Fall From India Place

CHAPTER 10

A lull in the discussion during the night’s adult literacy session made me smile. “You know, for people who complain that this is the worst part, you certainly had a lot to say.”

Duncan smirked while the others laughed. With the exception of Lorraine, who’d barely said a word all class.

I’d found that a good way to help along the class reading skills was to have them read something for homework and come in and chat about it as a group. These guys had very basic reading skills, but they were coming on by leaps and bounds. I found that in discussion they unearthed a better understanding of the words they’d read because what one didn’t understand, another did, and they helped one another out without even realizing it.

“Well done, folks.” I stood. “Read chapter six for next week, please, and I shall see you all then.”

We bade one another a good night, the class filtering out until only Lorraine remained. Since the night I’d spoken to her, she’d turned up for every class. Still, she stubbornly refused any one-on-one assistance, and the reading challenges I set them made her uneasy. I’d quickly discovered that she was the kind of woman who preferred someone to be straightforward with her, rather than pussyfooting around her.

“Is it me?” I asked her.

Her head jerked up from her bag and she frowned at me. “Is whit you?”

“Am I the reason you don’t want to speak up in class?”

She shrugged.

I raised an eyebrow. “It’s not the others. It can’t be. You’ve seen them struggle, and you’ve witnessed how patient and kind the class is with one another. You yourself have shown patience. Kindness. So if they’re not the ones who make you uncomfortable, who make you afraid, is it me?”

“I’m no afraid,” she snapped.

I strode toward her and gently took the book out of her hands. Opening it up to the chapter we’d just been discussing, I handed it back to her. “Read the first two sentences out to me.”

Lorraine looked at me incredulously. However, I saw what she was so desperately trying to hide. I saw the fear.

She snatched the book out of my hands and pulled it toward her face. She swallowed. Hard. With painstaking care she began to read to me. Almost near the end, she faltered on a word. Glancing up at me warily, she flushed.

I kept my face perfectly blank. “Sound it out.”

The anger flashed in her eyes and yet she looked back at the page. “It’s no a word.” She frowned. “Fuh-ri-gid,” she said, pronouncing it almost like “frigate.”

“Do you remember the rules for hard and soft g’s? Usually, when g meets a, o, or u it’s a hard g. The guh sound. Like gap. But usually when it meets e, y, or an i, it’s a soft g. The juh sound.”

Lorraine stared at the word. “It’s an i. Fuh-ri-gid. Fuhrigid.” Her eyes scanned the sentence that preceded it and the tension melted out of her as she said, “Frigid.” She shrugged. “I always thought that word wis spelt wi a j.”

I took a step back from her. “That was well done.”

She ducked her head. “Aye, whitever.” Abruptly she grabbed her bag and brushed past me. “See ye next week.”

I stared after her in thought for a while after she left the room. Lorraine was definitely rough around the edges, lacking in good manners and social graces, but I couldn’t help but respect someone who pushed through despite her fears.

With my heart pounding and my stomach roiling with waves of nausea, I settled onto my window seat in the living room, staring out at the dark, glistening street. Pools of light glimmered here and there where streetlights glanced off puddles made from the recent rainfall. I clutched my phone in my hand and sucked in a deep breath.

Scrolling through my recent call list I found the number, and with Lorraine’s perseverance and Dad’s question at the forefront of my mind, I pressed the CALL button.

It rang three times before… “Hannah?” Marco answered, pleasant surprise in his deep voice.

“Hi,” I replied quietly, willing my heart to slow. “I…”

His voice was filled with a concern I remembered all too well as he asked, “Are you okay?”

I exhaled slowly. “I’ve decided I do want to know why you left me that night.”

He was quiet for a moment and I was just about to break the silence when he said, “I want to ask why the sudden change of heart, but I’m not going to in case I scare you off. I’m glad you called, but I’d rather discuss it in person. Would that be okay with you?”

“If I say no you’re only going to turn up at my next dental appointment, right?”

He laughed quietly, a seriously delicious sound that made my scalp tingle. “Whatever it takes.”

“I still can’t believe you came to my book group,” I muttered.

“It got you to call me, didn’t it?”

“Tread carefully, Mr. D’Alessandro,” I warned.

He chuckled. “Fine. I’ll be good… if you invite me over to your place tomorrow night to talk.”

Trepidation shot through me at the thought of us being alone in my flat. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Hannah, what we have to discuss is personal. What I have to tell you is personal and I don’t particularly feel comfortable with the stranger behind us in a café listening in.”

I processed that, and unfortunately had to admit that he was right. I didn’t want a stranger listening in on us either. “Fine,” I grumbled, giving him my address. “Six o’clock.”

“Does it include dinner?” he asked hopefully, a boyish cheekiness in the question that surprised me.

“We’ll see.” I hung up without saying good-bye.

