Chapter Fourteen

"There's mail for you downstairs."

I glance over my shoulder and see that the head housekeeper, Mary, is standing in the doorway of my room.

I had come upstairs after a long day of cleaning floors by hand to take a shower and clean up before Mateo is brought home by Enzo's driver.

"Mail for me?" I say back. Why would anyone be sending me mail?

I'm a prisoner here and no one knows that I am here. My heart leaps a little as I consider that maybe someone told my parents that I have come out of hiding and I'm being held by the Baldinis as a prisoner.

I try not to think about my parents most of the time. It's incredibly painful to me that they have never met their grandson.

"Why do you repeat everything I say to you?" Mary says with annoyance before shaking her head and leaving.

I clench my teeth. Mary is a prim, unyielding person and she doesn't approve of my presence in the house.

She has made it very difficult for me ever since she was told that I was going to join her staff. She knows that I'm an enemy of the family, and she has been grudging toward me at best.

However, I can't really blame her for being annoyed that I am being kept here. The Baldinis seem to be very good at imposing inconveniences on the women in their lives, even the staff who keep their household running for them.

My presence is probably just one of many difficulties that the Baldini boys have caused for Mary over the years.

I abandon the idea of taking a shower and I leave my room. I make my way through the echoing hallways of the huge house toward the foyer.

Two sweeping, curving staircases lead down to the front entryway and there is a table in the center of the large space. I notice immediately the large vase of flowers on the table.

I walk closer to it, and I'm stunned to see all of the expensive flowers in the huge arrangement. Roses, lilies, and all kinds of colorful flowers are clustered artfully in the pretty porcelain vase.

I finger the soft petals of a purple rose for a moment, remembering that I told Elio they were my favorite flowers back when we were dating.

My eyes fall on the envelope leaning against the base of the vase of flowers and my heart stutters a little in my chest. Did Elio send these to me?

I pick up the envelope which has my name written on it, and carefully cradle the fragile vase full of flowers in my arms as I walk back to my room.

The scent of the roses and lilies washes over me with cloying sweetness as I walk through the marble hallways toward the tiny room I have been given to stay in. The envelope in my hand feels like it weighs a ton.

I set the flowers on my bedside table and stare at them for a long moment, my heart still beating hard in my chest.

Once, I would have been aflutter with excitement to have received such a gift from Elio. He had almost never remembered to observe the niceties of dating. Getting a bouquet this large and impressive would have been very exciting to me back then.

Now, the bouquet just makes me sad.

Elio likely thinks that this gesture will win me over, but my heart is so battered that all I feel is regret. My eyes fall on the unopened envelope in my hand. I wonder if I should just throw it out without reading it.

I have already been looking for other solutions to my predicament. I feel like I will find a way out of this compound if I keep looking.

Maybe I don't even need to continue to entertain my plan to win Elio over and convince him to let Mateo and I go free.

But then I think about the guards with dogs, the razor wire on the walls, and the way that the staff don't trust me as far as they could throw me.

I can't afford to cut off any possible assistance that might be offered to Mateo and I to escape the Baldinis.

I sit on the bed and open the envelope. My heart leaps a little again when I see that there are three sheets of paper folded up inside of it.

I can already see the slanting lines of Elio's beautiful handwriting. I think of his graceful, sensitive artist's hands writing this letter to me, and I smile in spite of myself.

Elio has always been a study in contradictions.

The same hands that can write this beautiful script can also kill people and deliver intense amounts of pain.

I unfold the letter and take a deep breath, trying to prepare myself for what Elio has decided to tell me.

Kate,

It occurs to me that I should have taken the time to do things like this more often seven years ago.

Maybe I didn't think about it because we were betrothed and neither of us had any choice about getting married. Maybe it was because I was young and arrogant and I thought that sex was enough to keep a woman happy.

I can't promise that I have changed for the better. I've probably gotten much worse in some ways. This is a hard life, but you know that.

What I can say to you, is that I have grown wiser over the past seven years. It means more than you know to find out that I have a son. I would love to get to meet him, but I understand why you might be hesitant to let him get to know me.

The situation that we find ourselves in is not a good one.

