Page 28 of Sweet Poison

Chapter 17

Cole

37 Days Later

I was meeting a client for a breakfast meeting.

Since I was early, I ordered a coffee and had just opened my client’s file, when I heard someone whisper my name. It was starting. Two months earlier than I had thought. Still, I was ready. I kept my expression blank as I raised my face to Arianna.

Arianna had become a mystery to me. I thought I knew her and I did not. The way she had turned her back on her own daughter shocked me. Even if it was a condition imposed upon her by Paganini, God knows, he was capable of such cruelty, it was still unforgivable behavior. Not once had she called or come to visit Bianca since she went to live with him.

She stared at me through eyes that were red and swollen. “I’ve made a terrible mistake. A terrible mistake. I miss you … and Bianca.”

Even though I was trying to remain impassive, some of the disbelief I harbored must have crossed my face because she rushed into the chair opposite me and gazed at me with a pleading, desperate expression.

“Of course, I miss her. How could you ever think otherwise?” she cried passionately. Tears streamed from her eyes. “She is my daughter. I carried her inside me for nine months. I need her like I need air. Without her, I’ve been slowly dying inside.”

Arianna had always been overly dramatic. “I have never stopped you from seeing her,” I said quietly.

“No, of course you haven’t. You’re too good for that.”

I watched her dispassionately as she began sobbing in earnest.

“My Bianca. My Bianca.”

I said nothing. There was nothing to say.

“She needs her mother. I want to come back. How can you be so cruel to stop me from being with my own daughter?”

I knew this moment was coming so I was well prepared for it. I thought I might be, at least, resentful or angry with her. She had after all betrayed me, but I felt nothing. Her real crime was being stupid. She didn’t know she had unwittingly become a pawn on a chess game Paganini and I were playing. She definitely didn’t understand the damage she had done.

But now that she turned her back on me and my daughter, she could no longer expect my protection. My sole concern now was my daughter.

“We could go back to how we were before,” she cried. “I won’t ask for more. I understand now how precious what we had was. You were a good husband and a fantastic father. I know you don’t love me, but we were good together. Let’s do it for Bianca’s sake.”

“So … why didn’t you come to see Bianca all these months?” I asked quietly.

She shrank back with guilt. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened to me. I think I went a little mad. He made me choose between him and her and I did a very stupid thing. I chose him because I really thought I could bring him around to accepting her with time.”

“Have you told him yet you want to leave?”

She took a deep breath. “No.”

“Why not?”

She shook her head and cast her guilt-ridden gaze down to the table surface. “I don’t know.”

I knew why. She wanted to be sure she could go back to him if she couldn’t persuade me to take her back.

I looked at my coffee cup. Time was running out. She didn’t know it, but Paganini would have ordered a twenty-four-hour surveillance team for her. Perhaps even now someone across the street was telling him that she was meeting me.

I smiled at her. “I want what is best for Bianca too, so can you give me a couple of days to think over what you have said?”

Her face lit up with relief and happiness. “Yes, of course. We should put Bianca’s needs before ours.”

I stood. “I’ll call you in a couple of days.”

She jumped to her feet. “Thank you, Luca. Thank you. I promise you won’t regret taking me back. I’ll be the best wife and mother you could ever hope for.”

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