I felt much too hot all over and suddenly restless as adrenaline pumped through my body. I hadn’t felt this awake in a long, long time.

School was a blur. I was so preoccupied with the thought of Marco being at my place that night that I don’t even know how I got through the lessons. Somehow I made it, and with my stomach a jumpy, jittery mess, I hurried home after work and began preparing dinner. I didn’t know what to cook because I didn’t want Marco to think I was trying to impress him, but I also didn’t want to poison him with something he was allergic to.

I’d settled on pasta and salad. Surely you couldn’t go wrong with pasta and salad.

It went against the manners of being a good hostess (which my mother had ingrained in me from the age of three) not to dress the table when I was having someone over for dinner, but I also didn’t want Marco to think this was something it wasn’t.

Who was I kidding? I didn’t even know what this was.

I changed from my work clothes into a pair of well-worn jeans and a long-sleeved thermal top. Twisting my hair up into a messy bun, I looked in the mirror and nodded, pleased with my reflection. The jeans made my arse look great, the top was form-fitting and made my boobs look good, but overall the outfit said “I’m just hanging at home and I could give a shit what you think about me.”

“Perfect.”

I spun around, marching out of my bedroom toward the kitchen, and my door buzzer sounded, drawing me to a halt.

I was going to throw up. I was going to upchuck all over my nice hardwood floors.

“Deep breaths,” I coached myself, turning back toward the door.

“Hello?” I asked upon lifting the receiver.

“It’s Marco.”

Yup, definitely going to upchuck. I pressed the entrance door key, letting him into the building.

With blood rushing in my ears, I attempted to prepare myself to see him again, and drew on my powers of indifference. Opening my door, I listened to his footsteps as he climbed the stairs to my flat.

I saw his head appear as he ascended the staircase and my stomach dropped. His eyes lifted from his feet to my face as he climbed higher, and he gave me a small smile in greeting. Damn it. Why did I have to be so attracted to him? Why did I have to have so many good memories of him?

His gaze drifted down my body and back up again, and I got the distinct feeling he wasn’t disappointed by my outfit. Not at all. Pretending I didn’t give a crap, I stepped back. “Come in.”

He moved inside, making me feel tiny, and despite his defection, safe. “Did you get taller?” I grumbled, moving away from him and the attractive cologne he was wearing.

He shut the front door behind him and shook his head. “Not that I’m aware of.”

As my eyes took him in, it occurred to me that it had nothing to do with his height. It was his muscle. I gulped at the sight of his biceps, nicely displayed in the form-fitting hooded Henley he was wearing. “This way,” I almost wheezed, abruptly turning my back at the sight of his amusement.

He followed me into the sitting room, where I’d set the dining table at the back of the room. “Nice place.” His eyes hit the piles of books that I had in nearly every corner, and he gave me that familiar half smile that made me feel things I didn’t want to feel. “You need bookshelves, though.”

Ignoring that comment, I gestured to the table. “Take a seat. I’ll get dinner.”

Marco raised an eyebrow. “You cooked after all?”

I narrowed my eyes. “Only because I’m hungry.”

“Of course.”

Pissed that I was doing a very shitty job of coming across as being unaffected by his presence, I marched out of the room and into my kitchen, where I clutched the edge of my countertop, taking in a deep breath.

You can do this. He’s just a boy. He’s just a boy. He’s just a boy. I chanted that mantra over and over in my head while I grabbed the bowls of pasta and salad.

“This looks great,” Marco said after I strode back into the sitting room to dump them on the table.

I made a harrumph sound and then grunted, “Beer?”

His lips quirked up at the corners and I could see the laughter dancing in his stunning eyes. “Sure.”

I returned with the beer, slammed it down in front of him, and then shoved myself ungracefully into my seat opposite him. I gestured to the bowls. “Eat.”

Not hiding his amusement any longer, Marco grinned as he reached for the salad bowl. “You seem agitated.”

No, do I? Outwardly, I just shrugged. “Well, I’m fine.”

His look said he didn’t believe me for a second. I took the salad bowl from him, dumping vegetables onto my plate as he scooped pasta al pomodoro onto his own. We were silent as we served ourselves and started eating.

I felt like any second I might just jump out of my skin and throw my skeleton arse out of my bay window. I kept waiting for him to start speaking, to start explaining himself, since that was the whole point of him being here in my sitting room, eating my food and affecting my girlie bits. Finally, I’d had enough of his seemingly comfortable silence. “Four years?” I snapped, glaring at him.

Marco contemplated me, appearing to memorize every inch of my face in a way that made my skin feel hot and tingly. He laid his fork down and sat back, twisting the cap off his beer with little effort. He took a sip, his eyes never leaving me. “Maybe we should start with the night at India Place.”

