Hidden Heart (44 page)

Maybe she never knew what
she really wanted to have in her life until that moment. Maybe she
made a mistake by not telling him the truth, but he couldn’t be
more wrong about the reasons she kept the secret away from
him.

“
I am going to rip his head
off,” Tessa said to herself, throwing the bed sheets aside. She
searched for her cell, found it under her purse and dialed
Alessandro’s number. It went straight to voice mail. She left a
message. And many more after that, but Alessandro didn’t return any
of her calls. “I thought so, you coward.” She slammed the phone
closed and hurried to the bathroom, undressing before she got
there. A quick shower, teeth brushing, fresh clothes and twenty
minutes later she left the house, her hair still damp. She turned
on the AC in the car and by the time she arrived at Victor’s house,
her hair was almost dry.

She rang the bell. She
heard footsteps, then the door opened and Dina greeted her, hugging
her immediately.

“
Hi, Dina, sorry I didn’t
announce I’d be stopping by.”

“
Tessa, dear, what a
surprise. I just finished baking an apple pie. Come have a
seat.”

Tessa followed her friend
into the kitchen where Victor sat at the table, reading. The smell
of the apple pie reminded Tessa she’d had a small piece of bread in
the morning and some tea, but thanks to Alessandro, nothing for
lunch.

“
I’m not drinking, I’m not
smoking, you don’t have to spy on me,” Victor announced, folding
the newspaper. He grunted, got up and hugged Tessa, chuckling,
“Just teasing, kiddo. It’s always good to see you. Come, sit here,”
and towards his wife, “Dina how about that apple pie of yours and
some tea?”

Dina sighed and rolled her
eyes, then walked to the stove. She brought pie and tea while
Victor showed Tessa a few photos of his grandson.

“
So, what brings you here?
Do you want your job back, is that it?” Victor asked, shoving a big
piece of pie in his mouth.

Tessa swallowed her bite.
“It’s actually Alessandro.”

She saw both Dina and
Victor stop chewing and exchange worried looks.

“
What? What is
it?”

Victor cleared his voice
and muttered, “Nothing, there is nothing. What about
Alessandro?”

“
Well, I just need his
address so I can go and kick his ass,” Tessa said, her voice
matter-of-fact. When Victor and Dina exchanged another sneaky look,
Tessa pointed her finger at her former boss, “Don’t you lie to me,
Victor. I know you know his address, so you better think twice
before you answer. I’ll find him even if I have to crawl in to a
snake’s hole, but if you give me the address, you’ll save me a lot
of time.”

Dina placed a hand on
Tessa’s, forcing Tessa to look at her. Smiling, Dina said calmly,
“Dear, you two have hurt enough; a fight might not be the right
approach. Alessandro loves you, why fight with him?”

Tessa stood and took her
empty plate to the sink, then turned to face her
friends.

“
Why? I’ll tell you why.”
She returned to the table, sat and squeezed both hand in tight
fists. “Because that idiot came to my house accusing me of throwing
him away like a bad shoe, for being unfaithful and secretive, but
what about him, huh? What did he do? He built a house, he bought an
engagement ring for me, but did he ever say a word about it? Did he
ever ask me
if
I
want a house, where or how I want it? Did he ask me what kind of
engagement ring I want,
if
I want one, huh? Oh no, Mister
I-make-all-decisions-by-myself, Tessa is just a puppet, did
everything alone. And
I
am accused of being secretive, can you believe
it?”

Tessa paused to catch her
breath. Her anger kept building with every word she said and she
felt ready to explode. Her eyes darted between Dina and Victor,
wondering who would give her the address, hoping she’d been
convincing.

“
The ring, it’s actually
very pretty,” Dina assured her, blinking quickly, then caught
herself and stopped.

Tessa jumped to her feet
and slapped her thighs; she began pacing the room, holding her
forehead. “Unbelievable!”

