BABY DADDY (22 page)

“This is my surprise for you today.”

“Oh. I thought it was the cable ride. That was already grand.”

“I have another surprise on our ride back.” He winks at me.

He has this childlike enthusiasm every time, but truth be told, I’m really getting used to being surprised. It’s like having Santa everyday. I didn’t realize I missed a lot of Santa when I was a kid. My stepmother hid Santa from me.

“Is the cable ride the only way up here?”

“There’s another way but only the monks can pass that route on foot. It’s a very steep trail on the side of the mountain. Even expert mountaineers aren’t comfortable passing that way.”

“Monks?”

“Yeah. There.”

We come to a clearing, a landing paved with bricks. From here you can see a cluster of ancient-looking buildings down the slope. They seem to be hanging precariously on the side of the cliff, too, pretty much like The gallery.

“Wow, is that a temple?”

“A Buddhist monastery.”

“It looks ancient.”

“Yup, 17th century.”

“How in hell did they build a structure like that up here in those times? How did they transport the materials?”

“They made the materials here. The temple’s made of bricks and hard wood.”

I stare at it in wonder. Then I glance at the man standing beside me. My eyes get misty. Why am I getting so emotional lately? My tear ducts seem to be awakening from a long dormancy. “I really, really love this surprise, Raiden. Thank you,” I say, my voice shaking a bit. Really, this is extra special.

He smiles at me tenderly and takes my hand. “C’mon, let’s meet the brothers.”

“Do they speak English?”

“Yeah. Fluently.”

“Who taught them?”

“My parents and my British teachers.”

I wish I’ve met the King of Monte Franco, too, the man who sired this wonderful human being that’s making me experience more meaningful things in a week than what I’ve attempted to do in my whole life.

As we trek the brick steps going down to the temple, Raiden told me that this place is the most precious heritage of the island, next to the village of indigenous people. The monks who have lived here existed in almost complete isolation from civilization for generations.

“Do you come here often?”

“Yeah. I come here to meditate.”

“Meditate? Yoga?”

“Meditation is part of yoga. Thin line but simply put, it’s clearing your mind of all the negative energies, controlling your life force, achieving a sense of calm and clarity. As a result, your body will move according to this balance.”

Yes, I can see now where he gets his perfect balance on water.

I can feel my bitchy inner goddess starting to seriously man-crush now.
A man who’s in touch with his soul and not only with his baser instincts. Super-like!

“So, this is where your discipline comes from,” I remark.

“Yeah. If you can control your life force, you’ll be able to see your path clearly.”

I shouldn’t ask. “What path?”

“The path of your life. How you’re going to live everyday of it.”

I look at him thoughtfully.

“What?”

“Seriously, you’re into this?”

“Since I was a child.”

“Are you a Buddhist?”

“I call myself a child of the world. I want to embrace cultures. My parents taught me to read the sacred books of various religions to be able to have a greater understanding of faith.”

Alright, here we go again with these deep stuff. I’m not really a religious person. I can’t remember the last time I went to church, but I’m fascinated by Raiden’s views on faith and religion. “So what have you concluded from reading them?”

“There is one teaching that’s common among them. The world will be a better place to live in if only people will pay more attention to this sacred teaching and not too much on their dogmas.”

“What is it?”

“The golden rule. That’s the gist of all those sacred books. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

I nod. When he’s talking like this, our ages reverse. I feel like a juvenile and he’s this old wise man telling me about life and all its mysteries.

“Don’t worry, I believe in a Supreme Creator, or God if you want to feel safe. Our child will have a decent, loving father who’ll teach him everyday about the inherent goodness of humanity.”

I can feel myself freaking out again.

Our child.
He talks like he’s going to be there everyday for the kid. Not just a shared custody or a visitation right but a full-time daddy.

Not good.

Why not?

He’s making it complicated! It’s not supposed to be complicated!

“Do you go to church?” he asks.

“No. But I give millions to charity,” I say defensively.

He smiles. “That’s great. Some people like to talk about generosity and kindness. Some like to act on it. I definitely love the latter.”

There it is again. Love. He was talking about it in general but it sounded like he was referring to me in particular.

I wish he’d quit talking like that.

He’s resurrecting long buried hopes inside me.

Definitely not good.

I heave a sigh of relief when we reach the front of the temple.

A tall, bald man swathed in an orange cloth is already waiting for us at the entrance.

“Raiden, good to see you again.”

The man descends the front steps and I’m shocked to see a Caucasian monk! And he’s not old either. Probably just in his forties.

“
Ajahn
Daniel!” Raiden exchanges
namaste
with the monk then introduces me.

“This is Ella, my girlfriend. Ella, my mentor,
Ajahn
Daniel.”

Daniel gives me the
namaste
and I do the same.

“Finally, you bring a lovely woman here.”

Okay…

First time to bring a woman here? Hmmm. Mega-like!

Raiden puts his arm around my shoulders. “I found a special one.”

Daniel nods, his eyes radiating kindness as he looks at me. I’ve never been around monks but this one has a certain aura of calm about him. Makes you feel safe and at ease right away. Very much like how I felt with Raiden from the get go.

