The Italian Adonis

Regret At First Sight

The anxiety had rolled in like a commuter train entering the station, nothing could stop the route the train was headed. “Could this really be happening right now?” Camden thought to herself. She had been terrified about telling Nikolai about their son. What if he hadn’t wanted children, especially if it was with her? Nikolai stopped in front of the woman he once called his wife and the small boy. He gave his infamous blank stare, then surprised his in laws when he bent down towards the child to be at his level.

  “Piccolo, what’s the matter?”

  The boy sniffled and hid his face in his mother’s dress. Then he peaked his little swollen face from the leg. He wiped his eyes as he looked at the man in front of him. In Italian he responded.

  “The older boys were mean to me. Said where my daddy was, I told em tha I don’t have a daddy. Said it my fault that daddy not here...”

  Camden gasped and bent t his level as well.

  “Baby, that is not true, it is not your fault that you have no daddy.”

  She looked towards Nikolai who had a surprised face on. He didn’t know the little boy spoke Italian. He didn’t expect Camden to have taught him that language. Nikolai looked at the child and stroked his round cheeks. He could see the resemblance he had with Camden, but he also saw the resemblance in himself. Was this child his? Had Camden left with his child? Had that been the news she had been wanting to tell him the day he had asked for a divorce? If that had been the case, he really messed up.

  “Camden...”

  He lifted his hand to stroke her cheek, but she moved away. She stood up with the child in her arms. The boy snuggled into his mother’s arms and sniffled a little more.

  “Nikolai, this is Michelangelo. He is 1 and a half years old. He is not quite 2 yet.”

  Nikolai stood up as he saw the woman, he wanted to live the rest of his life with walk away with what could be their salvation. Stanley heard the car pull up the gravel driveway, he had gone to the door, so Mr. Gabrielli didn’t have to open it.

  “Welcome home Mr. Gabrielli, how  was your evening? Well I take it?”

  But by the look he had seen on the master’s face, he knew something was wrong.

  “Stanley, you were the last one to see Ms. Beverly were you not? Tell me, did she tell you she had an affair and had produced a child?!”

  Stanley was furious with his master.

  “Mr. Gabrielli, if I could be frank with you. You are a complete buffoon if you think she had had an affair. She had been the most loyal woman, she stayed by your side and loved you unconditionally, but you had gone and ruined it. I am ashamed of you Master. You really think that she had a child with someone else when she had been madly in love with you?”

  Stanley grumbled under his breathe as he turned away from his master.

  “Stanley? Is the boy mine?”

  Stanley stopped before he exited the front lobby.

  “What do you think Nikolai?”

  Then Stanley walked out of his view. What did he think? He sighed and ran up the steps to his office where he grabbed a glass of his cognac. He sat in his chair and drank the brown liquid. He started to reflect on how his life had gone. Where had he gone wrong?

Two Years Before

  He entered the restaurant he had agreed to meet his mother for lunch. As he entered, he saw his mother sitting down sipping on her wine. She saw her son and smiled. She stood up and opened her arms for him.

  “My bambino! How have you been? Please sit, sit, I ordered you the lobster that you loved so much the last time you were here.”

  Nikolai sighed, his mother had always babied him. She even babied him after had been married. He helped her to her seat, then he unbuttoned his suit jacket and sat down in the seat in front of his mother. He called the waiter over and asked for whiskey on the rocks. Then he told the waiter that he will not be eating the lobster, he would like the stuffed eggplant meal. His mother frowned at what her son did. His mother thought that his wife had been changing him for the worse in her standards. She smirked and knew that she had to do something about it. She didn’t like how her son had been changing. Her plan will work she thought. It must work.

  “Niko, my love, I had asked to have this impromptu lunch date with you to tell you some horrible news.”

Present Day

  Had he been lied to? If he had, then who was lying to him? His wife or his butler? Could it even be his mother that had lied to him? Has his mother been blinding him from the truth? He took a sip of his drink as he looked at the evidence his mother had sent him. He had to get to the bottom of this. Camden had finished tucking Michelangelo into his bed. He had asked her to read him to sleep. So she grabbed a book off his book shelf. As she read to him, he looked at the picture of the little boy and his father.

  “Mommy, where is daddy?”

