Page 203 of Cara & Gian: The Guzzi Duet

“But you liked her?”

“Well enough,” Gian answered, choosing his words carefully. “I liked what she gave me, the pieces of her on the surface, because she never went beyond that. I liked how she was attentive to me, only. Especially when we were together, other people didn’t exist to her. She doted on the stupid male side of a man’s brain that feeds off being the man, you know what I mean?”

Cara shrugged, but said nothing.

“Elena works best when she controls a situation, no matter what that situation might entail. And she does that with men, specifically, because she knows she is beautiful, and she knows that using her sexuality and her sweetness is disarming to men who aren’t looking for her manipulations. They are unprepared for the attack, for the gut-punch or the knife in their back when they turn away. She makes you trust her, because why would she want to hurt you, this person she so clearly adores? And then she strikes.”

“Huh,” Cara said quietly, frowning.

“I know, I jumped ahead a bit in explaining that. It’ll make sense in a second.”

“Go for it.”

Gian took a deep breath, and another bite of ice cream, letting the chocolate and peanut-butter flavors wash over his palate before he spoke again. “We had been doing our thing for a few months or so, when she came up pregnant.”

Cara stiffened.

Gian didn’t miss it.

“Or so she said,” he added, knowing it wouldn’t make a difference. The words were out there, and they hurt to know. “I had no reason not to believe her, or to think, if she was pregnant, the child might not be mine. Things moved very fast from that point—her father was suddenly involved, and all the things people heard or whispered about that man were right in front of my eyes and very true. He’s dangerous and he’s volatile. He’s manipulative and evil. But aren’t we all, in some way?”

Gian shook his head, adding, “Elena wanted to get away from him, and that much was clear. I understood why, too, because he used her and he abused her. He was angry that she had been seeing someone behind his back; he’s so abnormally close to her, and controlling of her. At least back then. And when she refused to abort the pregnancy, he nearly beat her to death, and then had her sent to me.”

He dropped the spoon to the table with a clatter. “I saw a different Elena then, Cara. One that was scared and small, a victim of a man she just wanted to get away from. And to this day, no matter what that woman has done to me or what she might do in the future, I still see the Elena from that day. Bruised, and swollen, with a bloody, busted mouth, and dried blood matting her hair. I see her, and I never have to think why? I think, why not? Why not hurt, use, and manipulate to be free, to be happy? Why not use all the things your father taught you to do, in order to protect and advance him, to protect and advance yourself? It doesn’t give her a pass, sure, but it certainly makes more sense, in a way.”

Cara cleared her throat. “She was lucky she didn’t lose the baby, then.”

Gian chuckled darkly. “There was no baby to lose, Cara, but I’ll get there. Corrado pressured me to do the right thing, with Elena, but also where our family was concerned. He didn’t want to face a war with Gabriel on the streets, and he knew how dangerous the man could be. So, a marriage it was.”

“And that obviously happened.”

“Quite fast, within a couple of months of announcing the engagement.” Gian took Cara’s spoon from her, scooped some ice cream, and fed her the bite, waiting for her to finish before he continued. “Leading up to the wedding, we had to deal with the usual family things. Which put Elena front row and center for her father. His way of hurting her emotionally when he couldn’t hurt her physically, was to shame and embarrass her in front of me, or others. Does he know, her father would say, how you sucked the cock of the mayor’s son to pay off my debt? Things like that.”

Cara let out a shaky exhale, and looked away. “That’s terrible.”

“It reinforced my belief that I was doing the right thing, though I didn’t love her, and I knew what a marriage with someone meant in my world. It is for life, there is no out, except for death. But I thought, I was doing the right thing.”

“And then?”

“And then a week after we married, I caught Elena drinking wine. From the moment we walked out of the church on our wedding day, something changed with her. She no longer focused on me like she had once done—all that attention, the doting and the adoration, was gone. She didn’t need to pretend, you see. Not once she had gotten what she needed from me. I was pissed about the wine, because of the baby.”

“But there was no baby, you said?”

Gian nodded once. “She tried to say she had miscarried. We weren’t even having sex; we hadn’t fucked since the night we married, so how could I say for sure that she was or wasn’t losing the baby?”

“Was she?”

“No, there was no baby. I had her records at her doctor yanked, though it wasn’t my right to, and found there was no pregnancy, at least not within the months she had been with me. Six months before we had met, there had been an abortion on file. One of several over the years. She was actually on the depo shot, and had been since the last abortion, so a pregnancy was highly unlikely to begin with.”

“Oh, Gian.”

“Don’t do the pity thing,” Gian said, shooting Cara a lopsided grin. “Not for me. I overlooked a lot of things because I didn’t want to question a woman that was clearly in need of help. I was too busy feeding a hero complex and trying to do what everyone else wanted me to. By the time I realized how incredibly fucked I was, and how much Elena had manipulated me, it was too late.”

“You were married.”

Gian’s smile faded. “For life.”

“But—”