“I am on my way out.” She looked at the fitness watch on her wrist in a deliberate movement.
“It will not take long.” She extended a slender delicate hand. “My name is Sophia and I am a dear friend of your husband’s family.”
Lauren shook the hand extended and nodded towards the cozy foyer. Angelo, the man who was to be her guard, was standing with his hand folded in front of her, waiting for her to make her move.
“I will be ready in a few minutes,” she told him and he nodded.
Sophia led the way and took her seat on the padded chair next to the potted fern, leaving Laurent to sit opposite her. The fashionista in her noticed the flawless complexion, the thick dark hair caught up in an elegant chignon and the chicness of the seemingly simple floral dress she had on. A waiter had hurried over to find out if they needed anything, but they had declined.
“What is this about?”
“I was at the wedding,” the woman told her softly.
“I gathered that.” Lauren looked at her closely. “You were involved with my husband.”
Sophia stared at her, startled. “Did he tell you?”
She shook her head.
“You were one of the women staring daggers at me, so I made my assumption, which is correct.”
“I am not lumped in with the ones he saw because they availed themselves to him.”
“Let me guess,” Lauren said caustically. “You are special.”
“As a matter of fact, I am. We were practically engaged.”
“Oh?” Lauren’s eyebrows lifted.
She nodded, her eyes misty. “We knew each other a long time having run in the same circles, and we started going out, getting closer with the intention of making it permanent.” She bit her lip and stared down at her hands clasped at the table. “We had a fight and I…” She closed her eyes.
“You cheated on him.”
Her eyes flew open and she stared at Lauren.
“I got pregnant and had to marry my husband and then I lost the baby.”
“And now you want him back.”
“I love him…”
“I don’t know what your intention was when you decided to share that story with me, but he is my husband and it is a done deal,” she started to get up when Sophia lifted a hand.
“I am not finished.” A hard look had come over her face, making it less attractive. “I love Piero and he loves me. He is not willing to forgive me for betraying him so foolishly, but I am not going to stop trying.” Her look became disparaging as she looked at Lauren from head to toe. “I have every intention of getting him back!”
*****
Lauren sat at the kitchen counter with a glass of ice-cold lemonade in her hands. She had yet to take a sip. She had told Angelo that she would be a few hours and she would call him when she was ready to leave. She had feared that the man would insist on coming to sit inside her living room to wait on her, but he had placed a call to Piero who had told him that it was obviously okay to leave her there. The lack of freedom was becoming more apparent each day and was not sitting well with her. But that was not her main issue right now; the main issue was the conversation with the woman who claimed to have had a relationship with her husband, and not just a regular relationship, but a meaningful one. She had looked her up and had seen pictures of them together – ones where her husband was smiling in all of them, smiling the way she had never seen him smile before. He had never said he loved her, and she had been afraid to ask. Had she made a colossal error in marrying a man she barely knew? She had asked herself that question so many times and had still yet to come up with a response. Her mother had sat her down and talked to her right after their engagement had been announced.
“Wait a little bit,” she had urged her.
“What for?”
“To see if this is something you really want. Is he pressuring you into marrying him?”
“He does not have to pressure me, Mama,” she had responded with a laugh. “Have you seen him?”
“That is what I am afraid of, sweetie. He is Italian royalty – those are not my words, but every time he is in the papers, the reporters refer to him as such. I have also seen the chateau in Rome – the place they call home, and it looks like a castle. I know that people live like that, but so far it has been people we only read about. He is taking you from your home where you will be cut off from all things familiar…”
“There is such a thing as Facetime, Mama,” she had interrupted, “we are not living in the dark ages.”
“I know that Lauren, but my fear is that he has an ulterior motive for rushing into this marriage. What is he not telling you?”
“We connected, and that is all that matters.”
“Connected?”
“We are into each other. I don’t expect you to understand, but I cannot be without him. He is the ‘one’.”
“But are you the ‘one’?”
That question had hung in the air for so long that they had not been able to continue the conversation. Now sitting here at her counter in an apartment that she had come to think of as home, she was wondering the same thing. Why had me married her and why had he been in such a hurry to do so?
*****
“The meal not to your liking?”
Lauren lifted her head from her plate and stared at the man in front of her. He was wearing light pink shirt opened at the throat and a pinstriped jacket, his dense dark hair brushed back from his face. He had shaved before coming to the restaurant and there was still a dark shadow on his strong determined jaw. His nose was straight and his lips sensuous, provocatively so. Piero De Luca was a dream and she had known it from the moment she laid eyes on him. He was also a man who could have had any woman he wanted, movie stars, models, princesses. In fact, he had been going out with one a few years ago - some European blue blood with thick blonde hair and alabaster skin. After reading it, Lauren had wondered what had happened.
“The sauce is too rich.” She pushed the plate away and reached for the glass of wine which was too dry. She was not a lover of the damned thing and would have killed for a beer right now. But in this lofty restaurant with the burgundy and gold décor and privacy booth, she was positive that nothing like that was served here. A beer was too coarse and common, and the clientele was not in the least bit common, except for her.
“Would you like me to order something else?” He had noticed that she was spoiling for a fight ever since he had returned to the hotel suite and had not accommodated her.
“Do they serve fried chicken?” she asked him with a lifting of her winged eyebrows. “I did not think so. I am good. I will wait until we are back at the hotel to order something other than this crap they serve.”
“Please keep your voice down.” His voice was mild but had a hint of steel behind it.
“Am I embarrassing you?”
“You are embarrassing yourself,” he told her coolly. “Want to tell me what is going on?”
“You ordered for me.”
“I thought you would appreciate me doing so.”
“Why? Because I am too inept to even read this fancy embossed menu? Not classy enough to understand this overpriced crap?”
He eyed her for a moment and for a second there she almost apologized. Almost. “I gave the opportunity to place your order and you deferred. What is really going on?”