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On the flight over here, he helped me book my doctor’s visits, and arranged for my pregnancy vitamins to be delivered to his villa here. He’s made sure I have the best shoes, and all my favorite foods. He’s done more for me than most fathers do in a lifetime of fatherhood. Certainly more than mine.
Still, I barely know him. And I have no way of knowing if he truly has gone back home for a business meeting, or if there’s another woman out there who feels the same way that I do about him.
I need to clear my head. I’m in desperate need of some other conversation to keep my mind busy, or I’ll be agonizing over all of this for the rest of the night. Thankfully, he left a guard here to keep an eye on me. And that guard is never too far away.
This means he will be the one responsible for keeping my mind off of terrible and harmful thoughts. He will have to be my distraction. I get up off the couch and know that I won’t have to walk too far to find him.
As soon as I walk onto the back patio, I see him. Seated at the table, he's reading this morning’s paper, fully-loaded weapons ready for if or when they could ever be required.
“Hello, Jay,” I greet as I take a seat next to him. “How are things in the news?”
“Aria,” he says with a kind, forced smile. “It’s the usual. Politics, corruption, violence. And the bridge club seems to be gearing up to win the nationals this year.”
“Oh, well that’s good news at least,” I reply.
“I suppose.”
Jay puts the paper to one side and turns to face me, his cup of coffee still steaming in his hand.
“What I would give for a sip of hot coffee right now,” I laugh. “But I’ll have to wait a couple more months.”
I pat my belly and let out a forced chuckle. I have no idea what to talk to him about, but I’m hoping that it will be some kind of distraction.
“It’s a beautiful villa,” I say, breaking the silence again. “It’s really kind of Edoardo to let me stay here.”
“He’s a kind man,” Jay agrees. “Even after all those years in prison, he has a big heart. Nothing breaks him, I tell you.”
Jay is a rather rough-looking man, but he has kind eyes. This kind of job suits him. I’ve been around many of my father’s guards and they’re all unfriendly. It never made me feel safe. Instead of being like that, Jay is kind and laughs a lot. Somehow, that makes me feel safer around him.
“It’s hard for me to believe he’s done such an extensive sentence. I really don’t see him as a dangerous person at all,” I admit, knowing that I’ve said too much.
“Well that’s simply explained,” Jay laughs. “That’s because he sat twenty years in there for a crime he didn’t commit.”
“I don’t understand.”
Something in Jay’s facial expression changes and I know that I’m missing important information.
“It really isn’t for me to tell you what happened,” he says as he reaches for the paper again.
But I lean forward and pluck it from his hands.
“If there is something important that I need to know about the father of my child, then you better spit it out,” I say.
Jay closes his eyes and I know that he is struggling to make a decision.
“Fine, I’ll tell you. But you didn’t hear it from me, and I’m not doing thisforyou, okay?” he says bluntly. “I’m doing this for Edoardo’s child, who deserves to know that his father is a good man.”
“That seems fair to me,” I say, having suddenly lost my sense of humor.
“Your father was responsible for putting him in jail,” he explains. “As far as I know, your father and Edoardo were both gunning for the same girl. Your mother, I believe.”
Jay takes a long sip of his coffee as he contemplates which part of the story to tell next.
“I suppose they had agreed that Auriet was fair game, and your father had decided on a better plan,” he continues. “So, your father paid a witness, in some important case, a huge sum of money to list Edoardo as one of the suspects.”
My heart wants to leap out of my chest and suddenly I wish I hadn’t asked him about it. It can’t be true.
“And then he paid the judge to give him a harsh sentence,” Jay said. “Edoardo sat twenty years without the possibility of parole. He never even had enough time to learn the real details of the case before he was incarcerated. It seems your father won your mother because of his greater influence. He removed Edoardo as a variable.”
