Hidden Heart (33 page)

Tessa’s knees hurt. She
stood slowly and massaged her knees, then straightened her
back.

Dina stood and faced her,
placing a warm hand on Tessa’s face.

“
I’m sorry you had to find
out about it. And as hard as is might be, don’t judge Ana. She
really tormented herself about being unfaithful; she tried hard to
fight against her feelings, but she really loved Adrian. I think
they tried to break up and he transferred to another hospital and
that’s the last I saw of him. Ana really loved you and your
sisters. You meant the world to her. Your dad loved you as if you
were his. You were loved, and that’s all that matters. Where you
come from is not as important as who you are today.”

On her way home, Tessa
called the retired officer.

“
It’s time to get to work.
I have a name.”

Chapter 18

Tessa
felt energized and ready to make changes—major changes. She
became a regular in the gym like before. She met with the police
officer, gave him all the information she had from Dina and paid
him an advance to begin searching for her biological father. Her
empathy towards the helpless compelled her to assist Dina. At least
three times a week she volunteered to help at the shelter. She
befriended several women and loved playing with their children. And
each night she went home after visiting the shelter, she felt
renewed and content. Hearing the heartbreaking stories of her new
friends made her open up about what had happened to her.

She began seeing one of
Dina’s close friends, Mrs. Iancu, a therapist who volunteered once
or twice a week to speak with the women, counseling and guiding
them through the torturous process of healing. What began with a
long silence on Tessa’s part—unable to talk about Daniel’s attack
for fear he’d haunt her nights again—turned into hours sessions of
heated discussions, endless questions and liberating screams at the
top of her lungs. She never before believed in therapy, but her
therapist proved her wrong; there was hope and she, Tessa, seemed
to take more control over her life.

Sometimes during her gym
hours, she saw Cristian, the hunky instructor. Tessa found out that
Laura, the trainer in charge of the step class she took on the
first day, had a surgery and once she recovered, she’d return to
her teaching. She also heard from the women in the locker-room that
Cristian owned another gym center not very far away, and he loved
to train every chance he had. He didn’t teach all her classes, but
he was around enough to start small conversations with her here and
there. Sometimes he helped her find the right equipment to maximize
her workout routine, or showed her the correct body posture during
exercising. He challenged her to learn how to use weights,
something she’d never liked, thinking it was just for men, but she
now looked more toned and in better shape. He insisted a couple of
times to take her for lunch, and finally she gave in.

“
How did you know Laura,
the trainer you replaced?” Tessa asked, once seated at the
restaurant.

“
Laura is an old friend of
mine. We help each other a lot. I tried to convince her to come and
work full time for me, but she resisted. She likes to be her own
boss, with no real strings attached.”

They looked over the menu.
Tessa ordered a bowl of vegetable sour soup, grilled chicken breast
and salad. Cristian ordered filet mignon with mashed potatoes and
cabbage salad.

“
So, Tessa, tell me about
yourself; what do you do, where do you work?”

“
There is not much I can
tell you about myself. I’m not really working anywhere,” Tessa
said, feeling put on the spot. She didn’t want to tell him about
Daniel’s attack, or how she screwed up her career; that would
require giving out too much information, and she didn’t want that
either. “I’m renovating my parents’ house, which I’m trying to
transform into my own home and it requires a hundred percent of my
full attention.”

Cristian seemed confused.
“It seems like quite a project, but I can’t imagine not working,
not even for a day. I mean, it took me a long time to get the gym
started and build the clientele. Even now, although I have a whole
group of people working for me, I still am at work at five in the
morning, sometimes until ten at night, seven days a
week.”

Tessa preferred to switch
the focus from her to him, so she asked quickly, “How long did it
take you to build your business?”

“
About fifteen years. Right
after college, a friend and I rented a small location downtown and
advertised heavily. At that time, there weren’t that many gyms
open. You remember that after the Revolution, the Romanian
mentality didn’t have much use for exercise, so we struggled for a
while. I sold my car and my apartment and with the money, I bought
sports equipment from Germany. For a while, I crashed on my
parents’ sofa. They threatened to cut me out of their
will.”

“
Did they?”

“
No, but my mother stopped
entertaining for fear her fancy friends would get wind of it and
wrinkle their plastic noses at her
loser
son.” He chuckled and so did
Tessa.

A waitress brought their
drinks; Cristian had ordered red wine and Tessa ice tea.

After the waitress
departed, Tessa said, “What happened next?”

“
Luckily, because of the
location, we got a couple of TV stars coming to our gym. One thing
led to another, and we had a small segment on TV, which overnight
transformed our gym into one of the best in the city. About a year
ago, we moved out of there into a bigger space, not so central, but
it offered us the possibility to expand our services. You should
stop by and I’ll give you a VIP tour, if you’d like.” Cristian
raised his glass of wine, and looked intently at her while
drinking.

“
Yes, maybe I’ll come by
one day,” Tessa said.

Lunch was served and they
ate quietly for a while.

Her first impression of
Cristian seemed wrong. She judged him based on their first
encounter, where he so arrogantly asked her out without even a
proper introduction. She never cared for men that exuded too much
self-confidence and Cristian’s approach had been a turn off for
her. Once she saw behind that aura, and took a deeper look at him,
he was in reality a nice, funny guy. As it turned out he was a hard
working person, a successful self-made man, who had goals and
fulfilled his dreams, enough reasons for her to change her mind
about him. And most importantly, he made her laugh.

“
So, going back to you,
what did you do before you started on this whole renovation?”
Cristian asked.

