I’m sorry, Mom, I failed you.
It’s Wednesday and I pull my car to park curbside, I turn off the ignition as the traffic whirls by. I look across the road at the apartment block and up to the top floor, her apartment.
The afternoon sun shines through my windscreen and I don’t know why I’m here, or what I’m going to say, but I need to see her.
Francesca.
The woman who so kindly offered support and friendship to me at the funeral.
I can’t stop thinking about her.
And I know that if I were a better man I would, but it’s already established that I’m not.
Tap, tap, sounds on the window and I glance up, startled. “Everything okay, boss?” Antonio asks.
“Yes.” I run my hand through my hair in frustration. Fuck off and mind your own business. “Is she home?”
“Who?” Antonio’s face falls. “Francesca?”
“Who else would I be talking about?” I snap.
“She’s about to go out.” He looks across the street at the apartments. “We’re waiting for her to come down now.”
“Where is she going?” I ask.
“Shopping with her mother, I believe.”
“Right.” I roll my lips, annoyed.
Antonio looks at me for a beat longer than needed and I raise an eyebrow.
“Shall I get her?” he offers.
“No. Nothing important.”
The front doors of the building open and Francesca walks out, she’s wearing a tight, fitted, cream knitted dress and sky-high stilettos, her long dark hair is swept up into a high ponytail. I can see her big red lips and chiseled cheekbones from here, impeccable posture, innately feminine, Italian to the bone.
Perfect in every way.
“Will that be all, sir?” Antonio asks interrupting my thoughts.
“Yes, I’ll call her later,” I reply as my eyes stay glued to her.
“I’ve got to go.” Antonio runs across the street and opens the back door of her car.
She’s talking to the doorman, he and she laugh out loud and I stare over at her in awe.
In slow motion, I watch her walk out, she says something to Antonio as she gets into the car and he smiles and says something back.
He closes the door behind her and I watch as their car pulls out into the traffic and drives away.
I lean my head back onto the headrest and exhale heavily.
She’s gone.
Francesca
“Good lord, these are delicious.” My mother holds her glass up to inspect it.
“I know.” I sip the last of my margarita and smile. “How is it, though, that every time we go shopping together, we end up at this restaurant drinking cocktails?”
“This is how you do it, darling.” She holds her glass up in a silent salute and I giggle.
My phone rings, it’s Anna. “I’m just going to take this.”
“Hi,” I answer.
“Oh. My. God.” She splutters excitedly, “Can you talk?”
“Yes, I’m just having dinner with my mother.”
“Can she hear me?”
My eyes rise to see if Mom’s listening, “Possibly.”
“Go for a walk.”
“But….”
“Trust me, go for a fucking walk,” she cuts me off.
Weird.
I fake a smile. “Just going to go to the bathroom, Mom.”
She nods, preoccupied with her drink.
With my phone to my ear, I weave through the tables and go to the corridor for the bathroom. “What?” I whisper.
“So, I found some porn on Frank’s computer.”
I frown, I wasn’t expecting this. “Okay.”
“He’d downloaded it from a website called Pornhub.”
“And?”
“I logged in through his computer to see if he had an account.”
“Did he?”
“Fucking Platinum Membership.”
My eyebrows rise by themselves. “Oh.” I shrug. “Well, that’s okay I guess, isn’t it? No harm in looking.”
“I know, but guess what else I stumbled across,” she replies.
“What?”
“Giuliano Ferrara is on there.”
“On where?”
“Pornhub.”
I screw up my face. “What?”
“He’s in a threesome with two girls.”
My eyes widen and someone walks past me and I push the phone into my ear so that nobody can hear the horrifying things that I’m hearing, I don’t want to hear them myself. “What do you mean?” I whisper. “Are you sure it’s him?”
“Positive. He’s in a pool and they’re oiled up and he’s fucking two girls.”
My eyes bulge from their sockets. “What…like…full fucking.”
“Like fully fucking, full frontal, hard oily cock, dick sucking, huge dick porno.”
My mouth falls open. “Can’t be him,” I gasp. “He would never do that?”
“Have a look for yourself, I’m sending you the link now.”
I look around, guilty. “Fucking hell,” I whisper, suddenly desperate to get off the phone.
“Call me back when you’ve watched it,” she says.
“Okay.” I hang up and march back to the table on a mission.
“One more?” Mom asks.
“I can’t, I have to go,” I say. “I have so much to do.”
She rolls her eyes. “What could you possibly have to do? You’re on vacation.”
“I still have to work, Mom.” I put my hand up for the bill, “Come on, let’s go.”
“What’s the rush?”
Oh, nothing important, just my ex first love who also happens to be my brother in a fucking orgy on an international porn network.
I pinch the bridge of my nose, this is un-fucking believable.
We pay the bill and walk outside and I see Antonio waiting for me across the road.
“Bye darling.” My mother kisses my cheek.
“Bye.”
“Come by tomorrow for a swim?”
“Okay.” I wave her off and cross the road, Antonio opens the door for me.
“Hello, Miss Ferrara.”
“Hello.” I smile as I get into the car, we pull out into the traffic and Antonio’s eyes flick up to meet mine in the mirror. His eyes go back to the road and then flick up to me again. Back to the road and then back up to me in the mirror, he looks like he wants to say something.
“What is it?” I ask.
He opens his mouth to speak and then swiftly shuts it again. “I wouldn’t want to speak out of turn, Miss Ferrara.”
Huh?
“What is it?” I ask. “You couldn’t possibly speak out of turn, Antonio. We are friends.”
“I was just wondering….” His voice trails off.
“What?”
“What did Mr. Ferrara want?”
“Who?”
“Giuliano came to your house today to see you earlier, he said he was going to call you. What did he want?”
“What?” I sit forward, suddenly interested. “When was he at my house?”