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I’m lying on a padded beach chair near the pool while Matteo plays with our daughter, Tiana, in the water. She’s barely two years old, but the two of them are inseparable. I’ve never seen a father and daughter so close before.
It does sting a little that I’m not her favorite parent, but I’d rather see her relationship with her father flourish than suffer like so many women and girls that I’ve met throughout my life.
When I found out I was having a girl, I was concerned that Matteo wouldn’t be able to connect with her. I knew he would do the best he could, but I feared that he would resent her for not being a boy that he could train into the family business.
Since the minute she was born, he has been obsessed with her. For a little while, it felt like she was in his arms more than mine, which gave me enough time to relax and recover from giving birth.
Her birth wasn’t at all what we expected it to be. I hadn’t put together a specific, rigid birth plan like a lot of the other pregnant women in the parenting classes I took. The loved talking about the specifics of the birthing suite, whether or not they were going to have a doula, or if they were choosing to do a water birth.
The water birth moms were the most annoying to me. Why would you want to be trapped in a miniature pool filled with the byproducts of giving birth? The thought repulsed me the moment it was explained to me.
Halfway through the pregnancy, I started to get really nervous about giving birth, about being a mother at all. It was so hard to conceptualize myself as a different role than the one I had taken for so long. I was once nothing but a journalist, and I was fine with it. When I became a mother, I was going to be the sustaining force of another life – the life I created with the man that I love. It felt like such a monumental task to me, like I was a fraud in a sea of women who were true mothers.
Matteo was tremendously helpful during this time. He was so encouraging to me, always rubbing my back and whispering to me that I was the only woman he would want to carry his children. It feels like such a privilege to be his wife – married now for one year as we come up on our anniversary.
I wanted to wait in order to lose some baby weight to fit into the dress of my dreams. Matteo begged me to reconsider, suggesting that we get married within three months of his proposal if he found someone to plan everything for us. I was still so overcome by fatigue as I tackled the learning curves of new parenthood, and I didn’t want to be a sleep-deprived bitch at my wedding. I wanted to remember all of it, and I knew that if I had the opportunity, I would be drinking the entire night to alleviate some of the stress of being a new mother at the forefront of such a huge event.
He understood, and his disappointment was something of a compliment to me. The fact that he was so hellbent on marrying me really proved that he wanted me more than anyone. To have me birth his children could be for a selfish advantage if someone really wanted to see it that way. To marry me is to tell the whole world that you want to spend your life with me, and he was more than willing to prove his love to the world.
Despite my reservations, I was very serious about the idea of getting married once Tiana was born. Throughout the pregnancy, I was feeling insecure about whether or not Matteo was prepared to raise a child with me after the shine of a new relationship had faded somewhat. He promised that he was, but I needed proof. I was not about to be the type of woman to pester and bother her baby’s daddy for money and visitation. He was either in it or he wasn’t.
My fears settled when the wedding came and went, and now things are feeling much more stable than they ever have. I spend most days working on writing a book based on my experience with the whole Vitale situation. The article I wrote put my name at the top of the search results next to my former employer, removing John from the results completely. He was so fucking mad that he called me to bitch about his conspiracy theory that I used my newfound wealth to buy my position in the rankings.
I mean, I could have, but I didn’t have to.
He will never know that that feels like.
I’ve had plenty of my former coworkers reach out to me, begging me to come back and help them deal with John. I can’t imagine a worse way to spend my time when I’ve got a mansion, a pool, a babyanda husband to keep me occupied. If they want to handle John, they should force him to go to therapy. That would be the only bit of good that he did for anyone.
I still have dreams about that office, about listening to the rain pour down on a stormy afternoon in July. I can still remember the smell of the water hitting the concrete of the ancient building as it floated through my window. Sometimes I missthat, but I’d rather watch the storms from the giant windows in our living room with a vaulted ceiling.
As we begin to head inside for the night, Matteo hands off Tiana to Leonardo, to my surprise. “What’s going on?” I ask, partially concerned but with more curiosity than anything.
“It’s been too long since we did something just a little bit risky,” Matteo says in a low voice as Leonardo takes Tiana into the living room to watch cartoons.
“I don’t know, I feel like we need to put Tiana to sleep,” I protest, feeling unusually clingy to her as I watch him carry her away.
Matteo takes my hand, leading me gently back to the patio door as he opens it.
“I really don’t know about this,” I say, backing up a bit. I’m just as tempted as he is, but I’ve gotten so protective and crazy about being near Tiana all the time that I have to hesitate.
“Please just trust me,” he says, taking my hand again and leading me through the door.
When we get out to the courtyard, I can see that he’s had someone set up candles for us as well as an outdoor bed under the canopy.
“Oh my god, did you do this?” I ask, my heart suddenly fluttering with joy.
“Yes, I did. Our anniversary is coming up, and we’re going to celebrate then too. But you’ve been working so hard with Tiana and I want to show you how much I appreciate it.”
There’s a bottle of wine in a cooler next to the bed accompanied by wine glasses with gold rims. The whole setup is so tasteful and chic that I feel even more and spoiled than I usually do.
He continues leading me to the bed until we both fall into it. He embraces me, holding me around my waist as he begins to kiss me.
We haven’t been able to be very intimate lately, especially with some of the developmental changes that Tiana is going through. She’s been very needy, and both of us have had to be present for it. We’ve missed each other so much that we’ll share little touches in the hallway as we pass by one another.
His kisses are always so deep and passionate that I’m pulled right into his orbit. I never want to pull away from him, especially not in moments like this. I’ve been craving his presence so much that it’s created an ache in my chest and between my legs that I can’t satisfy on my own.
I feel all the way down the front of his shirt, down to his pants where I reach for his penis as it twitches for me. I love the way it feels when it struggles against his pants, tightening them around his hips as his desire grows.