“
I worked in a project
development company.”

“
You going back to work
after your house is finished?”

“
Hmm. I have something
different in mind, something to help women, and mothers coming out
of an abusive relationship get back on their feet; an organization,
or something similar,” Tessa said.

“
Wow, that’s impressive.”
He paused for a while, eating small bites and nodding slowly.
“You’re right, we do have a lot of helpless and abused women in our
society. Too bad we prefer to turn our heads and ignore what’s
going on. I’ve never heard of anyone really putting any effort into
finding a solution for this problem. We should sit together and see
if I can help. I know a lot of people with a lot of money. Maybe we
can organize a big dinner, an auction event and see how much we can
raise.”

Cristian’s animation and
interest in this subject took Tessa by surprise. By the time they
said goodbye after finishing lunch, he mentioned several names of
people with influence that he planned to invite to the event. He
promised to put everything on paper; possible venues, possible
media coverage, possible advertising. Combined with her ideas and
list of contacts, they had the event outlined.

They continued to see each
other for the next several weeks, working out, having a quick bite
or discussing the fundraiser event. His enthusiasm helped Tessa
relax. For the first time since Daniel’s assault, she didn’t freak
out about spending time closer to a man, with just a table
separating them. She didn’t feel any physical attraction to
Cristian—not that he wasn’t handsome—but she liked him in a simple
way, as one likes a good friend.

***

Tessa backed off a few
steps from the wall, with the hammer in one hand, and assessed the
painting—straight as an arrow. She placed the hammer on the
nightstand and looked about the room. Cozy, soothing, light blue
walls; weightless curtains hung from black iron rods down to the
wood floor. The bed’s
streamlined iron
framework embellished with fluid lines gave the room an antique,
yet romantic look
. A set of three oil
canvases representing a rainbow over mountains—with the rainbow and
the mountain starting in the left painting and ending in the right
one—hung on the wall opposite from her bed. She ran her palm over
the bed and loved the feel of the silk, dark gray bed sheets with
embroidered shell design along the cuffs.

She lay on top of the bed,
then flipped over onto her belly and dialed Chiara’s
number.

“
I’m done,” Tessa said, her
voice full of excitement.

“
You’re what?”

“
I’m done. I just hung up
the last painting.”

“
And you call me at one
o’clock in the morning to tell me that?”

Tessa heard Chiara yawn.
Then she looked at the clock and realized it was two in the morning
in Bucharest, one o’clock in Germany.

“
Oops, sorry. I didn’t
realize it’s so late. I’ll call tomorrow and give you details. Go
back to sleep,” Tessa said and hung up.

Fifteen minutes later her
ringing phone broke the night’s silence. She’d finished showering,
went to her bedroom, pulled back the covers and snuggled between
her new bed sheets. She’d just turned the lights off.

“
How does it look?” Chiara
said, without any other introduction.

“
You were supposed to go
back to sleep,” Tessa said.

“
Yeah, well thanks to my
sister, I can’t fall back asleep. I never do if I wake up, so I
might just as well keep talking with you.”

“
Sorry again, didn’t mean
to interrupt your sleep.”

“
It’s okay,” Chiara said,
yawning.

Tessa could hear her sister
arranging her pillows, and then she said, “So, how does the house
look?”

“
Oh, sis, the house is just
amazing. It turned out so beautifully. I feel like I am home. You
know, content, like I found my own place in the world. I haven’t
felt like this in ages…” Tessa sighed and turned the lights back
on. “I’m so at peace right now, I can’t even explain.” She felt a
knot in her throat as if she’d start crying any moment, but they
were tears of joy, tears of contentment.

She gazed about the room
and smiled. “When I look back at my old apartment, where I jammed
everything and anything I thought represented who I was…the red
walls in the bedroom with the black furniture, the checkerboard
style furniture and accessories in the living room, the crazy
things I collected from all over the world thinking I
had
to have them, but
now…now I look around and see simple, practical things, not fancy,
but elegant and classic.”

“
I guess I just need to
come and see it for myself. Do I have a bed to sleep in or you
sending me to a hotel?” Chiara asked.

“
I have three bedrooms.
Actually one of them is an office, but I have an extendable sofa,
so there’s plenty of room. I’d love to have you and Octavia back
for a vacation. I promise this time to treat you both nicely,”
Tessa said, remembering how mean she’d been while her sisters
tended to her after the assault.

“
It’s not going to happen
for a while; I’ve been gone for too long and I’m not due for a
vacation in a long time. But don’t worry, we’ll figure something
out, maybe a short trip.” Chiara yawned and said, “What’s next? Any
idea what you’ll do? Any news about your biological
father?”

“
I’m working on organizing
a charitable event to raise funds for mothers and women in need. I
just feel this incredible bond with women who come from abusive
relationships. The more I help, the better I feel. I discovered
playing with children is really fun; they make me laugh a lot. We
made a guest list and have sent out invitations, but got very few
replies. We’ll wait one more week and then we’ll go and knock on
doors. We’ve found three different locations, we just need to pick
one. We argued about the menu a bit, but I guess I got my point
across.” Tessa laughed softly.

“
You say
we
a lot; who is
we
?”

“
Oh, I met this guy at the
gym and he invited me for lunch and we talked and he got really
excited about such a project, and—”

“
Hold on, hold on, Tessa,”
Chiara interrupted, her voice sounding agitated. “Who is this
guy?”

“
I just told you, I met him
at the gym and we began ta—”