It wasn’t that I craved Vito’s attention anymore, or any man’s, for that matter. I’d had my wild night, and it had left me with a trauma I was struggling to process.
It hadn’t taken Evie long to get the truth out of me about Vito, even though I’d had to swear her to secrecy and get her to promise not to tell Becca or Jessie. She’d had no idea what to do about my virtually catatonic state ever since. At first, she’d searched for anything she could find out about the shootout at Vito’s estate on the internet to give me closure. But there was virtually nothing, just a brief mention a week later on an Italian website about an ‘incident’ which may have involved a gang war in the city’s western districts. But even those details were sketchy. Either the police weren’t releasing any details or they didn’t know what had happened either.
I waited for days for Interpol or the FBI, or the Home Office, or whoever the heck handled investigations of international crime syndicates to break down our door and interrogate me. But no one did. Which was good, because I knew I would have kept my promise not to tell them anything…not because of butdespiteLorenzo’s threat.
Didn’t I owe Vito that much for saving my life?
But as the days stretched into weeks, the numbness, the nightmares—and those impossibly erotic dreams—didn’t disappear. They simply morphed into exhaustion—and this weird oversensitivity in my breasts, almost as if Vito was still there, still controlling my body.
It would have freaked me out if I’d been able to care. But I was still struggling to feel anything at all until the morning Evie came down to breakfast and placed a paper bag with a pharmacy logo onto the kitchen table.
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
She’d already suggested I go to see a doctor, or a trauma specialist—as if you’d be able to get one of those on the NHS.
‘I don’t need medication,’ I said. ‘I just need more time. I’m going to be fine.’
‘You forget, I was the one who persuaded you to hook up with a man who turned out to be a bloody mafia boss, Mia. I feel responsible for nearly getting you killed. And you’re not yourself. You’ve been weird ever since. I want to fix it.’
The guilt shadowing her eyes ripped away some of the fog. I covered her hand on the table and felt it tremble.
‘Evie, don’t you dare blame yourself. I was the one who made that choice…plus you weren’t wrong about him giving me the night of my life,’ I added, the weird urge to laugh making me wonder if I was officially losing what was left of my mind. ‘And I didn’t die. So it’s all good. I’m starting to feel better now. Honestly, I am,’ I said, trying to convince myself it was true. What scared me more than the fog, though, was the realisation I still missed Vito, especially at night, the feel of his strong body holding me and the glitter of approval in his eyes.
I hadn’t lied to Evie. That one night had been the most alive I had ever felt.
Go figure.
From the sceptical look on Evie’s face, she wasn’t fooled. ‘Maybe, but I think you need to use this now.’
I glanced at the chemist bag again. ‘I’m not taking any happy pills. You know what that did to Mum…’
‘I couldn’t get those without a prescription, Mia,’ Evie said softly, then pulled a box out of the bag and placed it in front of me. ‘It’s not happy pills. It’s a pregnancy test.’
My mind blanked.
‘It’s been three months since that night,’ she continued gently. ‘And you’ve only had one light period. You’re tired all the time, and your tits are enormous.’
‘No way has it been that long…’
How could it have been three months? When it still felt like yesterday, because of those dreams dragging me back to Naples and Vito every single night?
The light period a week after I’d returned home had set my mind at rest about an unplanned pregnancy. So I hadn’t bothered to sort out any emergency contraception. Although to be honest, I wasn’t sure I would have been capable of arranging it, even without the light period, because I couldn’t seem to organise much of anything anymore.
But how could I not have noticed three whole months going by?
‘I know you’re not always regular, so I didn’t say anything. But Mia, the box with your tampons in it hasn’t been touched for eight weeks.’
I stared at the test sitting in front of me. ‘I can’t be pregnant. It must be stress.’
Evie picked up the box, took my hand and pressed the kit into my palm. ‘Just take the test. Then we can be sure. Okay?’
I held the box as if it were an unexploded bomb. But strangely, for the first time in, well, three months, I could feel my extremities again. I wasn’t numb anymore. The late July sun shining through our basement window felt bright instead of dull, my mind no longer vague. Instead, all sorts of bizarre thoughts and emotions were racing through my head in vivid Technicolor. The emotions didn’t make any sense, but at least I could feel every single one of them. Panic and fear, of course, but also hope and anticipation.
Hope? Anticipation? Where were they coming from?
A pregnancy would be bad,verybad. What would I do if I was carrying Vito Rocco’s baby?
The man who—according to the little Evie had managed to discover about him—was rumoured to run the biggest crime syndicate in southern Italy. The man who had lit up my body like a firework, saved my life and then discarded me.
