You know she’s not just gonna skitter off
like the little rat she is, right? If she’s got this in her pointy
little teeth—”
Carlo wheeled on him. “You think you need to tell me that? I was
with her for six fucking years. I know. I know.” Jenny was not
stable, and though he’d never seen the collected cool she’d started
their encounter today with, he knew full well that if she was
obsessing about Trey now, they had a problem. “I meant what I told
her. I will kill her before I let her near him.”