Unexpected pain shot across my chest at the mention of India Place. It stole my breath, that pain. Ever since I’d lost my virginity to Marco, the pain and humiliation of that night had really only ever belonged to me, because he hadn’t been around to face afterward and no one else knew about it.

Discussing it with him for the first time made it feel like it had just happened.

I must not have been able to keep that pain out of my expression, because Marco tensed, and something like regret flickered in his gaze.

He set the beer down, his entire focus on me. “I want you to know that being with you that night was one of the best nights of my life.”

I froze at that shocking confession, only for anger to quickly unfreeze me. “Don’t you dare try to sweet-talk me with bullshit and pretty words. I just want the truth, Marco.”

His features hardened. “That is the truth. You can be pissed off at me all you want, but don’t question what I tell you tonight because I’ve never lied to you.”

“For all I know.”

“No, you do know. I’ve never lied to you, Hannah. Not once.”

“Well, if that night was so amazing how come you couldn’t get out of there fast enough afterward? How come you left me lying there in that skeezy flat, feeling used and absolutely worthless?”

Looking pained by my questions, Marco suddenly drew a hand down his face.

I waited.

“I hate myself for making you feel that way,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

My heart was beating so hard against my chest it hurt. “Why, then?”

Understanding my question, he sat back in his chair, his jaw taut. “You were Hannah. You were this great girl who made me laugh and looked at me like I was worth something, and every year you got more beautiful.”

His words made my heart flip over in my chest.

“You were too good for me. I knew that the first time I walked you home. Pure class from the tips of your fingers to the tips of your toes. Not for me.”

“I don’t understand.”

Marco exhaled heavily. “I told you I didn’t get along with my grandfather or my uncle. And what I meant was that I really didn’t get along with them. From the moment I could walk Nonno made sure I thought I was a piece of scum, worthless. He told me I was nothing and that I would never amount to anything. He said I was just like my mom and dad, and that every life I’d touch, I’d ruin. He drilled that into me.”

I couldn’t help myself. Even after everything, I was hurt and angry on his behalf when he said those things. “He sounds like a bitter old bastard.”

Marco gave a huff of laughter. “You’d be right. But he was the only father figure I had. So, despite Nonna’s attempts to soften my grandfather’s blows, I believed him. It got so I was almost trying to prove him right. I grew up with this kid in my neighborhood. His stepdad was kind of a prick to him too. We were friends mostly because of our mutual hate for them. As we got older, Jamal started doing stupid shit like breaking into people’s homes, stealing stuff, vandalism, and all that crap, and I went along for the ride. Then when we were almost sixteen he got recruited into a gang.”

My eyes widened. “A gang gang?”

“A gang gang.” Marco’s eyes were dark with the memories. “He told me some of the stuff they made him do and it pissed me off, but at the same time I kept thinking how much it would really piss off Nonno if I got mixed up in that shit. I think the only thing that stopped me from taking it that far was Nonna and the rest of our family. Still, I did think about it.

“But then one night I was hanging out with Jamal and a couple of the guys from his crew, and they were trying to convince me to join. They waylaid this neighborhood girl Jamal liked.” His gaze drifted off over my left shoulder and I knew he was re-seeing it all. “I didn’t want to believe it… that he was going to rape her, but he started touching her and she was crying and he wouldn’t…” His eyes flicked back to me, hard now. “I jumped him and she got away, but his friends started in on me and it was three against one. I think if Jamal hadn’t convinced them to stop they would have killed me. As it was, I ended up in the hospital and I told my grandparents what had happened. That’s when they got on the phone to my uncle Gio and somehow convinced him and Aunt Gabby to adopt me and bring me over to the UK to get away from it all. They tracked my mom down and got her to sign the papers and by the time I turned sixteen it was all done and I was suddenly in Scotland.”

“And your grandfather? Didn’t he think what you did for that girl was heroic?”

Marco scoffed. “Heroic? No. He called me a worthless, stupid, ignorant piece of shit. He said a father’s blood always tells and my blood was telling.”

My own blood turned red-hot. “Your grandfather’s a dick of the highest order.”

“My grandfather’s dead.”

I tensed. “What?”

He sighed, leaning forward again. “The morning after we slept together Nonna called to tell us Nonno had died of a heart attack. I flew back to Chicago that night with my aunt and uncle.”

“That’s why you left Scotland?”

“Yeah. My aunt and uncle returned to Scotland but I didn’t come back for a year because I wanted to make sure Nonna was okay and I… I had a difficult time letting go of the fact that I was never going to get closure with my grandfather. I was never going to get an apology or whatever validation it was I was looking for from him. I tried to find peace, but I couldn’t, so I decided to come back here.”

I pushed my fork around my plate. “I understand all that, Marco, and I’m sorry he ever made you feel that way, I am. I’m truly sorry. But that doesn’t explain why you left me in that room after I gave you my virginity and told you I loved you. It doesn’t explain why you never tried to look me up since coming back.”

