Sofia POV
When Luca had suddenly broken eye contact with me and disappeared deeper into the house without saying a thing to me– not like I was expecting him to, in the first place, I had thought it was because he was angry with something that he had probably encountered with at work or wherever it was that he went to.
I had no idea he was sick at that moment. I should have known, I guess? But when our eyes had connected, I was too busy focusing my whole willpower on not breaking eye contact with him ducking my head in embarrassment, which was probably why I hadn’t noticed how stressed out and tired he looked.
When Sarah had suddenly come down from the stairs, straight into the kitchen where I was currently in– with Matilda stirring the food she was preparing and quietly humming a Christmas tune beneath her breath, despite the fact that Christmas was coming anything soon- to ask Matilda to increase the heat of the boiling rice and to start the preparation of the chicken soup.
She then turned towards me and placed her hands on the counter before informing me, “Your husband is ill upstairs.”
“I’m sorry, what?” I had asked her after a few seconds, because what she had said made little to no sense to her ears.
“Mr Ricci is seriously ill upstairs. He’s burning up really badly and can’t even keep his eyes open for a long while. His head is also pounding seriously.” Sarah started to say again and I stared at her confusingly for a few seconds before her words started to actually sink into her head.
Oh.
“I had no idea.” I said feebly with a small shrug of left shoulder, my voice coming out slowly.
“It’s probably because he’s always overworking himself every time, and almost never eats healthy food. He never gives himself breaks or days off to rest and relax, he also doesn’t give enough thought to his health.” Sarah continued to say, sounding like she was scolding Luca through me and I remained quiet, staring blankly at my phone which was on the counter before me.
Oh, so he overworks himself?
He works?
Well… that’s actually unexpected.
I never expected him to actually be working or doing anything serious each day he leaves the house in the morning, I just automatically assumed he only leaves the house to have fun and flex with his friends and his multiple girlfriends – because he obviously has more than enough money to hire qualified people that can get whatever work that needed to be done, done for him immediately without stressing himself one bit.
All I used to think he did was just drink, have fun and have lots of sex with his numerous girlfriends.
So, this was definitely new.
And it was kind of making me see him in a whole different light. The picture I used to have of him in my head was starting to slowly change again.
At first, it was about me expecting him to be a beast to me on our wedding night who’d tear off my clothes and take what was his forcefully, without caring about how I was fairing, if I wanted it or whatnot… but that particular picture of him in my head started to change when days passed and still, nothing happened.
He steered clear of my way, leaves the house before I get to wake up, comes back home when I’d have fallen asleep… never, ever holds a conversation with me – except for the time he had come to see me at the hospital, and had ghosted his fingers ever so lightly over the skin of my injured arm – a gesture which made my stomach start to tighten up a little from just thinking about it and imagining that particular moment up again.
He had then proceeded to start a little conversation with me, he had also grasped my chin and tugged my face upward to make me stare into his eyes– and I had stare, with my eyes trying hard not to flutter while my stomach started to knot itself all over again.
It had been a really weird day for me, because of all the unexpected and unusual feelings I had felt jolt through my body that day, there at the hospital.
He had also talked to me in that voice of his which was deep and growly, that had sent a tiny shiver sliding down my spine.
I tried really hard not to think about how he had called me a ‘good girl’ there in the hospital. I tried really hard, but I couldn’t deny how those two words, although completely unexpected, had left a confusing feeling behind in my body– which I had refused to try to think about after that day, and I still wasn’t going to think about it tonight as well.
I glanced up from my phone which I had been staring at as I got lost in my thoughts and watched as Sarah prepared a tray, a few feet away from where I was seated on, on the counter. She placed a bottle of water on the tray, a glass cup, a plate of steaming rice, a plate containing a lot of different kind of drugs, two different types of spoons, and I watched as she walked towards a pot that was boiling over one face of the stove and letting the strong scent of chicken to waft around the kitchen – before scooping some of the content into a brown bowl and walking back towards the tray to place it on the tray.
She stepped back to admire her work before glancing up at me to suggest, “Would you like to come with me? So you can check up on him at once.”
I started to shake my head even before she was done taking, “Oh, no… no. I can’t.”
She stared at me confusingly and I noticed Matilda turned around from the rice she was dishing into a huge plate, to stare at me curiously the moment she heard my reply to Sarah’s suggestion.
“You can’t?” Sarah asked and I nodded my head immediately, reaching forward to pick my phone up from the counter to roll it around against my fingers in order to keep my fingers from fidgeting.
“Why?” She asked and I chewed on my lower lips, the question echoing in my head a little.
Why?
Well, why should I go see him? It wasn’t like I was a doctor or something.
I mean, what would I say if I go in there?
