Chapter 7
Two weeks passed. My classes had gone from plain boring to downright grueling thanks to midterms. Alessandro had insisted I needed a break from studying and had taken me to dinner. As he pulled up in front of my apartment I only barely noticed the black limousine parked on the street. I got off the back of his motorcycle and removed my helmet. Alessandro took it from me and as he turned to reach for my hand the door to the limousine opened and out walked my mother.
“Is something wrong?” Alessandro asked, noticing my expression and the fact that my feet had become as heavy as lead.
“My mother’s here,” I managed to say. Alessandro swung his head around. As my mother approached he dropped my hand.
“Mum. What are you doing here?” I asked.
“A mother can’t come by and check on her only daughter?”
I searched in my purse for my phone checking if I’d missed a call from her. Nope. Not one missed call. “Why didn’t you call first?”
“And miss finding out what my daughter has been up to?”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
My mother gave a steely glance to Alessandro. “I think you know exactly what I mean.”
Alessandro cleared his throat. “I better go,” he muttered.
“No,” I said, surprising myself as much as Alessandro and my mother. “I don’t want you to go.”
“I’ve come all the way from England, darling.”
“Your mother’s right,” Alessandro said. “You two need to catch up. When you need me you know how to find me.” He gave me a kiss on my cheek before throwing his helmet on, revving his motor and taking off.
“Really, Claire,” my mother huffed crossing her arms. “I knew something was going on with you, but I never imagined this sort of foolishness.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, pulling the keys to my apartment out of my purse.
My mother followed me inside and closed the door behind us before launching into a tirade. “So the reason you haven’t been seen or heard from since Nico’s wedding isn’t because you were busy with school, it’s because you’ve taken up with some…Monterran peasant.”
I almost felt like laughing and telling my mother this wasn’t the middle ages anymore. Instead I said, “Alessandro is not a peasant. And just because I’ve been spending time with him doesn’t mean he’s the reason I haven’t been attending parties.” I pointed to the stack of books on the table. “For your information, I have been busy with school, because it’s what you and Dad wanted. Even though both of you know I’ve never been very good at this sort of thing.”
“I just hope you’ve been keeping this fling of yours discrete. The last thing our family needs is another stain. The Nico fiasco was bad enough.”
I wanted to scream at my mother and tell her to get out and leave me alone. She didn’t care that I felt ashamed about what I’d done when I’d tried to set Kat up to make it look like she was selling Nico’s family’s secrets to the tabloids. She didn’t care that I was humiliated when Nico found out all the rotten things I had done. No. My parents didn’t care about my feelings at all, or they wouldn’t have pushed me into staying in Monterra, a country where the king and queen literally hated me. But they had, and Alessandro was the one person who had made staying tolerable.
“I don’t care what anybody thinks about me or about Alessandro,” I said.
“Oh, come on. You can’t mean that,” my mother said, taking a seat on the sofa and crossing one leg primly over the other. She sighed before continuing. “I can’t wait for you to finish your degree and come back home. It’s going to be marvelous. Your father has a job lined up for you already. And, of course, London at Christmas can’t be missed, but you already know that.”
I should have been excited at the prospect, but somehow I’d gotten used to being on my own, to having no one to answer to, to throwing my hair into a ponytail and climbing on the back of Alessandro’s motorcycle. The problem was I didn’t know if I was ready to give up one way of life for the other. And why did I even have to? It seemed so unfair.
“How long are you staying in Monterra?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Just overnight,” my mother replied. “I have an engagement in Florence tomorrow, and thought I would visit my daughter first. I’ve missed you, you know.”
“I’ve missed you, too, Mum. Dad also.” I got up from the couch. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“No, nothing for me. I need to get some rest, so I’m just going to wash up and go to bed.”
I was almost relieved that my mother didn’t want to stay up and talk. In the morning we went out for breakfast and then went shopping. I hadn’t heard from Alessandro since he had said goodbye the night before and it worried me badly enough that I couldn’t even enjoy the new handbag I bought at one of the boutiques I visited with my mother.
