Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 132791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Mama burst into a bitter fit of laughter, blowing her nose. “Of course. He had a string of mistresses. Soon after I birthed Luca, he had a baby with one of them, too. He still sees his son often. I never met him. Don’t want to, either. Apparently, he truly loved the mother, though.”
I never felt so much disdain for Vello. I was actually relieved he wasn’t my father.
“After Enzo, I slipped into depression. I didn’t eat or sleep. Finally, a friend signed me up to an art class at our country club. Nude model painting. It was thrilling. I loved everything about it. The smell of paint, the blank canvases, the artists, the models…” She trailed off, biting her lower lip. “The teacher.”
Mama had an affair? I wanted to throw up and fist-pump the air simultaneously. Though I had a feeling I wasn’t going to love where this was going.
“Hugo was a Swedish painter. He didn’t have a dime to his name. But he was everything I looked for in a man. Quiet, kind, loving. I knew conducting an affair could get us both killed. But, please understand, Lila, I’d never done anything selfish in my life at this point. Always lived for other people. So when Hugo and I found out we were pregnant with you five months into our affair, I wanted to up and leave. Take Luca, Achilles, Enzo, and you and save you all from the awful life in the Camorra. Of course, once your father found out, he had other plans.”
Oh, I bet he gave her hell.
“Reasoning with him was out of the question. He’d never let me take his three healthy, strong boys. They were his future, his legacy. Instead, I planned to escape. I was going to smuggle your brothers out of the country. But one of his soldiers found out. Sent word to him. One night, when I snuck out to meet Hugo at his apartment, I found him stabbed to death in his own bed.” She drew a shaky breath. “Vello didn’t even close his eyes after he killed him.”
My father was dead.
My real father was good and kind and caring and artistic, and Vello killed him.
I was reeling with so many emotions, I didn’t know what to do with myself.
“Vello let me keep you, but he never took to you. It didn’t matter, because I did. I clung to you like you were my last hope in this life. A proof that once upon a time, I was happy, even if for a short time. God was good to me in that sense. He sculpted you to be the spitting image of Hugo. You look so much like him, Lila. Same fair hair. Same blue eyes. These past eighteen years, the only thing keeping me from falling apart was you. I realize now how unfair it was to you, but you were my fondest memory of my lover. Truly a gift.” She burst into tears. “You were the perfect baby. Happy and low maintenance. And when we found out you were deaf, I almost thought it was kismet. My way to keep you close and next to me.”
“Mama, you disowned me because I chose to show the world who I really am,” I reminded her.
But my expression was soft. I couldn’t muster any rage against a woman who suffered so thoroughly.
“I was so terrified for you.” She buried her face into the crinkled tissue, coming up for air only so I could read her lips. “Tiernan Callaghan’s name is synonymous with death and chaos. I didn’t want you to end up like me and my mother. Raped, abused, cheated on. It took almost losing you in a car crash for me to tell you all that’s been weighing on my chest for the past thirty years.”
“You could’ve told me all of this earlier.”
“You weren’t ready. I kept you younger than your years on purpose. It was only during my birthday dinner that I realized you weren’t my sweet, obedient girl anymore. That you somehow bloomed into a woman in a few months, and I wasn’t even there to witness it.”
She sniffled, patting her nose with the crumpled tissue. “Does he make you happy?”
“Yes, Mama. Very.”
“Has he ever forced himself on you?”
I shook my head. “Even on our wedding night, he didn’t touch me.”
“That’s because your brothers bribed him not to,” she balked.
I considered her words. “Tiernan is not strapped for cash. If he wanted to rape me, money wouldn’t stand in his way.”
She stared at me in wonder. “Does he cheat on you?”
My mind immediately swerved to Becky. But could I really call it cheating? It was before we were together. Before we kissed. Before I revealed to him that I was who I was.
“No.”
She visibly sagged with relief.
“But my feelings for him scare me. I would die for him, and that doesn’t feel right. This man has a lot of blood on his hands, and I look past all that. When does a monster stop being a monster, Mama?”