The sudden intensity in Marco’s gaze captured me. His voice sounded even rougher than usual as he replied, “I left you because I thought I didn’t deserve to touch you. I felt like a selfish bastard for having sex with you because… I felt like I was nothing because he told me I was nothing, and scum like me didn’t deserve to touch you, let alone take what you gave me. But I got so caught up in you and how much I wanted you I forgot all that… until you told me you loved me.”

I felt cold, remembering the moment well.

“When we met… at first the situation with Jenks just reminded me of Jamal and the girl. It didn’t matter if I didn’t know you. I was there, I saw that shit happening and I knew what Jenks was like, so I wasn’t going to stand there and let that happen to you. I walked you home because I didn’t want him to circle back on you.

“I stood outside the school gates to make sure you were okay because after I walked you home that one time I thought you deserved someone looking out for you. You were a funny, smart, kind girl, and you looked at me in a way no one had before. Like I had something interesting to say and you wanted to hear all about it. That felt better than you can imagine. I wanted to feel that way again. I got addicted to feeling that way whenever you were around. I even started hoping for reasons for you to miss that bus home. I let something happen that I thought I shouldn’t have. I let us get close.

“I didn’t want you to love me, Hannah, because I was terrified I’d hurt you, and, yeah, I know that sounds fucked up now since I hurt you by walking out on you, but at the time I thought I was doing you a favor.”

“A favor?” I guffawed. “I thought I was in love with you. I let myself be vulnerable with you in every way I could and you scrambled off me as if you couldn’t bear to be near me. You broke my heart.”

Marco clasped his hands into a fist, resting his chin on them. “I know,” he whispered back. “I’ve never regretted anything more in my life. It was fucked up and stupid and if I could take that moment back I would.”

“All of it?” I found myself asking.

His eyes drifted to my lips and then back up to my eyes again. “No,” he replied, his voice thick. “Just the part where I left you.”

“If you feel that way, why didn’t you come back to me when you returned to Scotland?”

“Because I didn’t feel that way then. Nothing magically changed when Nonno died, Hannah. I still felt worthless for a very long time.”

“When did it change? Why?”

Marco’s gaze lowered and he gave a tiny shake of his head. “I don’t know. It was nothing. Everything. I grew up, I worked hard, and I began to find value in myself. Somewhere, bit by bit, day by day, I found self-worth. I found it by proving that bastard wrong.”

“I’m glad you found that,” I told him honestly. “But that still doesn’t tell me why after that you didn’t come find me.”

“Because by then years had passed, Hannah. I didn’t know what to say and I didn’t know if I could stand to have you look at me like I was nothing after it took me so long to feel about myself the way you used to look at me.”

“Until the wedding?”

“Until the wedding,” he agreed, heat entering his eyes now. “It was a shock to see you there, but seeing you again… God, I thought I knew how much I missed you until I saw you again. I know I came on strong trying to get you to talk to me, and I’m sorry if I freaked you out… but you didn’t look at me like I was worthless at the wedding. You looked pissed, but it wasn’t this fucking awful thing I’d built up in my head. With that fear gone, I just really needed the chance to apologize and I was willing to do anything I could to get that chance.”

Something inside me, something I wanted desperately to ignore, exalted at his confession. “And now that you’ve explained everything… what do you want from me?”

“Forgiveness,” he answered sincerely. The sincerity quickly dissipated under the weight of the intensity that entered his expression. That look filled the whole room until I felt stifled by it. “And a second chance to get to know you.”

With my body physically responding to him, I narrowed my eyes and fought to ignore that response. “In what way?”

“Not just as friends, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

I jerked back in my seat at his blunt reply. “You’re not even going to pretend to want to be just friends so you can try a sneak attack for more?”

Marco stared at me with serious determination. “I’m not going to hide that I want to get to know who you are now. I’m also not going to hide the fact that I think you’re still the classiest, most fucking beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, or the fact that I remember the taste of you and it still makes me hard.”

I couldn’t breathe.

“Hannah?” He frowned at my silence.

I reached for my beer and took a long swallow, trying to collect myself.

“Hannah?”

My eyes clashed with his. “What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to say ‘Marco, I forgive you and, yes, I want to get to know you again.’”

“I don’t know if I can do that,” I whispered.

For a minute I thought he wasn’t going to say anything, but suddenly he stood up. I tilted my head back, watching warily as he strode around the table to tower over me. I sucked in my breath as he leaned down, his heat hitting me, his cologne wafting over me, and I couldn’t suppress the shiver that cascaded down my spine when he pressed his warm lips to my cheek. My eyes round with surprise, I gaped at him as he straightened and said, “I’ll give you a couple of days to think about it.”