King of Stars (The Next Generation #2)

49. Matteo

Chapter 49

Matteo

S tella complained on the last day of our honeymoon that our time felt like it had gone by too fast. All the restaurants, the snow, the skiing, and the times we locked ourselves away from the world, especially at night, when the hours were longer and the chill in the air was colder…it felt like everything happened in a blink.

Uncle Tito had told me that once. “When you are a young man, time will be kind to you. It will make you believe it will always go at the speed a young man can keep up with. However, after a certain age, blink and you will miss it, Matteo. Even if life attempts to sweep you up in its fast rush of time, stall it by absorbing every second. Do not wish for a day to come, because once it comes, that day will never come again. We Italians are good at this, ah? We meander through life like the warmth from the sun on a hot summer day.”

I wasn’t falling into the pace life was starting to set for me, but I wasn’t as patient with time as my wife was being. She loved how long the nights were. How dark. How cold. Every night, she’d press close to me, even closer than I had her, my arms around her, our bodies entwined. “You feel so, so, sooo good. Like a furnace. I’m surprised you don’t melt all this snow, but you keep me perfectly warm.”

There was a glow to snow when the sun hit it that I’d never really noticed until our second honeymoon. It wasn’t something I would have noticed if it wasn’t for my wife having a similar glow. It was like my wife and the snow burned with a cold fire from within.

As much as she loved the heat of summer, she seemed to thrive in the cold of winter, like she’d been made for it. Especially at night. It was almost like she was imagining playing a game, where she was locked in a cold castle, and I was the warm beast who had found her and fallen in love with her, keeping her alive with my heat.

But it was time to go home. I’d given her the time she’d asked for, and I wanted to find out why the doctor wasn’t getting back to us with the results.

“Hold on!” she laughed. “Why are we almost running toward the plane?”

I picked her up, carrying her instead. I hadn’t been running, but she almost had trying to keep up with me. My strides were long and determined, and even though the ride home wasn’t all that long, I felt like ants had invaded my seat, and I couldn’t sit still. I fucking paced the length of the aisle until it was time to land.

Stella noticed, but she didn’t say anything. She was texting everyone at home pictures she snapped during our time in Germany.

“Call the doctor,” I said as soon as we arrived back at Nonno and Magpie’s walled city in Lucca.

“Today is Sunday, Matteo,” she said like she was out of patience with me. “He’s not there.” She threw a towel at me. “We’re going to be late for Sunday dinner if we don’t hurry.”

Twenty-four hours to go—I was a fucking mess, and she was in dreamland. She laughed more than usual, and she had this faraway look in her eyes, like everything was right in the world, and not one dark cloud was hovering over our heads.

At Sunday dinner, my old man kept watching me. He lifted a brow when he noticed I was on my—I’d lost count—glass of whiskey. It wasn’t the bourbon I preferred, and even though it soothed my nerves at first, it grated on them after.

I fucking liked it.

The alcohol seemed to agree with how I was feeling and was on my side, fucking my head up even more.

My wife was oblivious. She was chirping non-stop about the wedding in Paris and our honeymoon, showing everyone pictures she had on her phone.

“You didn’t send me that one!” Mia smiled, wiggling her fingers for the phone. “That’s such a great picture of you and Teo! Send it to me. I want to update my contact photos for you both.”

It all felt like too much noise in my ears, and when we left, I could have fucking sighed at the quiet in our villa. Then there was a knock at the door, and it was Stella’s mamma and my great-uncle, Niccolo. He was taken with Nola, or Magnolia as he called her, and was taking good care of her. When Stella and her mamma went to make espresso with grappa, since our dinner was heavier than usual, I started to ask him point blank what his intentions were with her, when he said, “Magnolia and I are getting married, nephew.”

I nodded. I knew this was coming. Niccolo was the eternal bachelor out of his brothers, like Zio Romeo had been, like my brother, the Casanova Prince, was, before he got the jeweler’s daughter pregnant. So, when one of them fell, or was falling, it shook up the family a bit.

Niccolo was no young lion, and it had looked like his life was going to be lived with his numerous women, but I’d seen his eyes when he first saw Magnolia. He’d been smitten, and when he said he would take care of her, I knew it wasn’t only for the time we’d be gone.

“I will take care of her, nephew.”

I squeezed his shoulder. “You have been.”