“
His house is actually two
streets down from us, take a left and after you pass the three-way
stop sign, the second house on the right. You’ll recognize it
easily, it’s yellow with green wooden blinds, lots of rosebushes
and a half-meter wooden fence, white painted. I told him to make it
higher, even dogs can jump over it, but he said he likes it that
way.” Victor ripped a piece of the newspaper, grabbed a pen and
wrote Alessandro’s address.

Tessa snatched the paper
afraid Victor might change his mind, placed it in her pocket, and
hugged him. “Thanks, boss, you’re the best.”

An hour later Tessa still
waited for Alessandro in front of his house. She left her friends’
house minutes after Victor gave her the address and got there
quickly, but to her disappointment Alessandro’s car wasn’t there.
She knew she had the right house, since all the others had meters’
tall brick or concrete walls around them. Despite her anger with
him she couldn’t help but smile to herself,
He is so out of touch…people here steal each other’s
underwear if they can and he built a fence that even kids can crawl
over?

Her body ached from sitting
for so long. Each time a car approached, her pulse quickened only
to calm down after the car drove by. She called him once more, but
this time she heard, “
The number you are
dialing is not connected. Please call later.”

“
Even better now. You
turned your phone off,” she muttered. She got out and stretched,
walked up and down the street, but the heat made her feel droopy.
She got back in her car, wishing for a glass of water and dozed
off.

Someone tapped on her car
window. “Ma’am, are you okay?” Two boys looked inside her car,
shading their eyes.

Tessa nodded and lifted her
hand. “I’m okay, I’m okay.” She smiled at them reassuringly; the
boys took off.

Her neck hurt, her legs
numb with pain, the back of her shirt completely wet. Her mouth
felt dry and her stomach growled. Her watched showed eight o’clock
and Alessandro still nowhere to be found.

As the time passed, Tessa’s
anger faded. Maybe it was for the best Alessandro didn’t come home.
Maybe she just needed to forget the past and move on. Her life
might be empty without him, her heart broken without him, but at
least she had her life back.

She turned on the car’s
engine and drove away, stopped at the first gas station, filled her
tank up, bought a bottle of water and drank it all at once, then
bought a second one and drove away. She didn’t want to go home,
yet. The city’s lights and noise remained long behind her, but she
kept driving, passing through rural villages, one after another
until the mountains’ silhouettes profiled on the
horizon.

Joy filled her broken
heart. “My cabin, of course,” she said to herself, letting out a
small cry. “God, I haven’t been here in so long.” Exuberant, Tessa
stepped on the gas and hurried, but when she came around the last
curve and drove straight up the narrow road to her cabin, she saw
smoke coming out the chimney, and…Alessandro’s car parked
outside.

Boom, boom, boom,
Tessa’s heart pounded. Her hands shook on the
steering wheel. She drove slowly pulling up beside his car, got out
and went up on the porch. She had a key to the cabin on the chain
with her car key. She opened the door and waited. The fireplace in
the living room still burned and the diffused light coming from it
allowed her to look around. Alessandro wasn’t there, but she heard
the shower running.

Tessa went to the kitchen.
Somewhere in her pantry there should be a few canned soups, jars of
fruits in syrup and if she was lucky, a few horribly old crackers.
Not sure where the dizziness came from—being starved or her
emotions running wild—but she had to eat or she’d faint. She opened
a jar of pears and ate them all, still standing as she tried to
make sense of the situation.

What is he doing here? Why
did he come to my cabin? Why did I come here?
Tessa went for a second helping. She reached in the pantry,
found another jar, twisted the lid open, picked a slice of peach
and shoved it in her mouth. She turned around as Alessandro charged
at her with the fire hook above his head, water running down his
body, wrapped in a towel.

“
Put that down, it’s just a
jar of fruit; not worth it,” she pointed out, her mouth still
full.

