4. The Phone Call

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~PAIGE MATHEWSON RUSSO~

It's not a sex thing. He really does not take his shirt off. 

It has been a week since our wedding and I am yet to see my own husband's bare torso. 

We are at Miller's pool. While Miller's wife, Gianna, and I are by the bar sipping on margaritas, Dante and Miller are teaching Miller's three-year-old to swim. 

"Dante just adores Sam." Gianna takes my hand. I want to swat her hand away but living with Dante Russo for a week has fairly accustomed me to annoying human beings. I am sure if my Dadda and Momma finds out, they would have wanted to marry me off to him sooner.  "Someday he will make a great father." 

I give her a smile. Kids are the last thing on my mind. I have an empire to build. It's not that I don't want children. Just like most women, I would like to have annoying miniatures of me -  hopefully only me because I would die if I have more of Dante . Yes, that's what it has come to in seven days of marriage - running around my property, vandalizing everything and talking back to me. But now was not the time. I needed to build them a world before I brought them into it. 

Coming back to the main topic in my head, my husband is wearing a spandex swimming suit after trying to make me pack the most inappropriate swimsuit he could find for me. I had to remind him that even though we are in our honeymoon phase, we are coming down to the vacation villa of a couple with a child. 

My husband may be inappropriate but he still loves his godchild enough to see sense.

"Who is Sam's godmother?" The question is random. Ever since they invited us over three days ago, Dante has been eating my ear off about his godson. It only makes sense for Sam to have a godmother as well.

"Oh just a cousin of mine."

I know trouble when I hear one and from the way she just wants to blow raspberries and brush it off, I immediately know that this godmother is more than just a cousin.

My eyes fall on my husband and the ease with which he smiles. I always feel like when he is with me, he needs to put in effort to smile.

True to my thoughts, he turns and his bright smile falters for a moment before it perks back up to a faker one.

I know you are a liar, Dante Russo. I know you are faking it. And I have known you for exactly ten days now. Then why does my heart crack every time I see that forced smile?

"We should not have dragged the newly wedded couple here." Gianna notes teasingly. 

I smile, taking my eyes away from Dante and towards her. "I am grateful that you did. I was starting to get convinced that even the contraceptives wouldn't be able to stop me from getting pregnant at this point." 

Gianna lets out a laugh, snorting in between. And Miller looks over. 

You know that look that you see in the movies when the male lead watches the female lead while she is not looking? He is giving her that look. It's the same look that my Granna used to give my Granny and the same look my Dadda still gives my Momma. It is also the look that Dante never gives me. 

I know the girl never sees it when the guy does it but come on, I am Paige Mathewson - Russo, his voice echoes in my head - and I see everything. 

So I sip on my margarita, scolding myself for being so desperate to gain affection from a man I barely know. 

Sure, we are married but that does not change the fact that we are total strangers. 

But the thing, he lets me be. He does not get offended by what I say or do. He takes it like a champ. And I have a knack for offending people but not once in these ten days has he reacted to anything that I said. 

That's phenomenal. I think it is good enough reason to develop a crush on him. 

THAT, and the fact that we have so much sex. Too much sex. 

A girl's heart is in her vagina. Oxytocin is produced during sex. So obviously, with the amount of sex that we are having, it is only natural for me to feel something for my enigmatic husband. My husband whose family did not turn up for his wedding. A husband who does have a family in Italy, that much he told me. 

"Earth to my moglie!" Dante presses his lips to my temple as he takes a barstool next to me. 

"I know right. So deep in thought that I did not want to disturb her." Gianna smiles.

I shrug. 

"I am one with the clouds." 

Dante kisses the nape of my neck. "I can't wait for you to be one with me again."

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"It's a great day to stay in." Dante says as he looks out the floor-to-ceiling glass window of our penthouse bedroom.

"It certainly is." I sigh. "Too bad I need to go meet a client for lunch."

I am typing away on my laptop. It's a busy day for me today.

"Stay in today." He smiles sweetly at me.

"Are you sure?" I stop typing and look up at him, mirroring his smile.

"Yes."

"Even though I am bleeding through my vagina?"

"No." He turns back around to look back at the city.

I feel a stupid pang of hurt.

Why?

Because I am dumb, that's why.

The basis and the only element in our marriage is sex. There's no getting to know each other. There's no getting involved in each others' life.

I have no friends and except Miller, I don't really know any of his friends. Forget that, I haven't met his parents yet.

"I could blow you off." I offer even though I know the answer.

No need.

"No need."

Why do I try? Why do I care?

"There's a movie out."

I have other plans.

"I have other plans."

That's two months of marriage to you. Time sure flies.

And loneliness really sucks.

Even though I was alone before my marriage, I had never felt lonely in my life. I did my deeds, I annoyed my parents. Life was good.

Now I have a husband, mind-blowing sex, and a penthouse apartment along with all the other things I used to have but I feel lonely.

Why?

Because my stupid heart is butthurt that Dante does not look at me the way it wants him to.

I am still trying to figure out what Dante wants from me, why did he marry me? What is his end goal? But till now, I have gotten nothing at all.

"You know what?" I sit up.

Dante turns to look at me, raising a brow.

"I am going to go make some friends."

He bursts out laughing.

I pause in my resolution and give him a flat look. "What?"

"Honey, no one can tolerate someone like you."

Someone like you.

"Huh. Too bad you were forced to marry me."

"That's not what I meant." He takes a step forward but I get up all too quickly, grabbing my laptop as I walk away to my room.

Yes.