I’m beginning to really understand Raiden’s personality now, how he came to be. I haven’t met anybody quite like Baby Dada. He’s a fascinating blend of so many things and yet he’s so well-put together.

I told you so.

Yeah, yeah.

I sit on the mat on the temple’s wide
deck over-looking another mesmerizing sunset. Seeing it from the top of the rainforest, the rays reflected on the leaves, is another memorable experience.

Silhouetted on the setting sun some ten twenty meters away, Raiden is performing another skill I didn’t know he possessed.

He’s a second-degree black belt in Taekwondo under the mentorship of Daniel who was a Taekwondo Chief Master, or having reached the ninth degree before he turned into a monk.

Raiden moves on the wooden surface pretty much like he moves on water, fluid, limber, radiating effortless power.

After performing a series of complicated forms, he comes to sit on his haunches in front of me. He peers at me, smiling, not even winded.

I touch the lapel of his white uniform. He has changed into it before doing his
kata
. “I have no words for you anymore. Just…wow.”

He grins. “I’m glad you have a huge crush on me now. That was really meant to impress you.”

Gahhhh, psychic!

Hush, bitch.

“Let’s meditate,” he says.

“I don’t know how.”

“I’ll teach you.”

This is becoming more apparent each passing day. He’s the one teaching me a lot of new things.

“Sit like this.”

He sits cross-legged facing me. I follow his position.

He lets my hands lay palm up on top of my upper thighs then he touches his palms with mine.

“Look at me, baby. Deep into my eyes.”

As if I can look away. His stare captures my eyes like magnet and I’m stuck and couldn’t look away even if I wanted to.

He begins murmuring in this soft, soothing voice. “Focus on your breathing. Think of your breathing. Feel it. Find your center. Your core. Now, think that my breath is your breath, and your breath is my breath and we’re breathing into each other…”

We both breathe in unison. Deep inhalations and exhalations.

Hmmm, this is nice. Very nice.

“Think about it, baby. Think about me breathing life into you and you breathing life into me…and we’re each other’s life. ”

His words hypnotize me and I can feel my breathing centering into me, filling me, loosening the tension in my body.

“You’re my life…I am yours…we’ll breathe together…live together…”

I feel light…so very light…as if I can float and fly with the wind and yet I’m still sitting here, grounded.

I feel his energy flowing into me, going in as I inhale, staying inside me as I exhale.

I didn’t know how long we sat there breathing together, staring into each other’ eyes.

I just find myself smiling serenely at him.

One with myself.

One with him.

FORTEEN

___________________________________________________________

25 CONTROVERSIAL QUOTES FROM THE STYLE EMPRESS

On perfection:

It’s a unicorn.

Humans love myths and legends. Fairy tales.

It feeds our hunger for what we don’t and can’t have.

It makes Hollywood and people like me richer.

Stella Rhodes

__________________________________________________

RAIDEN IS TAKING ME TO PUNTO FIAMMA
one more time to have dinner with his mother.

I’m very glad for the distraction. I’m leaving tomorrow.

I have this blanket of melancholy shrouding me today and I can’t shake it off no matter how attentive Raiden is to me.

Funny how two weeks can change a person.

Honestly, I don’t want to leave. I want to extend my stay.

But I can’t.

I’m needed in New York. Fashion Week is in two months. It’s the busiest time for all competitive designers. I just panicked and squeezed in this baby-making project because I knew I would be all over the place the rest of the year. I figured if I didn’t do it immediately while the fear was still inside me, I never would.

Fantasy time is definitely coming to an end.

Back to the real world tomorrow.

“You’re going to meet another person very close to me.”

I turn to him. We’ve been both silent and pensive after we took off from the airport on his chopper.

“And who is this person?”

“My stepfather.”

Oh. Akiko got married after the king died? Wow, another revelation. Akiko’s personal memoir will be really juicy, I bet.

“Are you close to him?”

“Very much. He makes everything a lot easier for me and Mother, especially when my father died. Mother was very depressed, but Sandro was there. I’m glad he was there. I didn’t know what to do, how to console her.”

I can imagine. When you replace a great queen in a king’s heart, the love that caused it must be really special and hard to let go.

“Then I’d love to meet him. He sounds like a really cool guy.”

“He is. He adopted me after father’s death. I do love my father but I’m proud to carry Sandro’s name. I think it suits me better.”

“So, who’s my Baby Daddy?” I don’t hesitate to ask him that now, knowing this.

The smile he gave me is priceless. “Raiden Azzaro. Pleased to meet you, Stella Rhodes.”

I smile back. “Raiden Azzaro. Great name. Italian?”

“Sandro has French and Italian blood. You’ll name our kid after me, right, Ella?”

He sounds so hopeful and my heart clenches painfully. I look away. “Don’t you like Rhodes?”

“It’s fine. Rhodes-Azzaro is much better.”

My anxiety gets worse. “Hmm. So tell me about Akiko and Sandro.”

“Ahh. Their love story is really interesting.”

I really adore this about him. He’s fond of love stories. We watched a few classic sixties movies from his DVD collection in his home theater and it was him who was going misty-eyed over the emotional scenes, hugging me and kissing my hair.

“More interesting than ours?”

He grins. “By a tad. Nah, ours is the stuff of legends.”

I wish I had his faith. “Tell me.”