His Nanny

Chapter 27

"Wow, you're beautiful."

"Stop crowding the girl Janine," Stanza remarked.

"My bad for wanting to introduce myself." She rolled her eyes at Stanza who was now perched on the couch.

"I'm Janine, Stanza's wife, and Gabriele's aunt."

"I'm Heather." I gave her a tight-lipped smile.

Luca, Gabriele, and Stanza cheered on their teams, I wanted to sit and read a book but Gabriele took my book and pulled me so that I was sitting on his lap. This, in turn, caused him a problem, a problem that was now digging into my thigh. I got into the spirit of the game myself as Gabriele described to me which players had higher rankings and a better score. Luca, in turn, described the tactics of the game.

I kind of liked watching soccer (and the good looking men running around helped a lot). Janine and Stanza left just before the game ended since it was getting late and Janine didn't want to walk back to the house in the dark.

The game continued and I avoided looking at Gabriele, Luca fell asleep on the couch beside us. When the game finally ended Luca was out for the count, I jumped off of Gabriele's lap. I wanted to carry Luca to his room, Gabriele stopped me and took him into his embrace jogging up the stairs to his room. I cleaned up the bags. I was in my own little bubble when Gabriele interrupted me.

"Leave it, I'll clean it up tomorrow."

I ignored him and continued to clean up, he grabbed my wrists, glaring at me.

"Just stop."

"Just let me finish it." He didn't let go of me, he rather pushed me against the wall. Kissing me with such passion. I knew this was only a way to fill the space left by the problems we're having, actually more like the problems I'm having with myself.

I gently pushed him away.

I just turned around and walked away to my room. I hated feeling like this towards him, I want him so close but yet it was like I need more space. Perhaps Italy was a bad idea. I locked the door behind me and slid down the door, resting my head on my knees.

A few minutes later Gabriele knocked on the door.

"Heather? Can we talk." I kept quiet, what would I say to him? That I'm not okay anymore and that I wanted to go home.

"Heather, if you're not going to open up, I guess I have to talk to a door then." He sighed loudly from the other side of the door.

"I still have another surprise for you tomorrow. I'm sorry that I showed you that room. You're probably terrified, I'm so sorry." His voice broke a little and I heard footsteps leading away from the door.

He thought that I was scared of him now that I saw the room...it had nothing to do with the room. I could just imagine how he must be feeling, much worse than I am. I changed into my pj's and walked to his door contemplating what I'd tell him.

I knocked on the door and he opened it, he rubbed his chin sleepily and gave me a small smile as I entered.

"I'm sorry." He muttered while avoiding looking at me.

I didn't say anything. I just wrapped my arms around him and held onto him tightly. I closed my eyes. He stroked my back and my hair as he rested his chin on my head.

"Baby...what's wrong?"

"I..can't." My words got stuck in my throat. I pulled back from our embrace; his brows were furrowed in confusion.

"You're...leaving me?" His voice broke. I wasn't leaving him like breaking up, I was just taking a break.

"No, of course not. I love you too much." I swallowed hard.

"After graduation, I'm going to take a break so, I'm not going to be the nanny anymore."

"A break? Where are you going?" he looked relieved but still worried.

"Well, I just need time..." He nodded his head.

"We still have this week in Italy, and I have a surprise for you tomorrow." He managed to change the subject. We haven't been able to really talk about what happened with the car accident, we talked about how lucky I was to be alive and how scared he was to lose me. But never about what we were still feeling and what was haunting us. We avoided it like the plague and I knew for sure if we didn't have that conversation sometime soon we would be drifting apart.

"We should talk first." I paused and took a deep breath.

"I have been getting nightmares, nightmares about the accident. I'm afraid to talk to you about all of this because I know you blame yourself. I'm scared that I am actually still dead and this is a dream, that'd it would be ripped from me. I'm scared that I won't be the best mother to Luca, that everything would fall apart. Gabriele, I'm just scared."

He placed a kiss on my forehead.

"I've been scared too, terrified that you'd leave me, that you'd do something to yourself when I wasn't there. I love you too much to just watch you destroy yourself. I didn't want to talk about the accident because I know it's my fault. I knew you were having nightmares about the accident, screaming and crying in the middle of the night. I know it's getting harder for you to cope, it's okay if you leave for a while as long as you promise me you'll come back better. I'm not sure how I'm explaining this to Luca, he loves you too." He shifted his weight onto the other foot and looked really uneasy.

The silence took over and Gabriele and I just looked at each other.

I crawled in under the covers of his bed, he joined me and wrapped his arm around my waist pulling me close to him. In the dark, I could hear how hard both of us were breathing.

It felt good to get that off my chest.

Even after everything I did to him and everything I was feeling, he was there for me, and I'm just going to leave this behind for a while.

I suddenly realized how messed up I really was.