His Hidden Love

4. Chapter Four - Faded

4

Chapter Four - Faded

Helsinki, Finland

India cranked up the heat in the small apartment Lazlo rented for her in the Finnish capital and curled up on the couch to watch the falling snow outside. Everything was covered white in this beautiful city, and it gave India some comfort. Surely, nothing bad could happen in a place like this, right?

Lazlo had this apartment rented for her before she even boarded the plane in Venice; she admired his tenacious, efficient manner. They grew up together, overlooking their fourteen-year age difference, both living with their single mothers in a commune in Canada, living in Maupin’s world in San Francisco, and finally settling in a New York apartment with no hot water and only a mattress on the floor. But they were happy. Lazlo’s fiery mom, Hanna, was a radical feminist. She and India’s mother, the flighty, dreamer Priya, were polar opposites but the best of friends. Even when Lazlo’s father had another son, Gabriel, with another woman, and the child was dumped on Hanna to raise, they were a joyous, thoughtful, creative group of nomads, working odd jobs and helping their communities as they had very little themselves.

When Lazlo, Gabe, and India had grown and started earning an income, Hanna refused their help. “I’m happy, my darlings,” she would tell them. After India’s mom died, Hanna treated India as her own, raising her to be a strong, capable woman, never reliant on a man.

Any man. India sighed. Massimo Verdi wasn’t just any man, and yet she ran from him the second she had reason to. Ever since that night, she dreamt of making love to him, that thick c**k of his thrusting deep inside her, his full mouth kissing her, thoughts of tangling her fingers in his dark curls.

Those dreamy, green eyes…

Thinking about him wasn’t a good idea now that her whole life was on hold again. God damn you, Braydon Carter! Haven’t you done enough?

The fear of being murdered numbed her; she almost got used to the feeling that her life was limited. Staring out at the snowflakes, she rubbed her abdomen. The scars would always be there; the physical ones faded, but the psychological ones?

Fuck this. India got up from the couch and went to the other room, where a piano stood. She would write songs. That was what she was born to do.

She ran through the tracks she played to Massimo first and began to write a treatment for the video he agreed to costar in. She tore up the first three—all of them way too raunchy for a video—but it improved her mood to daydream about filming s*x scenes with Massimo.

Hurting…

As the girl sings the opening bars, she escapes a masquerade ball and runs from her lover after seeing him flirt with another woman. As the pace of the song picks up, a chase through Venice begins as the lover pursues her, desperate to win her back.

As the song reaches the bridge, they face each other across one of the beautiful piazzas. His dark-green eyes are intense, almost dangerous-looking, and she tries to resist but remembers their lovemaking—passionate, uninhibited, a meeting of true soulmates—lovers predestined. As he approaches and takes her in his arms, they dance, almost mirroring their lovemaking. Then masked enemies approach and try to tear the lovers apart. They succeed and the two are buried under a miasma of malevolence. As the song closes, the crowds disperse revealing the man holding his dead lover in his arms as the camera pans out, knowing it was his awful behavior that led to this…

India put her pen down. “Wow, you went dark,” she noted. “Way dark. Miasma of malevolence?” She chuckled and rolled her eyes but there was something about the idea she really treasured. Something…cathartic. She wondered what Massimo would think of it.

For a moment, she chewed on her lip and then grabbed her laptop, doing what she shouldn’t do at any cost.

Type the name Massimo Verdi into a search engine.