Heartbreak & Lies

The next morning I woke up extremely happy. I was lying in Dante’s arms and snuggled closer to him.

“Good morning” he mumbled and pecked my lips.
“Go make breakfast while I take a shower.”

I groaned but got up, dragging my feet all the way to the kitchen.
After rummaging through the cabinets and the fridge, I decided on pancakes with whipped cream and strawberries. Hopefully he would like it.

I was just putting everything on the table when he walked in, shirtless.

“Pancakes with whipped cream?” he questioned and stared at me.

“Uh, I can make something else if you want” I mumbled, feeling incredibly stupid and a bit hurt that he didn’t appreciate it.

“I didn’t mean it like that” he grumbled and hugged me.
“I just thought that you were one of those girls who counted calories.”

“As I said before, you don’t know me” I answered happily, piling food on my plate.

“Obviously” he chuckled.
“Matteo is coming home this evening. I do not want him, or anyone else, to know about us” he emphasized the word ‘not’.

“Why not?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Now is not the time, trust me” he snapped and dug into his pancakes.

I quickly ate my food and then left for my room. It was time to call my friends.
There was no chance that I would ever understand Dante’s mood swings and didn’t want to be close when he was in that mood.

“What’s new?” Caroline demanded when she answered the phone.

“Oh my god, you won’t believe this…”I sighed.
“I slept with Dante and…”

“You what?!” she screeched, interrupting me.
“Are you insane?! How could you do something like that? Oh, right… He got you drunk, didn’t he?”

“Um… no? I just…uh.. I kinda wanted to… yeah” I stuttered.

“What? You better tell me everything right now, missy” she snapped.

I was in the middle of telling her the whole story when my phone was snatched away from me.

“I told you not to tell anyone” Dante hissed after he had broken my phone into pieces.
“What made you think you could disobey me?”

I saw him raise his hand and before I could react he had slapped me, hard.

“You better listen to me next time. I would hate to punish you again” he muttered before leaving me alone.

As soon as the door closed, I curled up on the bed and cried. I couldn’t handle being yelled at. Being hit was even worse.

“Emma, wake up” someone chuckled and shook me gently.

“Go away… iwannasleep” I grumbled and cuddled my pillow.

“Oh, that’s fine. I just thought that you wanted some souvenirs” the person laughed.

I tiredly opened my eyes and looked at Matteo.

“Matteo! You’re home” I squealed and jumped out of bed to hug him.

“It’s almost like you missed me” he hugged me back.

“Well, maybe a little” I grinned.

Together we went downstairs and I tried to avoid looking at Dante.

“Sleeping beauty is awake!” Marco cheered.
“You were so cute, lying there and snoring” he smirked at me.

“I do not snore!”

“Just kidding” Marco held up his hands in surrender.

“Who the fuck cares what she does” Dante grumbled and my eyes shot to him, feeling hurt.
“Now that you’re here, I’m leaving” he said and nodded at the brothers before stomping out.

“He’s cheerful as usual” Matteo chuckled and handed me a few presents.

Being very impatient, I ripped them open. The first one was a box of chocolates.

“That one is from Rita. She wanted to give you a little something” Matteo explained when I was opening the second present.

It was a really nice blood red, knee-length dress in the 1940’s style. I totally loved it.

“You have to thank her from me. I love this dress” I smiled, hugging the dress.

I ripped open the last present and stared at the big, blue velvet box. Something told me this wasn’t something cheap.
I opened it and stared at the set of jewelry; necklace, ear rings and a bracelet.

“Those are real rubies. I thought that you deserved it” Matteo smiled.

“But… You shouldn’t have.. Wow” I whispered while staring at the set.
“Thank you” I mumbled and jumped out of the couch to hug Matteo.

“I’m happy you liked it. But you should try to go back to sleep. It’s almost midnight and we have something really important to discuss tomorrow morning. You’ll need to be well rested” he explained and shooed me towards the stairs.

“Ok… Well, I’ll see you tomorrow. Thanks again for the presents” I grinned.
“Goodnight” I hugged him and ran up the stairs to my room.