Estranged Husband, Secret Billionaire

Palermo, Sicily

Claudia

I’m turning a corner. I haven’t opened the fridge or rearranged the cushions in the last hour. Alright, it’s not even nine o’clock, but it’s a good start. And now I’m ready to get going and catch up on work.

Step One. Open laptop

Step Two. Crack knuckles purposefully.

Step Three. Start typing.

‘The big bad wolf threatened the three little pigs, “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house in— and by the way, I’m running a temperature so I’ll give you my nasty virus too!”.’ Sorry, scrap the last bit. With what’s going on around me, it’s just too close to the truth.

The doorbell. It must be the neighbours but I have no toilet paper to give away— or lend, yuk!—and I’m out of paper tissues, kitchen roll and even…sandpaper. My bidet is broken too so I’m about to reach the level of desperation which makes a writer contemplate using her own books to wipe her arse, which would be tantamount to eating my own children—only, through my arse, which is even more disgusting.

I scrape my chair back, drag my ridiculously oversized Winnie Pooh slippers across the room, and open the door. A man in a police uniform stands before me. “Signora Geraci?”

That name makes my skin curl. Nobody’s called me with my ex’s name for years. Only problem is Gianluca isn’t my ex. Technically, we’re still married. So I say, “yes?”

“I’ve brought you back your husband.”

It’s only then that I notice that the policeman isn’t alone. Someone is sort-of-hiding behind him. And it’s Gianluca. I thought I would never have to see him again. He should be in Singapore. He looks more muscly than I remembered him, more tanned, and he’s shiny with sweat. My skin prickles because I hate him, but a rogue part of me feels attracted because he’s still extremely hot.

“We’ve caught him jogging further than the two hundred meters from his home he’s allowed under lockdown rules.”

“This is not my home! I told you already!” Gianluca protests.

He sounds as arsy as before.

“This is the address on your driving licence and identity card,” the officer tells him.

“I couldn’t change it, I was living abroad!”

I find a wicked enjoyment in seeing him suffer. This is a good little show.

The officer turns to me. “Can you confirm that you are his wife?”

Technically I am. We didn’t have time to register the separation before he left the country, and we never got round to divorcing. So I’m still his wife. “Unfortunately, yes.”

“Come on, Claudia, be a good girl and tell him that I don’t live here,” Gianluca says.

‘Be a good girl’? There’s no way I’ll do anything he asks if he talks to me like that. I push out my chest, tilt my chin up and say with a smirk, “He lives here.”

Gianluca’s eyes turn manga-big, with angry flames in his pupils. He mouths “bitch” to me.

“If he gets caught again, he’ll be charged against article six hundred and fifty of the penal code and can be fined up to two hundred and six euros and imprisoned for up to three months,” the officer tells me seriously.

I try my best to look impressed, even though prisons don’t sound very scary now that we’re all under lockdown-house-arrests, and perhaps they even have toilet paper there.

“Keep him at home, Signora.”

The officer speaks to me as if I had any power over Gianluca—like one has over, say, a child or a dog. It gives me a frisson of pleasure because I know that Gianluca must be hating it.

Until I realise what the man is asking me.

“Sorry, do you meant that you want me to keep him… here?”

He looks at me like I’m asking something so obvious that it’s stupid. And I feel like dying.

~~~

Gianluca

The policeman has gone and now it’s just Claudia and me, facing each other, she standing at her door and me just outside.

“Aren’t you letting me in?” I ask her.

She looks confused as if she hasn’t just told the policeman that I live here. Why the cazzo has she done that?

“You’re not really going to stay here,” she says, defiant.

“Then you shouldn’t have told the officer that I live here. Why did you do that?”

“I wanted you to get a fine.”

At least she’s honest.

“But now you have to let me in. You’ve cut off your nose to spite your face.”

She automatically touches her nose before remembering that it’s just a saying.

“What are you doing in Palermo? You were supposed to be in Singapore.” She’s still standing in the doorway, not letting me in.

“Why, do I need your permission to come back?”

“Certainly not. It’s none of my business now. But you should have updated your address in your documents.”

“I haven’t had time.” I haven’t built a company worth billions out of nothing in three years by wasting time. But there’s no need for her to know any of that. “And now, because of your clever idea, you’re stuck with me.”

Gianluca

“I’m not stuck with you, because you’re leaving now,” she says.

Cazzo, she’s still beautiful— even more when she gets angry.

“I’m not. Didn’t you hear the officer? I’ll end up in prison if I break the lockdown rules,” I tell her.

She bites her bottom lip, which means she’s feeling cornered. “Prison will be more pleasant than staying with me.”

“No thanks. I don’t want a criminal record. I’m staying here. Let me in or I’ll report you to the officer.”

She opens the door a little more and moves out of the way just enough that I don’t have to brush against her but not enough to make me feel welcome. Now I get a good view of the flat inside.

Except for the mismatched cushions piled on what used to be my side of the sofa, the flat hasn’t changed much. Memories smack into me like a tsunami.

We often didn’t make it to the bed and ended up shagging on the sofa like horny teenagers. Once, I took her against the front door—on the indoors side, but only just. That time, it took a superhuman effort not to start undressing her in the lift.

Cazzo, I only went out for an innocent jog and I’ve been catapulted back into my old life! I need a drink, preferably with a high alcoholic content.

I stride to the kitchen and open the fridge. “What have you got to drink?”

“Excuse me, Mr Tiger-Who-Came-To-Tea, but if you think that you’re going to be fed here, you are mistaken.”

“This shelf it about to fall off, you need to fix it. What’s this? Soya milk? Have you gone vegan or something?”

“Don’t drink it or you’ll grow breasts. It contains phytoestrogen.”

“Is that why you drink it? Don’t, or you’ll topple over.”

She widens her eyes. “Impertinent!”

“So, what can I eat?” We used to keep the biscuits in the top right cabinet. I open it and a packet of lentils falls out . Two pots of miso paste and a jar of tahini stare back at me reproachingly. She’s turned our cakes-and-biscuits cupboard into a health shop. I hate this. It’s like a parallel world where everything looks familiar but isn’t. “Is there anything fit for human consumption in this kitchen?”

“Nothing at all, that’s why you need to leave ASAP.”

“Look, Claudia. I don’t wish to stay here any more than you wish me to, and I promise that I’ll leave as soon as it’s safe. But I left my hotel this morning without breakfast and I’m starving. To escape this place, I’ll probably have to do parkour. I need fuel. Even if you hate me, there must be a little compassion at the bottom of your cold heart for a fellow human being who’s only skin and bones.”

She gives me a once over and something flashes across her face. I recognise it from eons ago—another world, another time. It’s desire. It’s only one pulse of a moment before she’s called it back where it’s come from, but it’s too late. I’ve seen it.

