Love on a Lark_an Italian love story by C. L. Donley

Author:C. L. Donley [Donley, C. L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Independent
Published: 2019-04-11T04:00:00+00:00

Nine

Chapter 9

Dario stayed awake far too long that night, the panoramic view of the city’s electric red and white grid surrounding him like a foggy, blinking fortress. He couldn’t stop thinking about Lark, talking about the expectations of Italian men. Talking about “growing a child.”

He remembered adoring Gino’s baby phase, and nostalgia had only made that adoration grow strong. It was too easy for him to imagine Lark’s swollen belly, her clay-colored breasts engorged with milk.

You’re too old to keep up with a baby, he told himself, the thought making him scoff.

Gino was a handful, and that when Dario had been a young man. Running and climbing, jumping off of everything. But his nonna was always there, though she wouldn’t always be. And there was more than enough extended family now to help out.

Besides, Gino’s a boy. A girl perhaps would be different…

He sighed, hating his mind. He could barely think of anything else. He was positively weak at the thought, too weak to sleep, somehow. He didn’t know what it meant. But of course, that wasn’t entirely true.

No doubt she was scared, he continued to ruminate. Because she grew up an orphan. She had no mother.

She doesn’t know the process. Going from individual to part of a unit. How could she?

Maybe she would lash out, over some distant trauma come rushing back. Maybe she would panic and run away. For awhile. Then she would come home. Then they could make up. They could make love.

Home.

Dario groaned as he tossed in his bed, his muscles flexing across the broadness of his honey-kissed back as he buried his head in the pillows. The darkest hour of the night shone through the window by the glowing moon.

It didn’t matter. He’d overshot his chauvinist boss routine by a mile. He thought he was doing something noble by keeping his intimate connections as meaningless as possible. He thought the women deserved payment, some form of retribution for the slight. It wasn’t their fault he still loved his wife. Regular women found the exchange insulting. Whenever he was out of the country it was his custom. He felt no shame, but he could not face his son’s innocent eyes if it ever got back to him. His favorite was Amsterdam. A little out of the way, but worth it.

The moment Lark caught him with another woman, her respect for him completely diminished, he felt. She called him “sir” out of obligation now. She questioned his decisions, his judgment. She couldn’t feel safe with him, professionally, emotionally. Hell, probably even physically. She clearly just wanted to get paid and get out of there. And tomorrow would likely make things worse.

Numbing the pain was so much easier sometimes. If he explained it to Lark, she would understand, he was sure. She’d practically done the same the first night they met. He’d felt both sympathy and empathy, among other emotions. They’d shared more than their bodies, they’d shared an understanding. Only… he hadn’t been numbing himself with her. He had been truly alive.

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