Chapter 21- SHOPPING

Leonardo lay in his bed, looking up at the ceiling as he tried to distract himself from the damage that he had caused down stairs. His words had deeply hurt his mother, the saddened look on her face as he pointed out her addiction before his wife was a look that haunted him.

The silence in his room was by far the second most annoying thing, the silence taunting him repeatedly, so much that he placed a pillow over his face. Anything was better than seeing his mother's face appearing before his eyes.

The door to his room swung open and slammed back shut, Leonardo removed the pillow from his face and looked at the direction of his door and there Aurora stood, hands on her hips and not a smile on her face.

'You should not have done that" she uttered, giving him a displeasured glance. Another reminder that he had messed up and there was no better person to remind him than the woman he was made to marry.

'Avena if you are here to upset me then it is best that you leave" Leonardo advised her and quickly covered his head with a pillow once more. To Aurora's dismay, she walked up towards their bed and removed the pillow from his face and this time she was not afraid to face her husband. 'I am speaking to you!"

Aurora raised her voice at him, this time catching his attention. Perhaps more than she would have liked to. Like a speed of lighting, Leonardo stood from his bed, this time looking down at her and Aurora, looking up at him. His broad shoulders spanning wider than the width of her own body and his eyes focused on her as though she was his meal and he, ready to devour her.

'Leave me alone" he warned her, his voice elevated but not once did Aurora it scare her. Aurora had come face to face with men who were monsters but the man who stood before her was not one, his eyes held nothing other than pure love for his mother.

Her mother had looked at her with nothing but love when she was alive and now, seeing Leonardo look at her with the very same look, another form of reassurance that he loved his mother.

'I am sorry" Aurora apologized; her action stunned Leonardo who raised his eyebrow, questioning her action.

'Why are you apologizing?" he asked her, suspicious of her need to apologize to him, when he was clearly in the wrong. Without replying to him, Aurora glided past him and sat on their matrimonial bed, turning only to meet her softened eyes looking back at him.

'I guess I was upset with the way in which you handled matters, without realizing that you probably meant well and it might not have sounded right" she explained. Leonardo could not believe his eyes, he had waited for Aurora to snap at him or push him to the limit but to his amazement, Aurora had gone another route.

The more Leonardo thought that he had his wife figured out; the more she surprised him, showing him a new side to her. Calmly leaning his back towards the wall and placing both his hands inside his denim jeans, Leonardo's careful gaze studied his wife.

'Why?"

'Why?"

'Yes Avena. Why? One minuet you are this despicable woman that no man or woman could stand and the next minuet you… you turn into the most understanding person in the world" Leonardo voiced out whilst Aurora stared at him, listening or rather watching his lips move, seducing her as it slapped against each other.

'Are you listening to me?"

'Yes!" Aurora answered, jumping up from the bed as she tried to remove the image of Leonardo's sexy lips from her mind. Her face heating up, the more she looked at him the more her mouth watered.

'Are you even listening to me?"

'Yes I am" she lied, hoping that Leonardo would not push for the truth.

'Then what did I say?" Leonardo asked her, Aurora's pupils widening as she realized that she was caught in a lie. With a swift move of her hand, Aurora tucked her hair behind her ear as a distraction. Aurora climbed out of the bed, once again, she walked past Leonardo and walked towards the couch on the opposite end of the room.

'Running away again, I see"

'I am not running away from you, I am simply tired from the long flight" Aurora half lied, her back facing Leonardo.

'Then why are you not looking at me?" Leonardo dared her. She turned her to face him, a smile plastered on her face as though his words were nothing but a joke to her.

'I am tired, Leonardo and I need to sleep" she reiterated, removing her bag from the couch and laying on it. She placed her hands behind her neck, relaxing as she shut her eyes.

'What are you doing?"

'What does it look like I am doing?" Aurora responded to his question with a question of her own.

'It looks like you are sleeping on the couch rather than on the bed" Leonardo pointed out the obvious which only made Aurora smile inwardly.

'Yes I am sleeping on the couch, you can have the bed" She offered him. An uncomfortable feeling washed over him at the thought of having his wife sleep on the couch whereas he would sleep on the bed.

'You can have the bed and I will take the couch"

'No thank you, I much prefer the couch" Aurora stood her ground once more and went back to seep. Seeing that Aurora was in no way moving or changing her mind, Leonardo removed his hands from his pockets and walked towards his wife. The anger that was coursing through his veins faded away as he lingered over his wife, captivated by the rise and fall of her chest, Leonardo smiled.

Once again, she has captivated him without effort on her part but by simply being herself. Without wasting any more time, with one swift move, he scooped her up in his arms.

'Hey, put me down!" Aurora yelled at him, slapping her hand against Leonardo's chest as she tried to wiggle out of his arms but all her efforts were lost as Leonardo was too strong for her.