~~~

Claudia

He’s not skin and bone. He’s muscles and bone. Lean muscle stretched on a long and elegant frame. Every cell in my body still wants him. I catch myself staring and I blink my gaze away. What a cruel trick of nature that a male chauvinistic pig and shameless liar should be packaged so nicely.

No woman should be confronted with her hot ex wearing only shorts and a tight T-shirt when she’s not prepared. In my lowest moments, I’ve fantasized about meeting Gianluca again. He would be unshaven and pale, clearly still suffering from our breakup, while I would be freshy coiffed, in a sexy evening dress, at the arm of some other man.

In none of my fantasies was I opening the door of my flat wearing oversized Winnie-the-Pooh slippers with my hair held back by a broken pencil and one week’s worth of grease. When the doorbell rang, I assumed it was a neighbour asking for an egg or toilet paper.

“Please.”

“I have some chocolate, if that’s what you mean by food. You can have it if you promise to leave in the next hour.” Please, get out of my life and return to the ends of the earth where you’ve come from.

He lets out a breath. “Thanks.”

I dig into the back of the pasta and sauces cupboard and pull out the bar of chocolate.

“Why do you hide it if you know where it is?” he asks, but only after he’s got the bar securely in his hands—the coward.

“I hide it so I don’t see it and remember it.” I did the same to get over you.

He snaps four squares off the bar and pops them into his mouth all in one go. I usually only snap one and lick it slowly.

Then he reaches for a glass in the cabinet over the sink with familiarity and confidence—like someone who’s at home. Because this has been his home, and now seeing him here again is unsettling me. As he effortlessly reaches into the depths of the cupboards, I feel violated.

I shouldn’t have stayed in this flat, it would have been much easier if I had moved out, away from all the memories, and started over on a clean slate. And, of course, if I had done that, the policeman could never have brought him back to me.

Gianluca takes his glass of water and walks out of the kitchen to the sitting room window. He stands there while his legs’ muscles twitch.

“Cazzo, of all the places!”

“What’s the matter?” I move closer and peer out the window.

“They’ve parked just in front of this building!”

A police anti-riot van is parked on the street below. “Did they take you here in that?”

He scowls at me and I snort a laugh. “Don’t worry, I’m sure that they’ll go away for lunch.”

He scans the room and I feel naked. All my life is here, exposed to his gaze. My job on my laptop on the desk in the corner. The books I love, spilled onto the dining table from the overfed bookshelves. The sofa where we’ve had sex many times, now overflowing with cushions to fill the emptiness of his absence.

“Sit down and don’t disturb me. I’ve got work to do,” I say sternly.

“I need clothes.”

“What sort of clothes?”

He lifts his shoulders and opens his arms. “Men’s clothes, what do you think?” he says sarcastically.

“I haven’t got any.”

“So you don’t have a new man.”

I stiffen. “That’s none of your business.”

A smirk tugs at the corners of his lips. “Calm down, tiger.”

“What do you want clothes for, anyway? You’re not staying here.”

“I just thought that if I don’t look like I’m jogging, I might not get stopped again.”

I have to admit that it’s a good idea, but it doesn’t change the fact that I don’t have any men’s clothes in the flat, so I feel like a failure for not having another man living with me or even occasionally sleeping here.

In fact, I haven’t slept with anyone since Gianluca. I’m sure that’s not the case for him but I probably don’t want to know the answer and I certainly won’t stoop down to ask.

“Sit on the sofa and be quiet because I’m working,” I order him, then sit at the desk and fire up my laptop.

“I can’t sit.” He paces the small living room like a horse in a ring that’s too small. I’ll just have to ignore him and focus on my work.

I type on my laptop: ‘The big bad wolf threatened the three little pigs: “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house in! The piglets shouted: “You can’t come in!” but the big bad wolf wouldn’t take no for an answer. He lowered himself into the chimney and fell straight into a pot of boiling water.’