The Maestri Amour (Wattys 2015) - ON HIATUS

TMA || 30

I woke up to a note from my wife, saying that she'd be back from the bakery in time.

And yet she wasn't.

I was dressed and ready to leave, but she was nowhere in sight. I checked my watch and it was one, which means the opening would be in the next hour. I tried calling her, but it sends me straight to voicemail.

So you can imagine just how panicked I am.

I can't think of anything else, except the fact that Eva got to her. I spoke to the security team and they told me that they didn't even see her leave. I almost lost my cool, but I remembered that it wouldn't help with anything if I did.

"I'm back, I'm back. Sorry I took so long," she ran into the room.

"Where have you been?" I asked calmly.

"At the bakery like I said," she replied, going into our closet.

"What were you doing there for so long?" I asked.

"Setting up the final things," she replied.

"By yourself?" I followed her.

"It wasn't all that much to do Rafe. I just put everything we baked where it belonged," she said as she stripped. I was momentarily distracted.

"Why was your phone off?" I snapped out of it.

"It died," she responded, showing me the said device.

"You had me worried Ari," I confessed.

"And I'm sorry for that. I just couldn't sleep, so I decided to go and get started without you. I ended up staying longer than necessary and I do apologize for that," she replied, coming over to cup my cheek.

I held her hand to my cheek and looked down at her. I believed her, but there was something odd about her behaviour, and especially about the look in her eyes. She looked shaken, she was shaking, and she looked like she needed to breathe.

"Are you ok?" I scowled.

"Why do you ask?" she asked as she got back to getting dressed.

"You don't look ok. You look shaken," I replied.

"I'm probably just flushed from running all the way from the car," she smiled.

There was something off about her smile.

I was either being paranoid, or I was onto something, but I knew that I had to drop it either way. If my wife wants to tell me what's bothering her, then she will. I just need to trust that she's being honest with me.

And not compare her to Gabi.

The thought was lingering in my head honestly. My relationship with Gabi had been fine until she started acting the way that my wife was behaving now, so I couldn't help how my thoughts reverted back to that.

I know that my wife isn't anywhere close to being like that snake of a woman, but things like this have never settled well with me since Gabi. That woman is the reason I have so many trust issues with everything and everyone.

It would break me if I found out that my wife was hiding anything important from me.

I left the room and decided to wait for her downstairs. She'd really taken everything through to the bakery, except I couldn't understand how she carried all of it. The main cake she ended up making is too big for her to carry by herself, so who carried it for her?

"Petro, did anyone come and go from here in the past three hours?" I asked him on the phone. Sven was back with the girls at the island.

"Just Mrs Maestri Sir," he replied.