'Stop wiggling" Leonardo told her as he walked up towards their king size bed and threw her onto it.

'Hey!" Leonardo clapped his hands together, smiling as he watched as Aurora tried to untangle herself from the mountain of sheets wrapped around her, in her effort to escape from their bed.

'You look beautiful when you whine" he teased her. Aurora untangled herself from the sheets and angrily looked at Leonardo, her nails digging into the sheets.

'Don't you ever lift me up like that!" Aurora warned, her index finger pointed directly at Leonardo whose hands were crossed over his chest and smiling at her. The more Aurora's face reddened, the more amusing he found it to be.

'You look so cute when you smile like that" and without waiting for her to say another word, Leonardo walked away from his bed and settled onto the couch and winked at her. His gesture not only surprised Aurora but left her feeling embarrassed that Leonardo would do such a thing.

'What are you doing on that couch?" she asked him, sliding off the bed and stomping her feet towards the couch, she tapped him on his shoulder. Already tired and pretending as though the couch was much comfortable than the bed, Leonardo opened one eye and looked at her.

'Yes" he answered, yawning in the process.

'You are sleeping in my space" Aurora told him, her feet tapping onto the floor out of sheer frustration but none of that seemed to bother him. Swinging his feet over the couch until it landed on the floor. The smile on his face was gone but replaced with calmer demeanor.

'My apologies my dear wife but I do not see your name on this couch, do you?" Leonardo pointed out to her, his answers only infuriating her, but he made sense. She watched as Leonardo shut his eyes and went to sleep, leaving her standing beside him, annoyed. Taking her hand one last time and she hit him against his shoulder, sending him jolting up from the couch, looking at her irritably.

'I am starting to think that you married me for the mare purpose of frustrating my life" he responded, but his words had not had any effect on Aurora as she stood beside him, hands over her chest and tapping her feet on the floor.

'I want you to get off my couch" she firmly told him, standing her ground at all times.

'I am not giving up my couch Avena Russo, if you were used to being given anything and everything that you wanted. Well I am sorry to disappoint you my dear but this time you will not have your way" Leonardo stood firm on his words and without effort, swung his legs over the couch and he went back to sleep.

Aurora stood her ground but yet again, she had lost this fight and walked back towards her bed. Jumping onto her bed and sitting at the edge, she eyed her husband as he slept like a newborn baby. After nearly a half an hour, watching the rise and fall of his chest and his lips try so much that she wished that she could kiss them.

Snap out of it, Aurora, he belongs to Avena and not you. She reminded herself. Deep in her heart, knowing that this was not for her and when Avena came back, she would have to leave this newfound family.

Aurora removed the sheets and stepped right into her bed shutting her eyes and wishing that she could get some sleep and ready for the day ahead.

**
The sun shorn through the curtains so bright, blinding Leonardo on the couch. He quickly covered his eyes eye's, hoping that it would bring him some relief but it did not.

'Who is that?" Leonardo asked as his eyes adjusted to the sun, only to find that it was one of the helpers standing by the window.

'Good morning signor Leonardo" she greeted him, bowing her head and looking at the floor rather than at him, one of the many traits that Leonardo hated.

'Can you at least look at me when speaking?" he watched a the helper's eyes met with his and she smiled, nothing touched Leonardo's heart more than knowing that his employees respected him rather than feared him.

'That's better" he told her.

He looked around the neatly cleaned room and smiled back at the helper. 'You did a magnificent job, the room looks very clean" he complimented her and her smile brightened.

'Thank you signor, but I did not clean this room. I must admit that I too was shocked to see that this room was this clean before I walked in" she confessed, her confession leaving Leonardo more confused than before.

'If you did not do it, then who cleaned the room?"

'Well signor, it was signora Avena that cleaned the entire room" the helper responded cheerfully. Her response was one that left him Leonardo stunned, so much that he sat frozen on the couch as he tried to process this new information brought to him.

'Signor?"

'Yes!" he responded and looked up at the helper, whose eyes now filled with worry as she watched Leonardo drift into an imaginary land of his own.

'I was worried… you seemed lost" she stuttered.

'Yes I was in a world of my own. Come to think of it, where is my wife?"

'She left with your mother this morning" the helper responded, her response registering through him as though he had been hit in the chest by a thousand pound boulder.

'What?" he asked the helper as Leonardo could not believe his ears. His mother had gone against his instructions and worst, Aurora agreed to accompany her.

'Yes signor, they went out early this morning—" he bolted off his couch and out of the room before hearing the last of what the helper had wanted to say to him. He needed to see his mother and he needed to see her now before she could do the unthinkable.

Now out of breath from running throughout the entire Romano mansion and still no sign of his mother and newlywed wife. Still in his shorts and t-shirt, he ran his fingers through his messy hair, troubled.