Aftermath (31 page)

In the span of her indecision and fear, Bruno returned to the bed and the dress was tugged away. Maria sighed, resigned to her lustful soul. She devoted her
life to her son and her faith. In this hour of the morning she wanted Bruno DeMarco to bring her carnal pleasure. Her
desire surged and instead of damnation, she became alive
when his fingers caressed, cajoled and loosened the
feminine
folds of dormant flesh. The sparks
were lit
the moment
the tip of his corona
contacted with her highly sensitive skin. A sensual kiss of sorts is what it was prior to
him
delving
without further hesitation
to a secret chamber she’d locked away after Luzo stole her trust with his deceptive heart.

Tonight it’s Bruno whose charm and patience reignited the
flame
shining light in the dark
.

Maria
mutter
ed,
“Dios…
oh…oh…
”

The
firmness of
the strong man threw wide her partitions and she let him in. Her resolve collapsed and with it came a profuse apology to her God for feeling such pleasure and
rejoic
ing in what Luzo awakened many years ago when he caused her to sin. But, Bruno was not Luzo. He was a widower, not pledged to another woman and
she was wiser and could no longer deny the wondrous titillati
on.

“Dios…
lo siento
per
es
o es
bueno, perdóname
…
oh…
sí…sí…Bruno…Dios es bueno.”

Bruno
had assuaged her fears and took possession of
her body and sent the trepidation away
and reminded her of the
carnal
pleasures of the flesh
.
He helped her rediscover Maria, the sensual woman within
and gave her back what another man took.

Trust and tenderness
.

CHAPTER TWENTY-
FOUR

Ariana leaned over the sink, feeling woozy. She awakened to find Nico gone and a note on the nightstand
saying he had business to attend to and probably wouldn’t be back until
next week
.
Their arrangement had gone on for
almost
two months.
He practically bunked at her apartment every night since.

Today was Saturday, the boys were with her parents and she didn’t expect him to leave at the crack of dawn. She should have known
not to expect anything
from Nico, permanency wasn’t his middle name
.
Tomorrow was
her parent’s Golden Anniversary
and she
had
hoped he’d stay put
this
once…just once f
or her, for the kids.

Gosh, her entire family was heading to Long Island for
the celebration
and she so wanted Nico there.

She rinsed her face with cold water, hoping the slight dizziness passed but it stayed when she trudged into the kitchen to boil water for tea. It stayed after she called to say good morning to the boys and then worry began to set in.

She called the doctor’s office and was given an immediate appointment. Ariana wasn’t the chronically ill kind or intermittent sick type of woman. She had annual physicals, ate rather
healthy and popped vitamins daily.
Last month, a toothache turned to an abscess and she got that taken care of immediately. It was cleaned, filled and antibiotics put her right back in the healthy zone.
So, persistent dizziness was definitely an abnormal symptom and a sign of something terribly wrong. She feared the worse. Her analytical brain found diseases to claim, brain tumor, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and any malady known to man were possibilities. But after a few tests and a once over from Doctor Bruckner, she walked out of his office with a diagnosis of pregnancy.

What the fuck?

On the walk home. Five
long blocks she cried the entire way, getting stares and questions of concern from strangers which shocked her to no end because this was New York City where nobody gave a damn. Didn’t they say New Yorkers were rude and crass, so why were
they concerned
with
an
emotional
wreck of a
woman they never met
?

She called Nico, oh yes she called
the
ex-husband
, he played a role in this dilemma. He deserved to share some of her stress. Let him go about his killing day knowing there’s a surprise bundle on the way. Bet he’ll take a day off to process what it meant because something unexpected
and long-term
certainly messed with your head.

Their lives would change. For one, she was o
ver 35
and with age the
risks increase. Two, she lived in a small Manhattan apartment, three, she wasn’t the same young woman with loads of patience, stars in her eyes and ready to enter motherhood with fierce determination to be the best at it and to hell with needing a man. Raising children is hard, no lie. She did it with Nico in absentia eighty percent of the time, but there were days when she lay down crying, wanting hi
s aid.
Of course, she never told him
that
. Lawyers don’t show the weakness
of
their case. They work around the flaw and that’s what she did. She didn’t want Nico worried when he was out there. She want
ed him safe and alive. So, she handled the business of child-rearing alone if that meant he’d live to see them grow. And the brave woman
Nico believed s
he
was,
inside was
terrified and
on edge every day
praying the father of her boys didn’t get killed.