He nodded. “I am healing her weary spirit and will conquer this darkness that has her in its grasp.” He lifted his hands. “It will surrender to me, or I will leave this world fighting with her.”

“You came here to ask Stella’s permission.”

“Stella is important to Magnolia, and Magnolia is important to Stella.” He took the glass of whiskey I offered him. “I was born here in Lucca. The magnolia tree has always been my favorite. When they bloom, they steal my attention, and I have always wished for more time with them.”

Stella and Magnolia came into the room then, holding on to each other. Tears were in both of their eyes.

“Matteo,” Stella whispered, “did you hear the news?”

I nodded and opened my arms, and she came into them. Magnolia went to Niccolo.

“We’re getting married in March,” Magnolia said.

When the magnolias bloomed in Lucca.

And that was that.

I couldn’t fucking sleep the entire night, though, and before the first rays of sun came sliding into the room, I dressed in workout clothes and met my old man for a run. By the time we were done, I was soaked, but still not settled. Stella had the villa smelling like coffee and breakfast. We ate, showered together, and then I reminded her about the doctor.

“I called,” she said, looking away from me. “He was busy.”

“Busy,” I repeated, but it was only to keep myself from doing something that would tip her off, like smashing the entire villa to pieces before I found the fucking doctor and did the same to him.

“Yeah,” she said. “I’ll call him back later. I’m going to go over to mama’s so we can discuss the wedding this morning. Magpie and Scarlett are going to meet us there. I’m so excited for mama!”

My wife was going to have to call the doctor back. The doctor who was supposed to make her health a priority.

I kissed her on the top of the head, told her to grab her things, and drove her to her mama and Niccolo’s place in her car. Two of my men were waiting in a SUV to drive me when I left. I took her things from her, walked her to the door, and before Magnolia answered, kissed her until she couldn’t breathe.

She stared after me, my mamma behind her, when I walked to the waiting SUV. As I climbed inside, I got a glimpse of my mamma’s face. She had a far off look in her eyes, and her lips were pinched. Not a vision then, but she was worried.

That rock in my heart had doubled in size and had made it to my stomach. What felt like centuries ago, but had only been last year, came back to me, fluttering in my memories. The white butterfly, or moth, or whatever it had been when Stella and I were together for the first time underneath the stars in Tuscany. The winged thing seemed to be fluttering around her stomach, or her womb, and I gripped the grab handle, or as we usually called them, pussy handles, in a death grip.

It wasn’t because the car swerved.

It was because, when the memory from all those months ago came back to me, it slammed me in the gut and stole my fucking breath. The look on my mamma’s face. How different it had been. How she said she couldn’t tell me anything concrete.

I’d decided to block it out, refuse it space in our lives, refuse it air. I’d killed even the thought of it by will power alone.

The situation with Magnolia, and the same future my wife could be facing, was giving it a pulse though.

I snapped at my solider to hit the gas harder. He started driving like he would’ve if we had an enemy to kill.

I fucking did.

One I couldn’t see or touch, who seemed to be slipping into my life without a sound or trace.

The doctor, the geneticist, was with another patient when I stormed into his practice. The nurse at the desk, English by her accent, looked at me with wide eyes and said she’d go talk to him.

I looked down at my watch.

He had three minutes.

One.

Two.

Three…

I almost knocked the nurse over when I went to bulldoze my way into the back. She caught herself on the wall and said, “His patient is leaving now. Please give her a minute. She is not fast on her feet.”

The woman reminded me of my mother-in-law, and I snapped at my men to help her to her car. If she didn’t have one, they were to take her to wherever she needed to go.

The reminder only sent my heart into overdrive, my blood rushing through my veins, making it swoosh in my ears. I told the nurse to close up.

“But Dr. Canavero still has patients!”

“Just for lunch.”

She didn’t hesitate to grab her coat and fly out the door.

Dr. Ennio Canavero stood when I walked into his office. He wore glasses like Uncle Tito and was similar in ways I couldn’t process at that moment. Except for one: the man’s caring nature lived in his eyes.

“Ah, Signore Fausti,” he said. “My nurse, Catherine, she tells me you wish to speak to me.”

He was being kind about it. I didn’t wish to speak to him. I was demanding it. He damn well knew the fucking difference.

I fixed my suit. “My wife’s test results.”

