Chapter 26: Chapter Twenty-Five

LUNA

I ignored Sergio and took a seat opposite Rose. She smiled at me and sat up when she saw me coming to sit.

“I’m so happy you came.” I didn’t doubt it. She looked happy to see me. Me? Not so much.

“Well…”

“And you look well too.” Her eyes raked my form as I pulled out my chair, and slid into my seat “And your hips and thighs have gotten bigger. You’ve gotten rounder!!!”

“I’m sure you can guess why that happened.” The smile immediately fell from her face, and she scratched behind her ears. She knew. She had known about my pregnancy. A flood of emotions crashed through me. None of them are good.

“I’m sorry about your loss, Luna…”

A part of me had been hoping against hope, that the only reason she hadn’t reached out to me was that she didn’t know that I had lost my baby. She knew. She just didn’t care. I choked back the tears and cleared my throat. I wasn’t about to show weakness to the man that kidnapped me.

I spared a glance at Sergio and quickly looked away when I found him looking at me. I wondered if he had already told Giovanni where I was. Since he worked for him and all. I wondered if Giovanni would come looking for me. I would be moving far away from all the madness soon anyways. It wouldn’t matter anymore. He won’t be able to find me here.

“You look well, Rose. Thank God for that.” She smiled,

“Thank you very much.”

“I mean…compared to the last time I saw you in Mexico…” The smile quickly faded “…where we were running for our lives.”

The smile fell, and she began to shift in her seat. Clearly uncomfortable. I didn’t care. I wasn’t comfortable either.

“Luna, I…”

“Oh, and you look very pregnant too. Congratulations.” She nodded.

“Thank you.”

“Really. Congratulations. You’re glowing.” She was “Pregnancy looks good on you.” I needed her to know that I held no ill thoughts toward her baby. She smiled and rubbed her tummy fondly.

“I’m due by the end of next month.” She bit her lip nervously, and looked over at Sergio “Would you like to be there with me when I put to bed?”

“What?” I was shocked.

“I know that the situation we’ve both found ourselves in is a crazy one, and there are a lot of things to iron out. But you know, if you want to. Like we used to talk about…”

That brought a small smile to my face, and I looked at her bump. Already imagining the baby in my arms, while her mother rested. I quickly brought myself back to reality and cleared my throat. That wasn’t why we were here.

“Are you hungry?” She nodded.

“What would you like? I’ll go order.” She waved me off.

“Don’t move a muscle. Sergio would do it.” She turned over to a stunned Sergio and he sighed and got out of his chair. We both grumbled our orders to him, and he went to get them.

“Wow.”

“Yeah. He does whatever I say.” She laughed excitedly and clapped her hands together. She stopped laughing and silence reigned. Our hearts were heavy with words that needed to be said.

“Luna. I know you’re angry at me…and you have every right to be…”

“What happened?” I wasn’t in the mood for all that emotional preamble.

“Where?”

“On the plane to Italy. I woke up in Giovanni’s house, and you weren’t there.”

“Oh.” She swallowed audibly.

“I think I need to tell this story from the beginning…”

“What?”

“You might not like this news but please…listen. Okay?” I absently nodded my head.

“So, back in Mexico…about a few weeks after we had moved there. That was when I found Sergio. Or rather, when Sergio found me.”

“Okay?” I prompted her when she began taking long.

“He came to the restaurant we worked, and I knew he was a werewolf. There was this pull between us, and I…I couldn’t resist.” She stopped and rubbed her belly.

“And…”

“And we fucked in his car that very afternoon. He waited for me to go on break.”

“Wow!!!”

“Yeah. I just felt like I needed to get him out of my system. That didn’t work.”

“So, what happened?”

“He started frequenting the restaurant, and sitting at the tables where I was waiting…”

“Hold on…where was I when all these was going on?”

“You were busy with your section of the restaurant and I didn’t want to bother you. Though I’m not surprised that you’ve not seen him at the restaurant before.”

I looked back at Sergio, and back at Rose. I had a feeling that this was going to get worse.

“Well. This continued, and it was starting to creep me out. So, one day I told him that I needed him to stop following me around. He refused. Said that even if he wanted to, he couldn’t. That I was his mate.”

“What?” Just then, Sergio came with our order, dropped it on our table, and went back to his. I didn’t miss the loving look in Rose’s eyes.

“Yeah. I swear, Luna. I didn’t know that he worked for Giovanni.”

“But what about Roberto?”

“I had told Sergio that I had a boyfriend that I loved, and wanted to spend forever with. I didn’t have that…and I am ashamed to say that I might have used Roberto for that cause…”

“And Sergio knew Roberto?”

“We’ve had a run-in with him once.”

“So, killing him was almost personal to him.” Rose lowered her head. Ashamed. As she should. She had more or less caused the death of an innocent man. A man that had no idea of what was going on. I sighed and rubbed my forehead. Biting into my burger.

“Something like that…”

“Okay. Continue.”

“Well…I woke up on the plane just as we landed, and you were still passed out. Giovanni was waiting there for you. Sergio alighted the plane first and went to speak to Giovanni. They spoke for a while, and then they both got on the plane. Giovanni took you, and Sergio took me.”

“Wow. So, this happened when?” I pointed to her tummy.

“When we were in captivity. I sort of…fell in love with him.” She laughed nervously again.

“Good for you…”

“Yeah. Um…I heard that you lost your baby.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m very sorry that happened to you, Rose. I know you didn’t exactly want the child to begin with but you didn’t deserve to lose your child. At least not the way it happened…”

“Right. That is something that both of us can agree on. Now, I have some questions for you.”

“Shoot.”

“You were aware of my ‘captivity’?”

“Yes.”

“You were also aware of the attack?” She nodded again, glancing away from me, and around the place.

“You also heard that I lost my baby…” She nodded “So, why didn’t you for once try to reach out to me? You knew that I couldn’t do that, you were at liberty to. Why didn’t you?”

“Luna…”

“You don’t love me anymore? You blame me, don't you?”