I have my own room. That's not a good sign in two months of marriage, is it?

I know that I am someone who needs space so this should have been my idea. But no, it's not. This has been Dante's idea which makes me think harder as to what on earth is going on.

As I settle down onto my bed, my phone rings next to me. My Momma's smiling face greets me and I am hit with a wave of homesickness.

Hundred bucks Dante won't even know I am gone if I went home today.

"Mother dearest..." I sing as soon as I pick up the call.

"Will you come over for dinner?" She asks. "You and Dante."

"Dante has a business dinner." I say. "I took a rain check because I am on my chums."

"Why do you make excuses for everything?"

Why do I make excuses for my husband not inviting me to his business dinners and get-togethers?

Ugh, I can't believe I have to see this day.

I feel like such a loser.

"Mother, I hate people. And I don't particularly like your son-in-law either."

"Paige." There is warning in her tone.

How I had missed my name!

To the employees at the penthouse, I am Mrs. Russo. At work, I am Ms. Mathewson. I work in a separate building than my Dadda so he is not there always to annoy me with his 'Pea'. Momma calls weekly at most and Dante calls me 'mia moglie' . I need to make friends just so that someone can call me Paige. I did not think that there will be a day when I am this desperate. What do I even do with all this?

"Momma, I will be home tonight. I miss my bed." As if I don't have my own bed here.

"But Dante-"

"Is not a toddler. He will live."

I would have gone even if I had a toddler because it was getting kind of suffocating to live in this penthouse.

"Okay my princess, I will make you all your favorite food."

"Thanks Momma."

I hang up and do my work for about ten minutes, fighting with my heart and finally losing.

I decide that I do need to go and tell Dante that I won't be home tonight. See if he cares.

I push the bedroom door slightly to find him on the phone, talking rapidly in Italian.

"Yes, I will be there. My love, don't you believe in me? Yes, we will go see that movie. Yes."

I take two steps back.

Okay. This just got interesting.

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So I have this thing that I do when I feel like my heart is being ripped apart. Well, I think a lot of people do this thing.

I blast music at the loudest volume possible and scream with it.

And my go to artist? Again cliche. She is everyone's go to artist.

Her royal amazingness, Queen Taylor Alison Swift.

As Say Don't Go blast from my stereo, I am aware of two things - my non-stoppable tears and the banging on the locked bedroom door.

"Moglie, turn it down!" I hear him yell.

I wonder if he even remembers my name. Or does he call her moglie too and does not want to mix it up and ruin everything?

But why marry me in the first place? It's not like he has anything to gain by marrying me.

I am awesome. I get that. But there has to be something more than that right?

As Taylor screams 'bleeding bleeding', I stop in my tracks. I am NOT bleeding. It was a lie I said because I wanted to see how he would behave. And he had behaved just as I had expected him to.

This was it, wasn't it?

He only needed me for sex.

Again, he could do that with anyone. As I have maintained time and again, my husband whom I wasn't sure was just mine anymore, was a work of art.

Why me?

Why just sex?

Why the hell am I not bleeding when I should have been bleeding since two days ago? And never in my life has I ever been late?

I close my eyes.

Dante is never interested in anything I do, but he insisted on getting the refill of the oral contraceptives himself. I had thought that he wanted to make sure that I got the medication because he did not want children with me.

Am I an incubator?

I turn off the music and the banging abruptly stops.

"Mia moglie?" The words are like insects crawling on my skin.

"I just wanted a main character moment!" I yell.

And he disappears just like that.

Do we care, heart?

Of course, we do.

I hate my heart.

I want to find out who this other woman is. Or if I am the other woman. But do I care? I do not. The problem is Dante Russo and he is the one I need to deal with. But before that, I need to make sure if my doubts are true or not.

I go about getting ready for my client meeting and I do not tell Dante when I leave, not that I ever do or he ever cares.

But instead of going to the meeting, I have my assistant postpone it to another day. I hurry to a pharmacy to get all the different types of urine and blood pregnancy tests that I can find and then commute to my home.

"What are you doing here now?" Momma is surprised to see when she opens the front door.

"I have the worst cramps in history so I came here because I wish to be pampered." I am fluent in lying so deceiving my mother is no problem.

I give her a list of things I want for lunch, effectively busying her while I do my business and quickly climb the stairs to my bedroom.

Maybe all the loneliness and blahness of the last two months fucked my cycle or maybe it's just a side effect of the pills but I need to be sure.

I take a deep breath. I am an idiot. I have the pills in my bags because I had initially planned to ask the pharmacist what those pills actually were but I was in such a rush and my brain was so pre-occupied that I had forgotten.

I should go ask about it later.

I place the six different pregnancy tests on the table, two blood tests and four urine tests. I am not very thrilled about doing the blood tests. But those will be more accurate. Even so, I have the rest of the tests just to be safe.

I draw my blood and add the drops to the blood test and leave it there. I take the urine tests and make my way to the bathroom and I do those two.

As I wait for the results, I feel my head spin. All of this stress is going to be the death of me.

I have a cheating husband. What I don't need is a fraud of a husband who is making me a human incubator because his woman cannot have a child!

I don't know where I came to that conclusion from but that's all that I have and I am going to run with that theory.

The timer on my phone goes off and I feel my stomach drop. I am going to puke.

NOT BECAUSE I AM PREGNANT!

I take tentative steps towards the table where all my tests sit lined up.

I close my eyes with my hands, moving a finger to peak.

I finally see the results. All of them.

I am going to puke.

Probably because I am pregnant.

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