Sweet Temptation

by Cora Reilly

“Can we get the baby now?”

Acute pain sliced through my chest. I looked at the little boy I loved more than anything in the world. I’d never loved Gaia, not for herself.

I’d respected and cared for her because she’d given me the purest gift in the world: a child.

The moment Father looked at me, I wished I could have kept this from him.

He limped toward me, looking pale and weak. He gripped my shoulder, his eyes searching mine.

“If you want to make Gaia disappear after the baby is born, nobody would blame you, ...

Giving away Daniele? Even our unborn baby girl had already lodged herself into my heart since I’d first heard her heartbeat and seen the ultrasound image.

“Cassio, be reasonable. You need an heir. You can’t want to raise the children of another man. For God’s sake, those kids might be the result of incest. It’s sin.”

“Sin,” I repeated, chucklin...

“I beat a man to death with my bare hands today. I skinned and burned a biker today to get information. I’ve kill...

“There won’t be another discussion, Father. Daniele and Simona are my children, end of story. Anyone who claims otherwise will have to pay the price.”

“I’m not. I respect you. Don’t destroy this by saying something I won’t forgive.”

“The dark is where we’re all most comfortable.”

Three weeks later, Simona was born by Cesarean section.

Elia, Sybil, and Mia took turns keeping an eye on her. I couldn’t even be in the same room with her without her getting hysterical.

I gladly avoided her, however. Even though I hadn’t loved her, her betrayal cut me in a way I hadn’t thought possible.

My home had been my safe haven, a place where I could relax after grueling workdays, and my children were the light of my life. Now eve...

Daniele didn’t understand why he couldn’t visit his mother, but I was scared for him and sca...

Gaia had always been vindictive, and now she had a r...

When I held Simona the day after her birth, because Gaia didn’t want me there during labor, I fell in love with that little girl. Blood meant little ...

But Gaia focused most of her love and attention on the last gift from Andrea: Loulou.

She treated the dog as if it was a human, lavished it with tenderness and loving words she should have given only Daniele and Simona.

Four months after Simona’s birth, on the day of our eighth anniversary, Gaia ended it all.

Small bloody paw prints covered the beige carpet.

Simona lay unmoving and everything in me stilled. In the one second I considered her death, I understood why Gaia wanted to kill herself after losing Andrea.

I wrenched Simona up so fast, she came awake with an ear-splitting scream. God, it was the most beautiful sound in the world.

I clutched her to my chest despite her relentless cries and kissed the top of her ...

Loulou barked then squeaked. Simona in my arms, I walked out of the room. Daniele stood in the corridor a few steps from his mother’s bedr...

“Daniele, what happened?”

“Found Loulou. Where’s Mom?”

Even knowing what I’d find, the sight slammed into me like a punch to the gut. I approached the bed slowly.

One of Gaia’s arms hung limply down the side of the bed, still dripping blood onto the hardwood floor.

amount of which told me that I didn’t have to ca...

Even lifeless, she was still beautiful.

She’d chosen to wear her wedding dress when she killed herself.

She’d even curled her hair the same way she’d worn it on the day we made our vows. How long had she planned this?

“Cassio, don’t you have a dinner reservation with Gaia?”

“Gaia is dead.”

“Can you repeat that?” “Gaia is dead.” “Cassio—” “Someone needs to clean this up before the kids see it. Send a...

closed her eyelids then picked up her last letter with shaking fingertips.

I wasn’t sad about losing her. I’d never had her to begin with. She’d been Andrea’s, even after his death.

I felt a deep sadness over what this meant for Daniele and Simona and a raging madness toward the people who were responsible for this mess.

Toward her parents who’d forced her into a marriage with me, even though they’d known...

Behind him, my father leaned heavily on his walking stick, looking furious as he scanned the letter.

“Don’t you dare feel guilty, Cassio,” he muttered.

“That’s what she wanted. She cheated on you, probably helped her brother leak information to the bikers, tried to kill your children. She...

“You didn’t choose to marry her either. You both were thrown into this marriage for tactical purposes. You ar...

“I don’t know how much Daniele s...

My wife had killed herself because of me. I’d been the final nail in her coffin, but her parents had built the fucking thing.

Twenty minutes later, I knocked at my in-laws’ house. When they opened the door, I pointed my gun at them.