Page 52 of Five
I wanted to settle down, too. The years of moving from post to post my entire childhood, only to do the same thing myself, as an adult, had started to wear on me, and I wanted somewhere to put down roots and finally call home.
I think that was uppermost in my head when I met Maria Costa.
I guess you’d call Maria my first true love. Everything seemed to fall into place, and for a little while my life was perfect.
When Maria fell pregnant, I’ll admit I was terrified to begin with, but only because I knew nothing about kids.
Zero, nada.
Sure, I’d have preferred if Maria and I had a little more time to ourselves before we started a family, but we were already in a committed relationship. Engaged, for fucks sake, so it wasn’t like we weren’t planning to have kids. It had just happened a little bit sooner than we expected.
But once I got used to the idea, I fucking ran with it. I was so damn excited. I was making so many plans for our little family.
I was so damn happy, that fate, that fickle fucker, decided I was having far too good a time, and decided to deal me one blow after another.
They say bad things come in threes, and the day Maria died proved that beyond all doubt.
I almost feel like history is repeating itself, right here, right now, with Neve. I’ve become complacent, taking things for granted, just like I did back then, thinking like I’ve finally found my place in life.
And now here’s another woman insinuating her way into my world just so she can upset the fragile balance I’ve found. I shouldn’t have even entertained that cockamamie idea of Oliver’s for us to find a woman—a single woman—to share our lives with. I went along with it when he brought it up, but I didn’t mean it. Not really.
Speak of the devil.As if thinking about Neve conjured her presence, there she is, wearing a ditch in the flagstone outside my cottage as she paces back and forth.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
If I was hoping to frighten her off with my attitude, it doesn’t work.
Neve twirls to face me, then shuffles nervously from foot to foot. “I was trying to figure out which one is yours.”
My back immediately goes up. I was already in a foul mood but finding her here just makes it worse.
She must know I’m the only one standing in the way of whatever plot she’s been hatching to carve her place among us. We’d be a nice meal ticket, that’s for sure. Oliver and Cope are wealthy in their own right, Oz and I aren’t half-bad, and Remi has this little bit of paradise that half the realtors in Florida want to buy. Is that why she’s here? To use those sweet curves to sex me into compliance?
She ticks all the boxes for exactly what I, and the rest of the guys, find attractive in a woman.
Maybe that’s part of the scam. Ollie met her on a dating app, for fucks sake. Everyone knows those things are full of married people looking for a little extra-curricular excitement and scammers.
Except for Oliver, of course. His life exists so far outside the realm of reality, holed up on this island he so rarely leaves. Hell, maybe he’s starting to believe all that fiction he writes, but you’d think he’d be a little more tuned in after what happened to him.
I raise an eyebrow and take a leisurely sip of my negroni before I reply, knowing my lack of immediate response is likely making Neve all the more nervous. “Well, you’re a lot bolder than I gave you credit for if you think my bed’s the one you should crawl into tonight. Or do you just like it rough and figure I’m the one to give it to you? I mean, I guess I could pound that pretty little pussy of yours until you can’t walk straight, if that’s what you’re after.”
The guys should never have put this ridiculous idea of theirs into motion. They know I’m the one who has an issue with women in general, and relationships in particular.
It started when I lost Maria…but it didn’t end there. Oh, no, siree.
I was already mired in guilt, since Maria and I had argued about my plans to turn the spare room into a nursery, and that’s why she’d stormed off the night she got into the accident that killed her.
She wouldn’t have been out there in one of Sicily’s rare but treacherous storms otherwise.
I was already distraught, but if that wasn’t enough, some greater power decided to kick me a few times while I was down.
Maybe it was my own fault for asking too many questions, but I’d lost my child as well as my fiancée, and I just wanted to know if they could tell me whether I was going to have a son or a daughter. I wanted to be able to remember that baby as something more substantial than an ‘it’.
That’s where the first blow came from, and now I’m wondering what kind of blows Neve is aiming to land. I see hurt flash across her features, but I don’t trust the emotion. She won’t pull me in with it, I’m immune.
“What is your problem?” she asks, her hands balled into fists at her sides. She’s trying for bravado, but I can see my response has thrown her. I bet she thought she could just crook her little finger, wiggle those sexy hips, and look at me with those wide, beguiling eyes, and I’d be putty in her hands.
There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell of that ever happening though. I’ve been taken in by bigger con artists than this cute-assed little daycare worker, and I learned my lesson well. I’m inured against feminine wiles, and I have Maria to thank for that.
