“Why did they hide the fact that they’re brothers?” Olga asked, leading me down another narrow alley.
“I don’t think they’ve been hiding it. They just didn’t tell me, and I didn’t think to ask. I think Massimo picked him as my guardian because he trusts him the most.”
“Remember Mariusz, the guy from real estate? He got you a guardian, too, no?” She laughed sharply. “That was a weird one, right? Total psycho.”
I nodded, frowning at the memory. I used to go out with a guy who really liked to show off, trying to conquer my heart by playing someone he was not. He had lived above his means, as it turned out, but in the beginning there was this one situation when he told us that he couldn’t go with us to a club, but he’d send “his man” with us instead. He gave the guy some cash to pay for our drinks and so on, and at first he really did his job, shooing away all my potential admirers. But at some point he had one too many and it turned out he was a psycho. He started hitting on Olga and me, making scenes, shouting and swearing, but—as my friend knew all the bouncers at all the clubs—our guardian ended up on his ass, outside the club, with a black eye and crying like a baby.
“Yeah, that was pretty intense. But I have a better one. Remember when we went to a club on our own, and everyone thought we were hookers?”
“Oh yeah!” she exclaimed. “We wore white and that guy had his birthday. What a party!”
I huddled against her arm.
“You know it’s not going to be like that anymore,” I said regretfully. “Everything is going to change now. I’ll have a child, a husband, the whole package. All that in only two months!”
“You’re overreacting,” Olga replied. “You can hire a nanny. You’ll have to, anyway, with all of Massimo’s trips. You won’t have to cope alone. Besides, who will you leave the kid with when you go to a ball or some formal dinner? You better start thinking about it already.”
“Why would I?” I asked, shrugging. “I know he’ll decide for me. I won’t have a say in anything. It’ll be about his child’s safety.” I shook my head, suddenly afraid. “Jesus, he’ll lose it. He’ll be too scared to leave us for even a minute.”
Olga burst out in laughter, and a while later I joined her.
“Or he’ll keep you in a cellar, just to be sure.”
We walked for another hour, reminiscing the not-so-old times, until it got really late. Stopping for a while, we allowed our bodyguards to catch up with us and asked them to take us home.
CHAPTER 21
The next day I woke up alone. Olga was gone. Why did she wake up this early? I thought, looking for my phone on the nightstand.
“What the fuck?” I swore, seeing it was already 1 p.m.
I didn’t know I could sleep this long, but the doctor had said something about sudden exhaustion. Apparently it was natural for someone in my current state.
Still dazed, I went to the bathroom to get myself ready to leave and headed out to look for my friend. I went to the garden first, where I found Domenico. He was sipping coffee.
“Good day. How are you feeling? I have some papers for you,” he said, pushing a stack my way.
“I don’t know how I’m feeling, really—I’m still super sleepy. Where’s Olga?”
The young Italian took out his cell phone and dialed a number. A moment later a boy joined us, bringing me tea with milk.
“Olga is sunbathing on the beach. What would you like for breakfast?”
I covered my mouth with my hand. The thought of eating made me want to throw up. I waved away Domenico’s question. “I’m nauseous. I don’t want anything for now, thanks. I’ll go to the beach.” I grabbed a bottle of water and went to the wharf.
On the way I finally stopped feeling queasy. The motorboat berthed at the quay reminded me of my panicked flight from the shower, from the horny Massimo and his hard cock.
“Why are you ogling that poor boat as if you’d like to fuck it?” I heard a voice, and saw Olga, half-naked, emerge from the water.
“You two fucked on that boat, didn’t you?” she asked.
With a mysterious smile, raising my brows, I turned to face her as she approached.
“I like your boobs,” I said. “Now I know why Domenico was so awkward.”
“Yeah, he came here and brought me a bottle of wine, doing his best to look me in the eyes. You should have seen it. Slept well?” she asked, lowering herself to a chaise.
I lay down next to her, closing my eyes and turning my face toward the sun. “I’m not sure. I think I could sleep through the day. Weird.”
“You’ve nothing better to do anyway, so go get some sleep or grab a bathing suit and let’s catch some sun before that wedding.”
I didn’t know if I even could sunbathe. I hadn’t thought to ask the doctor. “Can I sunbathe pregnant?”
“I don’t have an idea. I’m not much of a mother myself. Ask Uncle Google.”
Right. That would be logical. I took out my phone and tapped in my question. A while later I rolled to the side, facing Olga.
“No sunbathing for me. Listen to this: ‘The sun allows the skin to produce vitamin D, which is particularly important for the child. It is enough to take walks in the shade to reach the right level of the vitamin. Sunbathing isn’t recommended, as one cannot fully protect the skin against harmful UV rays. A pregnant woman’s skin is overly sensitive, and the sun may irritate it, causing discoloration. Besides, the body quickly dehydrates in the sun, which is detrimental to the child.’ ”
Olga turned to me, sliding her sunglasses halfway down her nose, and said, “You’ve binged on wine like crazy and you were pregnant for a while now. How is a bit of sun going to top that? Bullshit.”
“Well, now that I know I’m pregnant, I’m not going to risk getting an ugly hormonal splotch on my chin or something. Anyway, we have an invitation to a spa, so choose—either you stay here and grow old by the second with all that UV light, or we go have some fun.”
I grew quiet, waiting for a response, as she stood by the chaise with her bag in her hand, putting on a beach wrap.
“So? Are we going or what?”
In another hour, we were ready to leave, and Domenico parked my cherry Porsche on the driveway. He left the car and frowned slightly. “Don’t run away this time, okay?” He pointed to the black SUV, which stopped right behind my car. “Massimo gets furious when you do that, and the guys always suffer for it.”
I patted his shoulder and opened the door. “We’ve discussed it with the boss already. You can stop worrying. Did you program the route to the spa in the GPS?”
Domenico nodded and raised a hand to wave goodbye.
“What a fucking spaceship,” Olga groaned, looking around the interior of the car. “Who the fuck needs so many buttons? This is supposed to be a car! A steering wheel, three pedals, a gear stick, and four seats. What does this one do?”
“Jesus, don’t push them! It’ll catapult us through the roof or something.”
I slapped her hand away as she tried touching some other unidentifiable button. “Don’t touch it.” I shook my head. “I said the same thing when I got it, but they tell me its safe,” I added, shrugging with resignation.