Page 13 of Anti-Heroes in Love Duet
Though the article was a condemnation of his criminal character, there was no doubt he had succeeded in swaying public opinion at least slightly in his favor.
The reporter, a man whose work I’d read since my arrival on American shores and who I knew to be a hard-nosed, rarely forgiving journalist, even allowed that Dante Salvatore, though built like a savage beast, still retained some of the grace his rearing as a Lord’s second son had born in him.
I rolled my eyes as I tossed the paper onto the chair beside me, then pinched my nose to briefly relieve the headache stirring behind my eyes.
It had been a long day with the indictment, but we’d achieved what we set out to do.
Judge Hartford agreed to post bail.
To the outstanding tune of ten million dollars.
Cash.
For a New York mafioso, such a number shouldn’t be a hardship. Dante was under investigation, which meant he had to be able to prove his bail money came from a legitimate business, but Yara had informed me that Dante had more than enough cash from his lawful businesses to post bail immediately.
In addition, he was going to be housebound, shackled to his apartment by a high-tech anklet that tracked his every move.
It was impossible not to think of him as a wild animal locked in a cage, prowling madly, growing restless as each day passed, his savagery ballooning to fill every inch of that cramped space.
In all likelihood, it was a mega-mansion, but Dante was a man with endless testosterone. I had no doubt he would turn into his basest self before too long when confined as he would be between four walls.
I wasnotrelishing my interactions with him.
Almost as much as I was not looking forward to my appointment with Dr. Taylor.
“Elena?” the doctor herself said kindly as she opened the door to the luxurious appointment room where I sat in a thin cashmere hospital gown on the exam table. “How are we today?”
“Anxious,” I admitted, though nothing in my straight posture or carefully clasped hands denoted the riot of nerves ricocheting in my belly. “I feel as though I’ve been waiting forever to know what’s wrong with me.”
Dr. Taylor’s severe face, Slavic and big-boned, gentled into a genuine smile as she sat on her wheelie stool and opened my medical file. “That’s very normal, I assure you. So let me get right to it then. I have good news. What you have is a combination of various abnormalities that have made fertility and orgasm achievement difficult for you. A decade ago, we wouldn’t have even noticed these collections of issues, let alone known how to treat them. In this day and age, though, with our advanced technology and surgical practices, I believe we can fix your primary anorgasmia and greatly improve your chances of conceiving a child one day.”
I blinked as my chest compressed painfully, and heat pricked the backs of my eyes. My breath wouldn’t move through my body, my lips wouldn’t form the words I wanted to say, probably because, in my shocked relief, I didn’t even know which ones to speak.
Thank God.
I can’t believe it.
Are you sure? Please, don’t let this be another cruel joke.
I can befixed?
Instead, I sat there mutely, convulsively swallowing past the lump in my throat as I stared down at my clasped hands.
It was silly, really, that I should feel so emotional over potentially gaining the ability to orgasm after a lifetime of sex without true pleasure. Lord knew, sex wasn’t everything. It was hardly and probably understandably, given my affliction and history, a blip on my radar.
But it represented so much more.
Living as a woman who couldn’t orgasm with significant fertility issues in part because of an ectopic pregnancy five years ago was psychologically crippling.
Even though I’d eschewed my Italian culture for years, it was still pervasive enough to leave a lingering sense of shame that I couldn’t fulfill the Italian ideal of a woman: get married, give birth to an endless stream of children to satisfy the pope or the mafia, whichever religion my people subscribed to, and raise them in that faith.
Then there was the simple and crushing fact that my fiancé had left me for another woman after having a kinky, fucked-up affair with her for weeks behind my back. This was made even more excruciating by the fact that they’d recently brought a baby into the world.
A little girl.
I’d overheard Cosima talking on the phone to Giselle one morning, and apparently, little Genevieve even had Daniel’s beautiful blue eyes.
Pain lanced through me every time I thought about Daniel’s new family, spearing straight into my spine so that I felt I might break clean in two.