A few hours after lunch, a driver came by to pick up my mother and just like that she was gone, but not before warning me that I had a reputation to uphold. As soon as her car drove off, I called Alessandro, but he didn’t reply. I wondered if he was upset with me for not insisting that he stay last night and formally introducing him to my mother. But her visit had taken me by surprise that I really didn’t have the time to think about doing those things until he was already gone. By nightfall, when Alessandro still hadn’t returned my call, I decided to try him again, but there was no answer.
I didn’t hear from him the next day or the day after that either, and began to get seriously worried. I started to contemplate showing up at his house, but instead decided to try and call him one more time. Just as I was about to dial his number, there was a knock on my door.
I walked over to it and called out, “Who is it?”
“Alessandro.”
My heart felt like it flew it out of my chest. I flung the door open and practically threw myself into Alessandro’s arms. He grasped my head in his hands and pressed his lips on mine hungrily parting my lips to deepen the kiss. We stumbled back inside kissing, winding our hands through each other’s hair, groping, touching.
“I thought you were cross with me,” I said as we fell down on the couch, me on top of Alessandro.
“And I thought your mother managed to convince you not to see me again,” he said. “I was afraid to pick up the phone. I kept thinking you were going to tell me you didn’t want to see me again.”
I punched him in his arm. “You had me really worried there for a while. Don’t do that again.”
Alessandro pulled me closer, pressing my body against his. I could feel his desire and wondered what I was waiting for already. He wanted me, I wanted him, and yet I couldn’t bring myself to make that leap. Still, when his hands reached under my shirt I didn’t pull them away. Instead I did the same, sliding my hands over the thick muscles of his sweat slicked back. He arched his body as my hands explored. It was only when he I felt him reach under my bra that I gasped and pulled away.
“You’re still not ready?” Alessandro said, for the first time actually sounding angry about it.
I sat up and looked down at Alessandro. “You’re upset with me?”
“No…Yes.” He shook his head and grunted. “Maybe a little.”
“I thought you said you were okay with waiting.”
Alessandro got up from the couch and started pacing back and forth. When he finally stopped he turned to face me. “Waiting isn’t the problem.”
“Then what is.”
“The problem is the reason you want me to wait,” Alessandro began. “You may think I’m not very smart because I’m just a farmer, but I know you better than you think I do. I’m not the man you want and it’s time I finally admit that to myself.”
“You’re not being fair,” I said, defensively. “It’s not that I don’t want you. I do, I really do, but a person doesn’t always get what they want. Especially people like me. I was honest with you about my situation from the beginning. I told you what I was looking for when we got together and you seemed to be okay with it.”
“I was at first, but you know that changed. I told you weeks ago that I wanted more and I tried hard to make you want the same thing I did, but I see now that I have failed. In six weeks you’ll be done with your classes and you’ll pack your bags and run back to England and I can’t stick around and wait for you to do that.”
I walked up to Alessandro and put my hand on his arm. “You could come with me, you know.”
“And what, be your secret boyfriend?”
I wanted to tell him he was wrong, that I wouldn’t do that to him, but the words froze on my lips.
“Besides, there’s nothing for me in England. My family’s here, my work, my home.”
“The same would be true for me if I stayed in Monterra.”
“No, it wouldn’t be. You’ve met my family, you know how much they like you.”
“My father has a job already lined up for me in London. What would I do for work if I stayed in Monterra? Plant strawberries all day long?”
“You act like there’s something wrong with that,” Alessandro said. “Claire, I’ve seen the way your face lights up when we’re out in the countryside. You come alive. And you’ve said it yourself, you’re not interested in what you’ve been studying. It’s not even what you want to do.”
I turned my back to Alessandro and crossed my arms over my chest. How could he be asking me to give up everything I’d been used to, my entire way of life, possibly even my family? Couldn’t he tell how hard this was for me? I didn’t want to say goodbye to him anymore than he wanted to say it to me.
“You don’t know what you’re asking, Alessandro.”
“Yes, I do. I’m asking you to take a leap of faith. To believe in me, in us…but it’s clear you won’t do it.”
He headed for the door.
“Alessandro, please.”
He turned his head. “I’m sorry, Claire,” he said, opening the door and walking out.
I ran to the door, pulled it open and called out to him again, but he just kept walking.