He dropped his arm and the
hook, muscles bulging underneath his damp skin. He brushed a hand
over his face, then through his hair and fastened the towel tighter
around his waist. With only that small piece of fabric covering his
body, Tessa struggled to stay focused. She remembered seeing him
naked for the first time in the hotel in Italy, the attraction as
strong now as it was back then. That godly body, so taut, so
strong, and so perfect for her…But she was still mad at him,
right?

“
Sorry I took advantage of
knowing where the spare key was and…I got here late and I was too
tired to drive back; I promise I’ll get up early tomorrow and
leave,” he mumbled visibly embarrassed to be caught in her
cabin.

She sat at the table,
placed the jar down and rested her palms on her lap.

“
It’s okay,” she said,
staring at her fingers, then up at him.

“
Tessa, listen…I have…my
reaction earlier was unfair to you, to what you’ve been through. I
assume you are mad at me; you have every right to be. I left your
house wanting to get away from you and I ended up here; no matter
what I do, or where I go, I come back…to you…” he brushed a hand
through his hair, holding the other on his hip. He shuffled his
weight from one foot to the other, sighing, clenching his
jaw.

Tessa shrugged one
shoulder. His words shocked her; an apology that sounded like a
love declaration? Did she hear him right?

“
There are a few things you
forgot here, a t-shirt, jeans and a toothbrush…You’ll find them in
the spare bedroom downstairs.”

“
Great. I’ll be out of your
way,” Alessandro offered and turned to walk away.

“
It’s not nice to make
people wait in front of your house for hours,” Tessa tilted her
head, looking sideways at him, then back at her fingers. “And if
someone calls you until your voicemail is full, maybe they have
something important to say; you might consider returning the
calls.”

He turned and stopped on
the kitchen’s threshold. “You went to my house?”

“
Mm-hmm.”

She looked at him and once
again her heart melted at the way he looked at her, his face lit
up, a slow smile at the corners of his mouth.

“
Did you…did you like
it?”

“
It’s okay, I guess, but
the fence has to go,” she laughed softly. “And the yellow color,
it’s too pale compared with the dark green shutters, I
think.”

He came and knelt in front
of her, his eyes sparkling like dewdrops. He took one of her hands
and caressed the back of it with his thumb.

Butterflies filled up her
stomach.

“
I’m not a bad person,
Alessandro,” she whispered.

“
I know.”

“
It’s true, I wanted an
abortion, but I couldn’t do it…I guess I’ve been punished enough
for my ugly thoughts afterwards, but I didn’t kill my baby…” she
looked down at his hand caressing hers. She pushed a lock of hair
behind her ear, tears rolling down her face. “I’m only human, I’ve
made mistakes, but I paid for them. If you want to judge me for
thinking ill, then I can’t stop you. I just wanted to make sure you
know…I do love you, I always did,” Tessa murmured, at last
revealing her hidden heart.

Alessandro helped her
stand. He cupped her face and brushed a thumb over her lips. The
anticipation of his kiss made her heart throb, her knees
weak.

“
I love you more,” he said,
sealing his words with a kiss and scooping her in to his arms—to
the place where she belonged.

Epilogue

“
Alessandro
,
sweetheart, I need you to do me a favor,” Tessa said, holding
the phone as a nurse entered her room to bring her dinner. The
monitor recorded the regular pulse and heartbeat, as Tessa willed
herself to remain calm.

“
Anything for you,
cara mia
. I miss you
already. Are you on your way home?” Alessandro said.

She smiled touched by the
love in his words. “I miss you, too.” She closed her eyes, knowing
that her words would cause him anxiety, but she needed him now more
than ever.

“
I’m actually at the
hospital and I won’t be coming home.” She heard him panicking and
gathering all her strength, she willed her voice to sound calm, “I
promise there’s nothing to worry about, I need you to remain calm,
I
need
you calm,
okay?”

“
Tessa, what happened to
you? Did you have an accident? Why are you in the hospital? What
hospital? I’ll be there immedi—”