Page 15 of Ti Amo

“Don’t you ever put your hands on me in anger again!” she hissed.

“What type of woman lets the man she claimed she loved think she is dead and steals his child from him? We have a name for you, your kind. Shall I say it?”

“Don’t you dare, if you do I won’t let you take it back!”

Giovanni paced before her, his chest tight with grief, but mostly jealousy. She was his and that gave him comfort over the years. Looking at her now he had to wonder if it was all a lie. All of it.

“You coward!” she said.

“Che cazzo dici?” Giovanni advanced on her. “Coward? Is that what you think I am?”

“Yes. Coward. It takes a coward to order a man’s death. That’s what you said out there. Kill him is what you said.”

Giovanni stood perfectly still. Mira glared at him while her bold words continued to filet his soul. “All you can think about is you! You said you would protect me. You said you were harmless. Loving you cost me my best friend. Loving you cost me my sanity! I didn’t have to steal anything from you. You walked away and left me alone to fend for myself!” she raised her voice. “That man out there kept me from suffering the same fate that Fabiana did and I won’t let you hurt him, because of your fucking ego!”

The accusation wounded him deeply. He would have cut out his heart to save her one minute's pain. When he opened his mouth to say so nothing escaped him.

Mira trembled before him on the verge of tears, and he could barely look at her. He didn’t want to hurt her, but part of him needed to discipline her. She was his woman, even if she didn’t think so. If she shed one tear for him, it would make up for the thousands of tears he’d shed in his dark lonely world without her.

“Flavio acted outside of my orders. He was not supposed to put you on that plane. I had no idea he would send you back to America.”

Mira waved her hands angrily in his face to stop him from speaking. “I can’t rehash all of this, I don’t want to.”

“Too late. I will be heard, forgiven. Accuse me of anything but not abandoning you!”

She looked up at him with stretched weepy eyes. “Fabiana is dead, Giovanni! Dead. I begged you not to leave me. I have never cried as many tears in my life the night I lost you both. You waited until I was asleep and left me with… him. Angelique, my assistant, died. She died because of me. So much death surrounds you, what the hell do you think I was supposed to do? Come to you pregnant with mafia men hunting me? Are you kidding? Flavio didn’t cause all of this havoc in my life. You did! You lied to me about closing my store. You manipulated me to move my things into your home. You didn’t trust me enough with your feelings to warn me that we were in danger. What happened is your fault. What you are is what scared me into running.”

He took a step toward her. “What I am is the father of your child, the man that loved you. And you will respect me Bella or so help me God I’ll end him in front of you!” he said his face flushed with embarrassment and anger.

“You’re my nightmare,” she said shaking her head sadly.

“At least I’m still in your dreams.” He reached for her.

Mira moved away from his touch. “Let him live, Giovanni. He helped me when no one did. You and I owe him our daughter’s life. Do you understand that?”

He reached for her again and she allowed his touch. Refusing him wasn’t really an option. He touched her face and she turned her head, closing her eyes. His lips brushed her tears and his hand went to her hip. “I want to talk about us. I left messages in America, I tried to reach you,” he said softly. “Why didn’t you call me? I would have come for you.”

“I didn’t know you tried to reach me.”

“How could you not know?”

Mira hesitated. Kei handled all incoming calls for her.Did he know? Did he keep it from her?She shook off the distraction. “Kei was there when I needed him. I don’t know how I would have made it without him.”

“Why the fuck do you keep speaking his fucking name to me?Che palle!Are you in love with him? Are you fucking him?” he shouted in her face.

Hurt she blinked and stepped back. “Let’s not talk about us, because anything I say you twist it!” She tried to walk around him.

Giovanni grabbed her arms. “You had the power to do this differently. I had none. No matter what you believed, in your heart you had to know I would never toss you out into the streets like trash. I thought you loved me, yet you betray me!”

“I had no choice. You gave me no choice!” She broke free of his hold.

“I’ll give you a choice today. Say goodbye to your lover. Packmydaughter’s things and leave with me or send me out the door and I can’t promise you anything.”

“So you’re threatening him?”

“Oh Bella, you missed understoodcara. I’m threatening you both,” Giovanni said.

Mira couldn’t believe it. “Who the hell are you now?”

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