‘Hey Luca. Heard you’re not feeling all that well, get well soon’?
“No reason. I’ll just see him when I go up to bed later tonight.” I said to her with a small chuckle, hiding the fact that I was starting to fidget again, for no good reason.
Ok, perhaps me not wanting Sarah and Matilda to know the true relationship level of Luca and I was excuse enough.
“Uh, okay.” Sarah replied, dropping the subject immediately before lifting up the full tray and exiting the kitchen in the next second, the light sounds her slippers were making as she made her way upstairs, echoed on and on until it got too far away for my ear to still pick up the sounds.
Matilda turned around and stared at me like she wanted to say something, but ended up changing her mind when I looked at her pointedly until she turned back around to the soup she was currently stirring.
******
I slowly pushed the bedroom’s door open and peaked my head inside, the first thing I noticed was that the bedsheets were already changed and that Luca was in it already, with one side of the blankets wrapped around his neck. I stepped into the room through the doorway and pushed the door close behind me, making sure it doesn’t make any sound.
I made my way deeper into the room and stared down at Luca’s sleeping face.
This was the first time I was seeing him asleep throughout the whole week since we got married.
Maybe he was actually stressing himself too much.
I mean, I fall asleep before him and he gets up cubed before me, and also leaves for work while I maze around and do nothing throughout the day.
His face looked extremely peaceful, and smooth. This was the first time I was openly staring at his face for more than a second or two – because most times, when I stare into his face, I’d be unable to look past his hypnotizing eyes.
But now I was looking, and looking, because he was fast asleep.
And dare I say that he looked beautiful?
His eyelashes fanned across his cheeks and I noticed how long and curled up they were. I used to think my brother was the only male that got gifted with long and curly eyelashes, but Luca’s right here was proving me wrong because his seemed to be even longer than that of my brother’s.
His nose was curved in a way that fitted into the middle of his face perfectly.
His lips were small, the lower one fuller than the upper one, and they were a deep shade of pink.
I wonder how they’d feel again if he was to graze it against the side of my neck the way he had done on our wedding night.
They had felt warm that night, I think? I couldn’t even remember really well because I had been extremely frightened that night.
It wasn’t like I wasn’t frightened of him anymore, I was still scared of him because he was human and humans can change at any moment and time, most times, when you least expect them to.
I moved forward and paused when he let out a small sigh and my eyes widened when a scowl appeared on his face, like his head was suddenly starting to pound in his sleep and he was unconsciously trying to fight it away.
I made my way into the bathroom when he let out another sigh before he ended up opening his eyes and catching me there, standing a few feet away from him while staring down at him like a creep.
I closed the bathroom door carefully and cleaned my teeth first, staring at myself in the mirror and watching the way my cheeks were a little bit flushed.
I got out of my clothes, pushing the white skirt I had decided to wear this morning, over my hips and taking off the small top I had changed into this evening. I took off my underwear and heaped everything into where I stored all my dirty clothes.
Praying Luca doesn’t wake up with the urge to want to make use of the bathroom while I was still currently in it, I made my way into the shower and turned on the hot water, setting the mode until it wasn’t all that scorching before getting under the warm spray and allowing it to soak me up immediately.
I dried myself off with a towel and hastily picked out a nightgown to weak to bed. Once I was done, I wore an underwear as well before running my fingers through my hair and staring at myself in the mirror once again.
My face looked relaxed, a little too relaxed for someone that’s in a marriage she doesn’t want to be in. There were no eye bags beneath my eyes, which was most definitely because I haven’t been crying myself to sleep and have been getting enough sleep as well– more than enough sleep after I got my arm injured by falling off the bed.
I pulled open the bathroom door and stepped back into the bedroom. The first thing I did was to glance at Luca, and he was still in the position he was in before I had left to go take a shower.
I walked towards my side of the bed but paused in my tracks and made my way closer to his bed to stare down at him again. There was a light sheen of sweat over his face which wasn’t there before and I wondered if he was still burning up a lot like Sarah had said he was when she had come down the kitchen to inform me about Luca being sick.
Perhaps he was starting to sweat the fever out, which was a really good thing. I just didn’t think him wearing something long and still covering himself up with a blanket was a good idea since I had no doubt he was going to sweat more and more as the time ticked by.
I left his side and walked around the bed until I was getting into my side of the bed. I got underneath the black blanket and pulled it to rest around my waist before laying my head down on the pillow and turning on my side until I was staring at the mop of curls on Luca’s head since he was currently facing his side of the bed.
His hair was very dark, and the curls had always looked very soft to me. Although the looked really rough now, like he had ran a comb through it without fixing it back – it was still looking so good nevertheless and I wanted to touch it, to feel how it would feel between my fingers.