With Nico
around
,
spending time with
the boys
, doing things a father should and cooking
, she liked it
.
S
he didn’t want to do this baby thing alone. Not this time…God not this time. She was tired of being independent, a man to lean on
felt pretty good.

She trudged on, cursing the false sense of security when taking c
ontraception. Ha, what a joke. She was on th
is
new one which claimed to be fully safe and
99%
effective.
I’m the 1%!

Christ,
the
gynecologist never warned
her
to use
back
-up contraception if she t
ook
antibiotics
due to its potential to
render oral contraception ineffective.
If the woman did, she must’ve
forgotten
and Ari didn’t forget important details like that. These details a woman
should
know. Come on do a PSA on the shit, they do commercials on the effects of smoking and substance
abuse;
why not crap like this, huh?

Nico came on the line as she walked the last leg of
the city
block. Her building was right there. It towered into the sky like all the rest and she couldn’t wait to get there, climb in bed and have a
sob fest
.
Damn, t
he boys were nearly grown and here she was pregnant
by her ex.

“Ari,
talk me to sweetheart.”

“
Oh Nico…I’m devastated.
”

“What happened?”

“
Something
huge
is about to happen to
me
!
”

“Hey, calm down and make sense so I can understand what’s going on.”

She stopped in her tracks.
Her face b
ecame flushed
. Did she smell hot dogs and pastrami? Ugh, the mixture of meats and pollution which were never offensive before suddenly made her nauseous
and
she
puked in the middle of the sidewalk. The stares of pity and the, “Are you okay miss?” Had her
retching even
more. She waved the busybodies away, “I’m fine…please
…back off…
I’m
just
pregnant. Can’t a pregnant woman vomit
in peace
dammit
?”

The worry turned to ‘
oh
poor
thing’
expressions and
then
they
marched
on.

“Ari, you’re what?” Nico exclaimed when she put the phone back to her ear and wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her favorite wool coat.

“Pregnant Nico.
Oh Jesus, I’m
pregnant
after all these years
.”

“I’ll be
there
in
less than
an hour.” Then he hung up.

Seriously, what would
Nico’s
return
solve
? Maybe,
he’d take the
baton and
carry the fetus the distance. Wow,
that’ll be cool.
A stud like him with a
huge belly
feinding for ice-cream and other decadent foods would be a laugh. Ah, wishful thinking didn’t help. They were divorced, she was in the prime of her life, no intention of having more kids and
look
at her independent ass now.

Oh,
Nico why can’t you shoot blanks, does everything with you have to be a kill shot?

She entered the lobby and
spotted the detectives. The security
guard had a strange look on his face and she knew they were there for her.

“Ms. Mattheson these men are here to speak to you.” He said.

Detectives Gavin and Rogman
focused their attention on her
.

“We have some more questions to ask, can we go somewhere private to talk?” Detective Gavin enquired.

Ariana nodded. She had to stay calm
.
She’d known it would only be a matter of time before they
came back. “O
f course.”

The security guard followed the trio with his eyes until they were on the elevator and the door closed.
The detectives showed him a picture of Ms. Mattheson’s friend and asked how often he’d visited and he told the truth. Quite often
up until about two months ago
and then
she began receiving a new male visitor.

Ari leaned
nonchalantly
against the elevator wall
,
took out her cell
and began texting.
The detectives didn’t comment, she had a right to use her phone. She
sent Nico a message,
DT’s @ APT. STAY OUT
, then she smiled in
nocently, tapped disconnect and hit speed dial and got her mom. She held a conversation in their presence, hell she didn’t have anything to hide there. Her boys were a handful and she wanted to make certain they weren’t driving her parents up the wall, because together they can drive a normal person insane.

                                              ****

Shanda paced the floor as she spoke
to
Selange
after a
long
hiatus.
Alfonzo
infuriated
Shanda
so bad she took it out on her
best
friend for
even
defending the asshole
.
Sh
e
even chang
ed
her cell number
t
o ensure she didn’t have a momentary lapse, but
not talking to Selange seemed like cutting off a piece of her own skin.
Selange spazzed out
on her
when she finally called and quite frankly,
Shanda expected it.

They hashed out the drama in
five minutes
because Selange wasn’t the ranting and raving type. She said her piece told Shanda how fucked up it was to just cut her off like that and after she received an apology, their friendship was right back on track.

Besides, they had more important things to catch up on.

Shanda’s
pregnancy
dilemma
, of course.