Page 7 of His Two Hidden Masks

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Six Months Later.

It was after midnight, and moonlight filtered through the curtains, bathing my bedroom in a cool blue hue.

My eyelet comforter tucked beneath my chin, eyes wide open with insomnia, I stared at the painted ceiling above my childhood bed. I wished I could time-travel to a time and a place where my life wasn’t ruined.

Overhead, cherubs danced around grapes and olive trees looking so happy I wanted to draw mustaches on their smug faces. My mother paid to have this fresco restored when I was in primary school. We had money for luxury like this when I was younger.

I couldn’t pinpoint when things became harder for my family, but I always believed my life was split into two phases, before Sara and after Sara.

Before Sara, my family hired staff to iron Egyptian cotton sheets and run rosewater baths for my sister and me at bedtime. I had memories of Sara walking me to school. I remembered playing hide-and-seek and aways choosing to hide in her wardrobe. It was the best hiding place in the house.

After Sara, my mother fired almost all the staff. We pretended not to notice the etching and widening cracks on the marble steps of our staircase.

My parents memorialized their grief. They changed the name of our family’s hotel to “Mia Sorella,” my sister, in Italian. Quiet sadness permeated our home, a white noise that never left.

Before the wedding, at Roberto’s suggestion they hung Sara’s portrait in the lobby so all the world could see what my family lost. I was touched by his thoughtfulness and wondered why it had taken years for my family to take her portrait out of storage.

By leaving Roberto at the altar, I created another epoch in my family’s timeline. We now grappled with Before Roberto and After Roberto, except Roberto was still very much alive. I lost far more than a future husband and an heirloom diamond ring.

I was now a runaway bride who had humiliated my family and my ex-fiancé. The only people I counted on for steady eye contact were Auntie Aurora, and of course, Leo. It had been months, and forgiveness had yet to be served at my family dinner table.

Remembering the look in my father’s eyes at home after my sprint from the church made me want to sink deep under the covers and never get out of bed.

Papa had walked through the front door saying nothing, not a word. It was so much worse than yelling. Mama yelled, which wasn’t better, really, but at least I knew where she stood.

“How could you just run?” Mama said, pacing. I sat at the kitchen table my heads in my hands. I couldn’t answer her question.

My father walked across the kitchen and pulled out a chair across from me. Arms crossed, he still wore his tuxedo.

My mother rattled off my sins. “The flowers. The music. The food. The priest. Do you have any idea what this has cost us?”

“I’ll pay back every cent,” I whispered, my body numb.

“You can’t restore our reputation,” Mama said, clutching the bridge of her nose.

“I’m sorry. I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t.”

“Bella.” My father finally spoke, his voice quiet. “You don’t marry for love. Love comes later, if you are lucky.” He nodded at my mother. “I didn’t love your mother when we married, but look at our marriage today.”

Looking between the two of them, I wondered if my mother agreed, or did my father’s careless words wound her. My father was always so oblivious to how his quiet and angry moods changed the temperature in the room.

“I’m going to bed,” I said, standing. “I’ll return all the gifts and apologize to Father Dominic.” I walked away from the kitchen table, and we hadn’t discussed the topic since. How had I let things go so far?

I hated these nights of sleeplessness, alone with my guilt. I thought I loved Roberto, and it took me standing in front of him in a church with two-hundred people to realize I couldn’t say those two magic words. What was wrong with me? I had no answers.

I did know that I was not putting any energy into another relationship, not now, maybe not ever. I didn’t trust myself.

Since my un-wedding, I spent almost every day in the kitchen at Andiamo, developing a new line of flavors for caramels that I wanted to brand, sell, and serve across all of our properties. I finalized the flavors and spent the last two weeks building out a healthy inventory of product.

Leo said I was drowning my sorrows in chocolate, but that pain created great art, so he approved. I walked away from Roberto, but that didn’t mean I was abandoning my commitment to helping my family’s business. My line of candies would provide a new revenue stream and a fresh marketing tool for tourists.

I’d worked with Leo on a Carnival launch proposal I planned to present at the next Uzano board meeting. I knew it was rushed, but for the first time in six months, I wanted to act.

The Carnival celebration had just started and would continue for two weeks. At the peak, three million souvenir buying tourists would descend on our city, packing every hotel and restaurant.

It was the most lucrative season for every business owner in Venice, and it culminated with a masked ball at Doge's Palace. The theme this year was “Eros Crossing.” Appropriate, I thought, since love definitely had passed me by.

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