Page 14 of Broken Trust

I want to ask her: if I did so good, then how come it hurts so much? Mamma was right. Maybe I should have pretended, and then none of it would have happened. I drank too much. Said things I didn't mean. But before I can tell her my fears, she's gone.

I stand in the open doorway with the cold pouring in around me and watch her fold herself into the back of the waiting car. The headlights swing across the trunks, and the taillights buck and jolt away down the track until the branches close over them and the last red of her is swallowed whole.

Once I shut the door, I don't light the stove yet. I sink into Nonna's chair beside it, and I take out my phone.

It has been buzzing against my hip the whole way up. I am looking at it now for the first time.

The screen is a wall of them. Mamma. Mamma again. Mamma a third time, then an aunt, then a cousin I haven't spoken to since Easter, then Mamma once more. I don't need to read them to know what they say. The drunk daughter. The scene at the shower. The poor sister, nearly eight months along, terrorized her own celebration.

I scroll once, slowly, all the way to the bottom.

Nothing from Dante.

I set the phone face down on Nonna's table and look around the cold little room. And then my heart aches in a way that I didn't think was possible. This time I let it all out.

I hate him.

But then again, I hate myself more for ever thinking a man like Dante wanted to be with me. No, he just wanted to use me. Like all the no-gooders did when they found out that I was a Rizzo. I hate myself for being so blind.

10

DANTE

Fuck. I really messed up. Mia wanted me to stay, my suocera wanted me to keep up appearances, and all I could think about was the hurt in Gia's face. It's as if, for the first time since I started messing around with Mia, seeing her, whatever it's called, I've realized Gia is my wife. Like it's only now hitting home. What is wrong with me?

I stood there like a piece of furniture just like mi suocero. Any family drama and the man is never anywhere to be seen.

Everything I loathe about this family, it hit me like a fucking nail on the head, I’m no different from them. I’ve become one of those people who don’t care about anyone’s emotions, only appearances. When did I become this jerk? When my book became a bestseller? When this family accepted I had enough millions in the bank to earn their respect? Right now, I want to take it back. I want the decent person I perceived myself to be, to appear, but he doesn’t, so I think about finding a bar and just drowning my sorrows.

Instead I go home, expecting Gia to turn up. I shower, tidy up, not that there’s much to do. One thing for sure, Gia does always keep the house clean and tidy, but there’s no smell from the kitchen. No new recipe that she’s deciding to try out.

So I head to the car, and drive to Nella's. She doesn't live far. As soon as I park up, Nella opens the building door. Was she expecting me? She looks down and rolls her eyes at me, to let me know that I'm as pathetic as I feel right now.

“She's not here,” Nella says, before I've got a foot on the step up to the building. She doesn't open the door the rest of the way. She fills the gap in it, one hand flat on the frame, and she has never looked at me the way she's looking at me now, like the sight of me does something to her stomach.

“I know I fucked up.”

“You and your cock have done enough damage. Not with one of my sisters, but the two of them.” She says it flat, then steps down the stairs, and gets close to me, as if to challenge me. “You want to say something? Fine. Say it to me. I'll decide if it's worth passing on.”

“Nella. Please. Five minutes with her. I won't do anything but talk.”

“That's the whole problem with you.” It comes out almost gentle, which is worse than if she'd shouted. “You always want to talk. It's the one thing you've ever been good at.”

“That's not fair.”

Her eyes go bright and wild. “You don’t understand the meaning of the word, and I thought you were an author.”

Before I can reply, she steps up to me and her hand slaps me across my face, open, hard enough to turn my head, hard enough that the sound of it reaches me a half second after the sting does.

“You deserve so much more than that. But the sight of you is making me feel sick right now.” She's close enough now that I can watch her whole face working at it. “Dante.”

She doesn't finish whatever she wants to say, but spits in my face instead right across my eyes.

I don't wipe it. It runs, and I let it run.

“I told Gia not to marry you. You had a dream. Some big writing life. And you didn't give a shit what she wanted to do, it was all about you.” Her eyes hold mine and won't let go. “That's what I couldn't stand about you. You're so damn selfish. Do you even want kids? Really? Or is it just about having a legacy?”

“That's not,” I start, and stop, because I don't know how the sentence ends. For the first time since I married Gia, I honestly don't know the answer. I've never really been asked that before. Gia asked, do you want this, do you want to go down the surrogacy route, and I was like sure. Thinking it would keep her happy. But me and the kids. I shrugged at the idea of it. Men who want kids don't shrug. They have this burning urge. Don't they?