  Camden sighed. She knew that this would happen sooner or later. She preferred it have happened the latter. She put the book down and kissed his little head.

  “Mickey, your daddy, he is not with us.”

  Mickey nodded his head.

  “I know, but why he not?”

  Camden didn’t know what to say. She never expected to have this conversation with her one-and-a-half-year-old.

  “Daddy had to go away. He has a lot of work that keeps him away from us. But one day he will come back and be with you as long as you want him to be.”

  He smiled a toothy grin.

  “Otay mommy, I wuve you.”

  She smiled at her little one and gave him a good night kiss. She turned off his light and turned his night light on. She closed the door and sighed. She walked down the stairs to the main floor of the loft. She continued to live in the loft that Nikolai had left for her. She found out a few months after the divorce that he had been leaving a monthly allowance for her in their shared bank account. She found out when she went to close the account. The teller had said that someone had been leaving the same amount of money in the account every month. She had been confused, she hadn’t touched that account since before the divorce. She had asked the teller and they had told her that her ex husband had been depositing the money in there. But besides the deposits, there had been no activity in that account. She decided not to use that money, it had stayed in that account ‘til this day. Even though they had divorced, he cared for her. She didn’t want any of his money, he had been the one that had asked for the divorce out of nowhere. She didn’t need his help, raising her son on her own had been a struggle but her mother, father and her brother had been there for her through it all.

  She had been sitting in her office when the phone rang. She saw that it had been the door man. She sighed and picked the phone up.

  “Good evening Ms. Beverly. I am sorry to disturb you this late in the evening. But there is a man here asking to speak with you. Would you like me to send him up or should I send him away?”

  She looked at the clock by the phone and her eyes bulged out. Who had the audacity to show up at her place this late at night. It is 9:30 at night. She signed.

  “Can you ask him what is his name? I don’t want someone I don’t know coming up to my home this late at night. Especially if it is only my son and I.”

  The doorman agreed and asked the visitor his name.

  “He said his name is Stanley. He also said you would know who he is.”

  She smiled and immediately let him come up to the loft. She waited for her butler to ring the doorbell. Once he did, she let him in.

  “Stanley! What a surprise! What brings you here so late in the evening? I put Michelangelo to sleep only now. It will have to be another day to meet him.”

  He smiled at his mistress. He had always loved her as if she were his child. He had wanted to help her with raising her child, but she would not have it. She had told him that she would be okay. From what he had seen, she had successfully done it. But the reason that had brought him to her this late at night had been Nikolai. Nikolai had asked him to stop by her loft to see how she had been doing. Really Nikolai wanted to know why she hadn’t used the money in the joint account they had shared. Stanley sighed.

  “Mrs. Gabrielli, truthfully the reason I am here is not for anything social. I came because Master Nikolai had sent me. Truthfully, I hadn’t wanted to come but he made me. He asked me to come to ask why you had not used the joint account.”

  Camden sighed. It was funny how life worked. She thought about this precisely at that moment and Stanley shows up inquiring about the exact same thing.

  “It’s funny, I had been thinking about it right now. I hadn’t used it because I had no use of his money. He had divorced me with no explanation what so ever and he wanted me to use his money? I didn’t touch it because it is not my money to use. If he had wanted me to use it, he shouldn’t have asked for a divorce. I do not for the life of me know why he had divorced me Stanley. I had done nothing but love him unconditionally. I never once betrayed him in any way, he betrayed me by divorcing me and immediately fall into the hands of another woman. I saw the tabloids and the magazines.”

  Stanley sighed, he hated how their relationship had been ruined but untimely circumstances. He had no right to say what he was about to say it but the love he has for his masters, he needed to say it.

  “Mrs. Gabrielli, what I am about to tell you, you did not hear it from me. But I have eyes and ears all over that mansion as you know. A few months before you and Master Nikolai had filed for divorce, Master Nikolai’s mother had been to the house. The night you had spilled the pasta sauce all over yourself because she had tripped you. Well that night, I had been dusting the vases in the guest hallway, I overheard his mother speaking to someone on the phone. I couldn’t know who, but I heard the whole conversation. She had told that person, ‘Did you do what I had asked you to? Nikolai is slowly believing me but to seal the deal, I need concrete proof that Camden is being unfaithful.’ She had gone on to say that her plan had been working. I never really liked Natalia, she always rubbed me the wrong way. I didn’t say this to Master Nikolai. I know if I had said it then it would make me look bad. I only spoke up because I thought you should know.