I know that you know that, but I want you to be sure that I am aware of it as well. Luca Baldini, in particular, is an evil man and one who is willing to do almost anything to get his way.

I wouldn't give a dog to Luca Baldini for safekeeping, let alone my betrothed and my son.

I won't pretend that I have a grand plan in mind to get you out of the Baldini house. They have me firmly by the balls, which is precisely what they wanted.

I know that you want your freedom, but I cannot promise you that.

Even if the Baldinis and I come to an arrangement with regard to business dealings, you and Mateo will not be safe anywhere in the world from our enemies.

I admire Marco being able to keep you hidden away for so many years, but you should never make the mistake of thinking that it was an easy feat.

What I do know, is that we will need to work together to figure out a way to get you out of this mess first.

There is nothing else that we can do while you are still in the Baldini house.

They aren't going to offer me a trade deal until you agree to let me meet my son. This means that the next move is up to you.

I have already told Luca and Enzo that I will not be coming to visit again until you say that you want to see me. The next move is yours.

If I never hear from you again, I will have to assume that you have been killed, or that you have decided to continue to work as a housekeeper for the Baldinis and let them raise Mateo as one of their own.

I cannot imagine you making this choice, but I respect your decision, whatever it might be.

I have clearly wounded you deeply, even if I don't know what I did. If you decide that you can trust me to visit again, I would love to know what happened to make you hate me so much that you needed to go to Marco for help.

I cannot promise to love you, Kate. I am a bad man, and I cannot afford the luxury of love.

I can barely afford the luxury of commitment to your safety and that of my son. But you must know that I can be trusted to keep my family safe.

That is not such a bad bargain, if you think about it.

I hope that you enjoy the flowers. I believe that you like purple roses the best?

Ciao,

Elio

I feel moisture on my cheeks and I swipe at it. I didn't realize I was crying until just now. I have many feelings about the contents of the letter and no idea what my next move should be.

I gaze out the window at the razor wire on the fence outside and breathe in the smell of the flowers in the vase next to me.

Their cloying scent fills the air around me, just like the way that Elio's presence has filled up the spaces in my life ever since I was a child. I might wish that it wasn't the case, but that doesn't change anything.

Being angry about Elio being in my life is like being angry about the sun or the moon.

I stare sightlessly at the letter in my hand, the lines of Elio's beautiful handwriting blurring together. I realize that I will have to let Elio come to see me again, even if I wish that I could just take Mateo's hand and run away until the La Rosas and the Baldinis are just a bad memory.

I cannot afford to stop making my own plans to escape, but I need to make sure that I don't cut off avenues of escape that might come from the outside world as well.

I fold up the letter and stuff it into the bedside table drawer. I take off my clothes and go into the bathroom to take my shower. I stare at myself in the mirror as the water warms up.

I know that I look almost like I did when Elio first met me. I hadn't had anything to do but parent and workout after Marco placed me in hiding. I had gotten back into shape after I gave birth almost right away.

Would being attractive be enough to hold Elio's interest if I let him get me out of the Baldini house? Could I use my beauty to bargain with him for a life that I truly want to live? Would his desire for me be enough to protect my son?

I wish that I knew. Being forced to count on my appearance was terrifying. What if I started to age and Elio grew tired of me? What would he do then?

The thought of being forced to let another woman raise my son made me want to throw up.

I remembered my mother showing me how to put on makeup and choosing clothing that would impress the men around me.

At the time, it had seemed like a lot of fun to get to join the ranks of the adult women in my family. They had always seemed so glamorous and grown up.

Now I realized that most of them were playacting to appease their husbands. They were pretending that they were important to their men so that they might be allowed to keep their standing and their safety.

After I went into hiding, I was often angry at my beauty. If I had been ugly, I think Elio would have broken the engagement and moved on to marry someone else.

I would have been free.

I wipe a hand through the steam gathering on the mirror and turn away. I climb into the shower and let the warm water run over me in a soothing caress.

What I have to remember is that I am smart, capable, and intelligent.

Even if Elio only wants my body and doesn't value my mind, I don't have to allow his opinion of me to cloud my own feelings about myself.

I need to thank my lucky stars that I am still pretty enough to attract his interest.

There will be time enough for intelligence and ingenuity once I have gotten away from the Baldinis.