But I wasn’t going to do that, that sounded hella creepy, and I wasn’t a creepy person.
And with that, I drifted off into sleep.
******
The first thing I did after blinking my eyes open and rubbing the remaining sleep away from my eyes with my fingers, was to glance at my side– and there was Luca, still fast asleep.
Making it the first time I was going to wake up with him still sleeping beside me in bed.
So much ‘first times’ ever since he got sick.
A certain voice in my head snickered but I shoved the voice away and rolled out of bed to stretch my hands a little, once I was standing beside my bedside table. A quick glance there reminded me that I had forgotten my phone downstairs, on the couches in the sitting room where I had stayed at, watching television late in into the night until I was sure Luca would have already been asleep, before I finally stood up and turned off the television, then making my way upstairs, into our bedroom.
I glance down at Luca and noticed this time that he had completely kicked off the blanket from his body at a certain point in the middle of the night, probably because of how he had started to sweat up, like I knew he would.
He was also shirtless from the waist upwards and I swallowed emptily before turning my eyes away from his glistening back which was filled with so many muscles. The scar on his back caught my attention and I wanted to turn back around and stare at it again but thought better against it and instead made my way into the bathroom to empty my filled up bladder.
I cleaned myself up and grimaced on noticing a few drops of blood stains on my underwear, the telling sign that I was already on my period. It was a good thing that my first day was a really light flow and I barely feel any kind of pain on those days, compared to the second and third day where the real flow was going to come out, and it was going to be coming with a whole lot of pain.
From body pains to mood swings to stomach cramps to a confusing heated feeling in the depths of my stomach that was always tugging at the center of my core– a feeling which I still couldn’t understand till date.
I took a quick shower, washing my hair thoroughly with shampoos and hair conditioners until the whole bathroom scented heavily with the smell of strawberries. I washed my hair off, squeezing the soap and sods out of it until it wasn’t feeling slippery against my palm anymore.
And then I proceeded to take my bath, the warm water hitting my newly washed hair, arms and breasts to slid down my stomach and back, and to slide between my butt cheeks. I soaped my whole body before rinsing off and exiting the shower room with a towel wrapped around my body, and another one wrapped around my hair, a few minutes later.
I made my way into the bathroom, throwing a glance at the bed to see that although Luca had changed positions, he was still fast asleep, his back moving up and down with the movement of the deep breaths he was dragging into his lungs and body system. I made my way into the walk in closet and picked out a gown to wear. The gown had long sleeves and reached my knees, it was a blue gown and also part of the new clothes mother along with her sisters had gotten for me.
I went back into the bathroom, picked out underwears, and also into my toiletries bag which was nestled in a drawer beneath where my underwear were arranged in – to pick out a piece of tampon which I was going to be making use of, for the next couple of days, because of my period.
I hate being on my period so damn much.
I dressed up and sprayed my little bottle of perfume around me, it was in a small shape, but smelled really heavenly and I know it must have cost a lot.
Mother got it for me for my eighteenth birthday, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t appreciate it. It was rare to receive any kind of kind gesture from her, so each time she does something I do that– I always cherish it, despite how I promise myself that I wasn’t going to care if she still cared about me or not.
******
I stared downstairs from my position up in the balcony, with Ryan, a few feet away from me – as Luca, now dressed in a dark suit, entered one of his numerous cars and was driven out of the compound almost immediately by his driver.
“Are you sure your arm doesn’t hurt anymore, ma’am? I don’t think the doctor would think it’s fine for you to take off your sling without their permission.”
Ryan started to say again and I turned away from the banisters of the balcony to stare at him.
Sometimes Ryan acted like he was genuinely concerned about me, which honestly warmed my heart.
“Yes, it’s fine. It doesn’t hurt anymore.” I said to him again before lifting my right arm and moving it around a little for him to see that I wasn’t bluffing.
“And besides I wouldn’t tell the doctors I took it off today when I get there tomorrow.” I started to say again with a small grin, staring down at my arm and glad that it had healed really faster than I had hoped it would.
“What about Mr Ricci? Won’t mind?” Ryan asked and the smile disappeared off my face immediately.
I chewed at the side of my lips absentmindedly.
Would Luca mind? Would he be concerned?
After all, he had seemed genuinely concerned that day– and had even given me his jacket, which I am still yet to return to him.
“We won’t let him.” I finally said to Ryan who didn’t look completely comfortable with my answer.
I huffed out a small breath and another tiny smile. “Relax, he doesn’t have to know. It’s not like it’s hurting me or something.”
Ryan remained quiet after that, but a part of me knew he wasn’t going to tell me to Luca… not like I think Luca was going to do a thing to me because I had taken my sling off, right?
I leaned into the cushion on the chair in the balcony and breathed out a slow sigh.
Oh well.