Hidden Heart (39 page)

He took her elbow and
showed her to a large room with leather sofas arranged in a u-shape
in the middle. They bordered an antique coffee table, with a piano
in the opposite corner. Burgundy velvet drapes decorated
ceiling-tall windows. A wide gold-framed mirror hung above a marble
fireplace.

Once seated, the same young
lady that showed Tessa into the house entered the room carrying a
tray with coffee, hot tea and cookies.

“
Tea for me, please,” Tessa
said.

The young lady didn’t ask
Adrian what he wanted; instead she handed him a cup of coffee and
left as quietly as she came.

Tessa waited for the lady
to leave the room then turned to Adrian, “You have a
maid?”

“
I do…there is another
house on the other side of the park, behind this house for the…I
don’t like calling them servants, but helping hands,” Adrian
responded.

“
You have more
employees?”

Adrian cleared his throat,
visibly embarrassed and said, “Well, there is a cook and a
chauffeur and two men helping in the horse stalls.”

Tessa assessed one more
time her surroundings and said, “I had no idea doctors make so much
money.”

“
Well, it’s more Yvonne’s,
my wife’s, lifestyle than mine. I could be happy with just a room,
nothing extravagant, nothing pretentious.” He fixed his gaze on the
portrait on the shelf above the fireplace and, pointing at it he
said, “My wife’s family moved to Bucharest before the Second World
War. She was raised in an elite French family and had the best of
everything, even after she married a poor doctor like me. After her
parents passed away, as an only child, Yvonne inherited estates all
over Europe, as well as here in Romania.” He looked back at Tessa,
took a sip of his coffee and continued, “She passed away several
years ago. I live here surrounded by my books, horses and music.
Once in a while, my son comes to visit me.”

Tessa sat, absorbing his
words and although she came prepared with a long list of questions,
her head felt vacant of any thoughts.

“
Why didn’t you tell me you
have other children?”

He sighed and rubbed his
goatee, averting his eyes. “I think you and I need time to adjust
to this new situation and I didn’t want to scare you away. Finding
out you have more relatives at once might overwhelm you. I didn’t
tell you because…because he got really mad at me and…and he doesn’t
want to meet you.” He sighed again, this time looking at Tessa. “I
had no idea about your existence and I can’t change anything about
the past.”

“
Do you regret my looking
for you?”

“
Oh, no, not even for a
second. I won’t lie; I was shocked at first and very skeptical, but
Mr. Borcea convinced me when he told me Ana’s name. I realized he
was telling me the truth.” Adrian took another sip of his coffee,
this time his hand shaking slightly. He stopped the cup’s rattle by
placing it on the coffee table, then slowly rubbing both hands on
his knees.

“
Why?” Tessa asked moments
later, the most important question of all, the question that should
put her worries to rest, her past behind her and free her up to
live her future—a future free of deception, fear and
betrayal.

Adrian stood, walked to the
window, holding both his hands behind his back. He seemed lost in
his thoughts for a while. When he spoke, his voice sounded as if he
were returning from a different universe.

“
Why? Why do people cheat?
Why do people fall in love? Why do they hurt their loved ones? Why
did I get involved with your mother even though we both were
married?”

Adrian returned to the sofa
and sat next to Tessa, slightly facing her. “I can tell you that I
was trapped in a marriage that didn’t give me the things I wanted,
needed, craved. I can tell you that I wanted a divorce even before
I met your mother or after we became involved. I can tell you that
I lived thinking of Ana night and day after I moved away, a living
hell for so many years, I lost track of them. I can tell you so
many things now, but honestly, none of them would change what we’ve
done.

“
They’d be nothing but
excuses, and I doubt that’s what you want to hear. I made a few
mistakes in my life, mistakes I am not proud of, but if there is
one thing I’ve done right it’s getting to know Ana, loving her and
being so lucky to be loved by her. She had been my world…my
everything. I still love her with the same intensity, the same
passion I did thirty years ago.” He didn’t bother to wipe his tears
away, his face contorted with pain.

“
How long had you been
together?”

“
I returned to Bucharest
after several years and I didn’t look for her, trying to go on with
my life. But we met again and…we tried to resist…to stay away…I
asked her if we could maybe just have a cup of coffee now and then.
For about a year we did that. One day, she worked the nightshift
and I waited for her in the morning. It was pouring rain outside
and I offered to give her a ride home. We were together after that,
until she got the news about the cancer.

“
She called me and told me
to come to our apartment, she had news for me. I got there thinking
she finally decided to accept my marriage proposal. Instead she
told me that day would be our last day together,” Adrian said and a
new wave of tears filled up his eyes, his voice choked. He
struggled to speak again, swallowing hard a few times.

He cleared his throat and
continued, “She told me that she wanted me to always remember her
as the woman I fell in love with, whole, healthy, alive, and not
some butchered, messed up, empty body she’d turn into after the
mastectomy and the chemo. I told her all I wanted was to grow old
with her, no matter how little time we had left, but she was
adamant about it. She made me promise not to ever try to contact
her and not to come to her funeral.

“
I was weak and visited her
once in the hospital after the surgery, but she didn’t see me,
still under the heavy anesthesia. I never really said goodbye to
her. And here I am, a year after she has passed away, still waiting
for her to come back to me…”

Tessa had been brave since
she got there, keeping her emotions in control. She knew her mama
loved this man. She knew they’d fallen prey to a passion that
consumed them even after they stopped seeing each other. She knew
they’d been too weak to resist each other.

She came wanting to be mad
at Adrian, mad at her mama, and judge them for being unfaithful.
Judge them, point her fingers at them and scream for making her
feel shameful for something she hadn’t done. But she couldn’t. The
anger inside her heart mysteriously disappeared, replaced by
acceptance. And forgiveness. And hope.

