Cesare Fierri [Book #4]

Chapter 3

Nine years later
What the hell is taking so long?

I checked the time on my radio. It's 2:35 pm. School ended five minutes. So where is my daughter? I huffed, taking off my seat belt and hopping out of my white Chevy Suburban.

Walking up to the school's building, I quickly shuffled through the crowd of PTA Moms, wishing I could make myself invisible. They've been judging me ever since they learned of my divorce. Being divorced with a kid is a no-no when it comes to the PTA Moms.

I've been called an "unfit mother" on several occasions, their beady, judging eyes following me everywhere I go. But they have no idea what caused my marriage to fail. It had nothing to do with my ability to be a wife to my then husband, or a mother to my daughter.

It was his fault we ended up in this mess. I caught him sleeping with my ex-bestfriend Brooke a few years ago. Cheating has always been an issue within our relationship, I was just too stupid to realize I could do better.

I'd gotten home from work early one morning and found them in bed- our bed together. The visual of those two fucking in my bed plays on a loop in my mind no matter how hard I try to forget it.

When I asked him why he did it, that's when he revealed his true colors. I was too fat for him. I wasn't enough for him anymore. It explains why he wouldn't touch me after I had our daughter. And why he'd criticize everything I wore, and why he refused to bring me along to his work parties and dinners. He was embarrassed by me.

"If you have something to say, then say it to my face, Carol," I snapped, having had enough of their gossiping, nosiness, and lurking eyes.

She gasped, offended by my words. I rolled my eyes, ignoring the flabbergasted looks on the other moms faces. Turning on my heel, I kept down the hall until I was in front of the door to my daughter's classroom.

I was about to knock when the door flung open. My daughter's teacher, Mrs. Collins was standing on the other side of the door. "Hello, Ms. Thomas."

Her tone, and the way she had her arms crossed over her chest in a scolding manner told me that something wasn't right. "Is there a reason you've kept my daughter after class?"

Mrs. Collins pushed the door open wider, stepping aside and motioning me inside. Walking into the classroom, I found my daughter sitting at her desk with a clueless look on her face.

My eyes skimmed over to another child around her age, before landing on someone I thought I would never see again, especially here in New York.

Cesare Fierri.

He looked exactly as he did all those years ago. That unruly head of short curly brown hair, those deep baby blue eyes, and that charming smile. My cheeks burned the moment his eyes floated over to me. He raised a brow, his eyes raking down my body.

I felt naked under his gaze, like we were back in Sicily, his hands roaming and caressing every inch of my body, and his lips, my God his lips-

"Please take a seat Ms. Thomas."

I blinked, ripped from the filthy thoughts seared into my brain from our night and morning together. I took a seat in the empty desk beside my daughter, watching Mrs. Collins shift over to a chair behind her desk. She clasped her hands together, a frown resting behind the white frames of her glasses.

"What's going on?" I questioned, wondering why my daughter was so quiet when she's the most talkative six year old I know.

Mrs. Collins sighed. "Rylee and Isabel got into an altercation during free time. Isabel made a comment about Rylee's drawing and..." Mrs. Collins' words began to fade, my attention on everyone but her.