“Ah, Signora Fausti. Estella Fausti. Her family has quite the history. I discussed this with her mamma, Magnolia.”

I took a step toward his desk. His eyes grew wide before they narrowed on my hands. The veins there were swollen, and so was the major one in my neck. I could feel them all pulsating.

“Not her mamma. My wife. Her test results.”

“They do not come back overnight, Signore Fausti. I am sure your wife has told you this?”

“It has been three months. I want the results. Now.”

“You should speak with her.”

The caring nature in his eyes couldn’t save him from the destructive one in mine. I went after him, but suddenly, the only force on this earth that could stop me from killing him was standing before me, waving her hands.

“Matteo! Matteo! Teo? Listen to me. Stop! Please. Stop!”

My eyes were on my wife, but I had no idea how she fucking got there. I did when Saverio appeared and my old man cleared his throat. Mamma. She must have known and sent the cavalry in to save this man. Maybe she didn’t want to embarrass Uncle Tito. He had recommended Ennio Canavero, the doctor who could have saved more lives if he would have just saved one more.

Mine.

I went to move, but that force stopped me again.

Stella was standing between the doctor and me, her body pressing against mine. I could have easily moved her out of the way, but she ruled me.

She set her head on my chest. “We need to talk, Teo.” She looked at all the men in the office. “Can you give us a minute?”

Saverio and papà walked the doctor out, the door shutting quietly behind them.

I grabbed Stella’s arms, not to hurt her, but to let her know I wanted answers. She looked up at me with stormy eyes that seemed to reflect whatever was going on inside of her.

“I’m sorry.” She took a step back from me and shook her head. She looked to the left, where Canavero had a library of leather-bound medical journals. “I should have told you sooner, but I just wanted more time to…be together. To figure out the next steps in my own head.”

Her words were like fists that a storm could have created, pushing me back, not hard enough to land me on my ass on the floor, but hard enough to land me in one of the doctor’s chairs in front of his desk.

“Stella,” I whispered.

Her eyes flew to mine. “I’m okay, right now. Better than okay. But Dr. Canavero recommends that I have a hysterectomy. It would be in my best interest to, for the future.”

“Now.”

“The sooner the better.”

“Today,” I said. “We go to the hospital today.” That was what I meant when I said now.

She shook her head. “Not now.”

I stood. “Now.”

“No!” she snapped at me, then closed her eyes and sighed. “No. I’m not going today or tomorrow, or even next week.”

“Tell me,” I snapped.

“I’m pregnant, Matteo.” Her eyes opened and looked directly into mine, almost defiantly, and her chin stuck up. “We discussed having a baby, and with Graziana and the boys, well, I couldn’t wait to start trying. So I stopped taking my pills. This was before I knew that what mama has can be hereditary. I found out about the baby when the doctors ran the tests. I wanted to tell you, a million times, I did, but it seems like with our good news comes bad too. Or vice versa. I didn’t want you to worry.”

Five words.

That was all I could find.

“You fucking lied to me.”

She looked me in the eyes when she said, “I did and I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have what your mama has now.”

“No.”

“But the doctor thinks you will.”

“He’s certain that if I don’t have the procedure, I will. I have all the markers for it.”

“You fucking lied to me.”

I saw a flash of fear in her eyes, probably at the mechanical way I kept repeating those five words.

“Matteo!” she screamed, but it was more of a pleading sound, a pleading sound that was trying to penetrate the fear-fueled fury building in my chest. “I just told you I did—and I apologized for it. I didn’t want you to worry, and I didn’t want you to—” she took a deep breath and slowly released it “—not love our baby because of it. I didn’t want you to blame my pregnancy for anything that might happen in the future.”

“Will happen in the future.”

“Yeah, if…I don’t take the doctor’s advice and get the procedure done.”

“The future is fucking tomorrow.”

“That’s a chance I’m willing to take. I love this baby so much already. And what will happen if we don’t have kids, Matteo? You’ll lose your place in the family. That’s not happening.”

The family.

My fucking family.

“Fuck my family!” I roared, turning the heavy wooden desk over. “You are my family! My wife. My life.” I pounded my chest.

“Matteo!”

I couldn’t hear anything else after. The pounding in my heart was too violent. The whooshing in my ears too loud. It needed a place to go, to escape, and the last thing I remembered was taking the two chairs and throwing them out the window, shattering glass and every bit of peace in my soul.