Tessa put her hands on top
of his and when Adrian raised his eyes to hers, she smiled and
said, “I’m tired of being mad, I’m tired of hurting. I want to live
in the present, free of the past’s burdens. You loved Mama and she
loved you back. I can’t promise much, but if you let me… if you
allow me in to your life, I’d be willing to try…try to accept you.
Don’t get me wrong, I had a father, a father that loved and raised
me. But…knowing what you and Mama had, the love you gave her and
how happy you made her…I am at peace with that.”

Adrian’s sob got lost in
Tessa’s embrace. He hugged her back. She closed her eyes as she let
him hold her and imagined her mama doing that sometimes, feeling
loved, protected, belonging.

Adrian let go of her, wiped
his face, and smiling, said, “I have a few pictures of Ana. Would
you like to see them?”

She dried her face,
sniffled, and said, “I would very much like that.”

He grabbed a medium-size
wooden box from the coffee table and opened it with infinite care.
“This is my favorite one,” he said and pulled out a photo of Ana,
smiling, young and beautiful, her black hair framing her lovely
face and holding a huge wildflower bouquet.

“
She took me a few times to
that place where you used to meet her,” Tessa said, admiring the
photo.

“
She did?”

“
Yes, but she told me it
belonged to a friend of hers going through divorce.”

“
How do you know it was our
place?” Adrian said.

“
Because of this,” Tessa
said and pointed at her mama’s face. “The way she smiled, the way
she talked, I was old enough to see the change in her. She never
smiled that way around us, around my dad. Her face lit up with love
each time we went to the apartment.”

They looked through the
entire box; Ana reading, Ana cooking, Ana sleeping, Ana dancing,
and in each one of the photos Ana looked happy. At the bottom of
the box, there was a lock of hair tied with a red ribbon. Adrian
picked it and held it in his open palm; he closed his eyes and ran
a finger over it.

“
I used to love touching
her hair, playing with it. She cut this the day I last saw her and
gave it to me,” Adrian said opening his eyes. “You have the same
thick, beautiful hair, like her.”

Tessa untied her hair and
shook it down her back, then brushed a hand through it.

“
I guess I do,” she
said.

Adrian put everything back
in the box and placed it back on the table.

“
I’m glad you’re here. We
have so much to talk about, how about we have dinner
together?”

Tessa looked at her watch
and realized she didn’t eat much for lunch and dinnertime was
close. “I think that’s a great idea. Thank you for inviting
me.”

“
Perfect,” he said, stood
and took her hand. “I told Pepin you might stay for dinner tonight;
let’s see what he prepared.”

“
Pepin? You have a French
cook?” Tessa asked as they walked down the hall to a room, not as
large as the living room, with a long dining table in the middle,
ornate, sturdy chairs, and gold plated silverware and plates set
out as if a big party would begin any minute.

Adrian chuckled. “Pepin has
been part of our household since Yvonne and I married, part of her
wedding gift from her parents. After she died he chose to stay
since he has no other relatives back home in France and he’s
learned the Romanian ways.”

Adrian called Florina, the
maid, and gave her instructions about having dinner with his
daughter
, emphasizing the
word and looking lovingly towards Tessa. After she left, Adrian
took Tessa on a tour around the house, then around the
property.

The estate was bigger than
anything Tessa had seen before. A park, a pond, horse stalls, a
huge garage housing three old cars, and the second house for the
employees. By the time they returned, Tessa felt dizzy and so
hungry, she could’ve devoured an elephant all by
herself.

“
This is incredible. I
never thought such properties existed. I mean, we all see movies,
read books, but to see it like this, it feels surreal.”

Adrian handed her a glass
of wine, then got one for himself.

“
As I said, my wife’s
family had been very wealthy. I don’t do as much as I could around
here. She used to entertain quite a bit, but I would come home and
lock myself in my studio and read until the wee hours. I still do
it and leave the household to my people; they know it better than I
do anyway.”

Florina brought the food
and the aroma made Tessa’s mouth water before she could see what
was underneath the lids.

“
Ah, Pepin wants to impress
you. He is very proud of his perfect roasted Chateaubriand in wine
sauce and his chateau potatoes are to die for. Try it,” Adrian
said, slicing a piece of the beef and placing it on Tessa’s plate.
He added potatoes, and then served himself.

They ate quietly for a
while, too famished to make small talk, but the silence didn’t feel
uncomfortable at all, quite the opposite. It had been a
tremendously emotional day for Tessa and most likely for Adrian as
well, but she realized that spending time together would benefit
both of them.

“
Why do you think Mama
never told you about me?” Tessa said, switching her empty dinner
plate with a cup of homemade ice cream.

“
I wish I knew,” Adrian
answered. “She talked about all three of you a lot, being happy
when her girls were happy, sad when her girls were sad and…” Adrian
stopped and looked over Tessa’s shoulder. He looked as if he saw a
ghost. She followed his gaze and turned to look towards the
doorway. She felt as if the blood drained from her head, a horrible
knot forming in her stomach. She dropped the spoon of ice cream—it
became inexplicable heavy.

“
Tessa? What are you doing
here?”

“
Cristian! What are
you
doing here?” Tessa
tried to stand, but her legs remained stubbornly still. She twisted
her body in the chair, so she could see him better.

Adrian shot to his feet as
if something burned him and came to stand by Tessa. Cristian rushed
to her side as well, staring down at her.

“
I don’t understand, you
know each other?” Adrian asked, his eyebrows drawn
together.

No one answered. Cristian
pressed both palms against his eyes and shook his head. He opened
his eyes and rested his hands at the nape of his neck, still
shaking his head.