  “I do not like seeing the two of you separated. You two were so in love with each other. The mansion staff have all agreed that they miss hearing you two chasing each other around the house. We miss hearing the laughter that could be heard all over the mansion. It brought joy to our lives. Now, all we hear is silence and sometimes we hear him crying in his study. He usually comes home late from the office, and his clothes smell like he had been drinking. I am not begging you to talk to Mr. Nikolai or to take him back. I am simply telling you how he is.”

  Camden was shocked to say the least. She never liked her mother-in-law, but she was not surprised that she had something to do with what happened between her and Nikolai. What surprised her even more was how Nikolai had been doing without her. He had been drinking, he hadn’t been much of a drinker while they had been together. He would have his glass of cognac whenever he had a stressful day in the office, but other than that he never drank. He had always been able to manage his drinking. Had him filing for divorce affect him that much? She sighed, she felt bad. He had been and still is the love of her life. She tried the dating scene after Michelangelo had been born, but no one wanted to date her because she had been Nikolai’s wife and that she had a child with her.

  “Would it be alright if I called sometime tomorrow to speak with him? Or to come by the mansion? Is he still staying home on Sunday’s or did he change his routine while I have been gone?”

  Stanley smiled.

  “He is home on Sunday’s ma’am. He normally doesn’t have visitors anymore, except for his father and his new girlfriend.”

  She had been shocked.

  “Gregori and Natalia split up? When was this?”

  Stanley smirked.

  “They had separated about a year prior to your divorce. Gregori saw how Natalia had been changing and didn’t like it. He had filed for divorce when he found of her plans for Nikolai. Natalia had gotten worse after they divorce. I am not sure why she is the way she is, but please stay away from her. She is an evil woman and she is out to get you Camden.”

  Camden nodded. She bid Stanley farewell and called it a night. She walked up the stairs and went to her room which had been across from Michelangelo’s. She sighed as she got into bed after changing into her pajamas. She grabbed her phone and decided to make a call to someone she hadn’t spoken to in a while. The phone rang and then a woman had answered.

  “Gabrielli Residence how can I help you?”

  She smiled as she recognized the voice she loved so much.

  “Clara! Como estas? It has been so long. It is me Camden.”

  There was a gasp.

  “Señorita Camden, oh darling it is so good hear your voice. I am well child. How are you? I haven’t seen you around the mansion in a while.”

  Camden gave a small smile even though the woman could not see her.

  “It has been a while, you know I was not welcome in that house.”

  Clara nodded.

  “Yes, that is true. Now what is it you needed?”

  She smiled again.

  “If it were not too late, could I possible speak with Gregori? Is he still awake?”  

  She heard Clara cover the phone and spoke someone that was with her.

  “Yes, you may speak with him. He will be taking the call in his study. He was about to head to bed when you called. It was lovely speaking with you Señorita Camden.”

  She bid her goodbye and waited for Gregori to answer the phone. Gregori had heard the phone ring, he didn’t know who would call so late. But when Clara had said Camden’s name, he immediately had to take the call.

  “Camden, my girl, how we have missed you!”

  Camden smiled.

  “I missed you too Gregori. How is Natalia doing?”

  She knew they had divorced but didn’t want to seem that she had been keeping tabs on her in-laws.

  “Oh, you mustn’t have heard then? Natalia and I divorced, she had been doing vile things that I could not stand to be with her any longer. I have met someone new, I hope for you to meet her some day soon.”

  Camden smiled.

  “That is why I called. Sorry for calling so late but I wanted to meet you tomorrow. Maybe at Nikolai’s mansion? I heard he isn’t doing too well. I wanted to speak with the both of you about something. I also have to introduce to you to your grandson.”

  Gregori paused. Grandson? Camden had a child? 

  “Grandson? Oh, I must meet him, yes come tomorrow. Then you can meet my new girlfriend. I will see you tomorrow around dinner correct?”

  Camden smiled and agreed to meet for dinner. Tomorrow will be a long day.