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I ended up staying for about an hour before I returned to the house. The mansion was eerily silent. There was no sign of life anywhere to be found. The staff would’ve retired to their quarters for the night, but it didn’t mean Viviana had done the same. She was a night owl like me. That was how we usually passed our time until giving in to exhaustion, but there would be none of that this evening. I wouldn’t fuck her when I knew she was suffering so much.
As I ascended the staircase, I wondered when I had developed a conscience. I took what I wanted, when I wanted it, and no matter how upset I was at her, I never stopped wanting Viviana. I could very easily go into her room and fuck her, but I wouldn’t. Touch her, that was. I did stop outside the closed door. I pressed my forehead to the heavy oak. I also closed my eyes and that was when I heard the sound of crying. It was muffled, and very soft, but clear. I reopened my eyes, then knocked lightly on the door. The sobbing continued, so I made the entry, uninvited. Once I did, I saw her turned away from me. She was crying into the pillow.
“Viviana,” I called out, but she was still sobbing so steadily that she didn’t hear me. I moved closer and when standing over her, I reached down and touched her arm.
She recoiled and rolled over to stare up at me. “What the hell are you doing here?”
I hadn’t ever seen Viviana so emotionally vulnerable before, but I should’ve known she wouldn’t let me see that side of her if she could help it. I went to touch her again, but she swatted my hand away.
“I thought you wanted to be alone,” she said, throwing my parting words from earlier back into my face.
“I did, but I...” I didn’t know if I wanted to explain anything to her. I ran things in this house, and her world, despite what she often tried to make herself believe. “I changed my mind. I was on my way to my room when I heard you crying.”
As if she could erase what I heard, she tried to wipe all evidence of that from her face, but it was for naught. Her eyes were bloodshot, and the dark shadows under them were even darker than they’d been earlier.
“I’m fine. Now if you don’t mind—”
“Do you need to see a doctor?” I asked her.
She flinched, then shook her head. “No. I don’t want to see any doctor ofyours.”
“I can bring one of your liking,” I suggested, attempting to extend an olive branch.
“I don’t trust anything with your hands on it. I will be fine. Just leave.”
She turned back over as if she had ended this conversation. I stood there for a few seconds, before I kicked off my shoes and climbed into bed with her. She visibly tensed, her body now taut and frozen in place. I reached out to touch her arm, and other than a solitary shiver, she remained immobile.
“I’m not always the monster you believe me to be,” I admitted, not even sure why I had. I’ve always lived my life doing what I wanted, the consequences be damned, but this woman tested more than my resolve. She sometimes made me question my entire being as she was now. I wanted to be firm with her, forcing her to succumb to my will, but she didn’t bow down to my wishes like others. It should’ve signed her death warrant, but the moments of fleeting pleasure I experienced with her when we were not at each other’s throats was what kept her around.
She rolled back over and snarled. “You’re not?” she questioned, then added, “I believe ordering me to abort my child has permanently branded you one.”
So, this was the source of her pain. I wanted to assure her those words were ones spoken or said in anger and shock, but they weren’t. The very idea that the child inside of her could be—I shook my head to expel those thoughts from it, but to no avail. Finally, I sighed in defeat.
“I won’t raise my brother as my son. That’s not up for negotiation, Viviana.”
“I don’t even know that it is his,” she told me.
“It doesn’t matter. It will be months before I will know whose child this is, and by then, I will have grown to resent it. Even if the tests tip in your favor, I will always question the authenticity of them, so you see—”
Viviana sat up, and I leaned back to give her room to do so. She then grabbed my face between her damp hands. “I can’t understand how you could hate your own flesh and blood. Even if this is somehow your brother or sister, would you not be able to love someone who still has your blood running through them?”
“No,” I told her, emphatically. I didn’t even need to think about it because any child of my father’s could never be a child of mine.
She flopped back down in resignation, then turned her back on me once more. “No doctors, Nazario.” I thought she was done, until she continued, “And you can close the door on your way out.” Now, she was done, and so was this conversation.
I could’ve forced her to cede to my control and will, but she wasn’t at full strength. I truly enjoyed our spirited fights, and even more so when I could force my will upon her. She’d fight it, and me, until beautifully submitting. My cock hardened as memories of some of our recent fights played out in my mind, but tonight, I wouldn’t be adding to those. I got up and put my shoes back on, then turned to her. “I’ll leave right now because I have some business to attend to, but know that this conversation isn’t over by a long shot,” I told her.
“Minchia,” she mumbled and it gave me pause and not because she essentially called me a dick. I could shut her sweet mouth up by stuffing it with my cock. What bothered me was the word itself. While recognized all over Italy, it was typically spoken more in Sicily.
I wanted to ask her where she had picked it up. Was Sicily where she’d been all this time? I realized that as much as I thought I knew about her, I actually didn’t know her well at all. My father hadn’t told me a thing regarding how the two had come to be, and once I had her in my arms, and in my bed, getting those answers had been the farthest things from my mind. Now, I was back to wondering.
I left the room and closed the door, then headed down to my office. Once inside, I opened the drawer where my father kept so much junk. I’d scoured through every other one, but had never given this one much thought. Was the missing puzzle piece inside of here somehow? I pushed aside different things like photographs until one caught my eye. I picked it up and turned it over in my hand.
I’d been maybe six or seven years old and in the vineyard. My mother was there with me and as she plucked a few grapes from their vine, I was spinning around without a care in the world. I closed my eyes and remembered the humid breeze blowing through my hair and the warmth of the sun on my skin. There was a floral scent in the air mixing with an earthier kind.
“Nazario, come quickly,”my mother had called to me, and I’d sprinted over to her. She’d plopped a succulent grape into my mouth just as a boom of thunder had broken out overhead. I’d try to break free from her embrace, but she held me tighter.“You’re a lot like this fruit,”she’d told me.“It, too, looks nothing like the others on the vine, but it’s still the sweetest and most beautiful one of all.”
I opened my eyes and scowled. She’d been referencing the fact that my very own father thought me to be defective because of my condition. I was flawed in his eyes as he used to tell my mother.“There’s no way he could be mine.”Those words had stung not only me, but my mother. I’d spent my entire life knowing he looked down on me... that he was disappointed in me... that I was never good enough...
