Alessandra woke up to the sounds of giggling coming from where Luca was sitting. She slowly lifted up her eye mask so that she could see what he was doing without him knowing. The stewardess was giggling at something he said when she poured him a drink. From the look of the bottle it was a whiskey or scotch. Luca smiled at the stewardess, clearly enjoying the flirting. Alessandra looked on in disgust. She couldn't believe that the man she had to call her husband was willing to flirt with a girl right in front of her. More so, he thought she was asleep so what else was he willing to do behind her back.
Luca pulled the stewardess closer and whispered something in her ear. Alessandra looked away in disgust. The stewardess walked towards the front of the plane, swaying her hips, no doubt trying to keep Luca's attention. Alessandra couldn't couldn't help but think that stewardess was in fact pretty but she was pretty in a convetional way. Once she took off all that makeup she would just be average.
Luca cleared his throat. Alessandra didn't respond because she was supposed to still be asleep. Luca cleared his throat again, "I know you are awake." He said not looking up from whatever was concealed in his lap. Alessandra slowly turned her head to look at him taking her mask off the rest of the way.
"How do you feel?" he asked nonchalantly.
"I'm fine, thank you, I told you I just needed to sleep for awhile." Her voice had a hint of coldness in it that put Luca on edge. Maybe she wasn't completely over her migraine he thought. Not wanting to cause more trouble he sat silently starring down at his lap until the stewardess came back.
"Here ya go, Mr. Mazzanti" she giggled as she placed a food tray in front of him. However, instead of giggling with her like before he shushed her and pointed over to Alessandra, motioning her to be quiet.
"Oh, okay. Do you need anything else, Mr. Mazzanti." she whispered.
"No, make sure Alessandra doesn't want something before heading back though." he stared thoughtfully at his wife. He felt bad that he hadn't noticed she didn't eat at the reception, a man is supposed to watch over his wife after all. The stewardess glared at Alessandra before walking over to her asking if she would like anything to eat or drink. Luca always flirted with her. He always asked to have her be the stewardess on his flights and now he is disregarding her because of this chick. How dare she take what is her's. She didn't hear what Alessandra had asked for so she figured she would bring her a Coke since that is what she wanted for her headache before.
As she was bringing the drink back to Alessandra she decided she was going to show her who Luca cared about more. When she got closer to her seat she pretended to trip, spilling the ice cold drink on to Alessandra's lap. However, she acted a little too well and let the glass slip out of her hand. It shattered at Alessandra's bare feet. So now she was not only cold, wet, and sticky, she couldn't even move to clean herself up. The stewardess feigned pity, begging Alessandra to forgive her as she held her scrapped knee.
When Luca reached their side, he held out his hand but before she could take it, Alessandra was already holding it in her own. In one swift movement, Luca picked up Alessandra and moved her over to the couch out of harms way before beginning to clean up the glass. The stewardess sat on the floor in disbelief that her plan didn't work.
"You really need to be more careful. She could have gotten hurt on the cut glass. Besides why were you bringing her a Coke anyway she asked for a bottle of water." Luca didn't look up from the soda stained floor as he continued to pick up shards of glass. Only once Luca was sure all the glass was picked up did he allow Alessandra to get up from the couch to go change into something that didn't have both champagne and Coke spilled on it in the same night.
The stewardess pulled herself up from the floor and straightened out her uniform before heading back to the front of the plane. But before she could get there. Luca grabbed her arm and pulled her close enough so only they could hear what he was about to say, "Did you really think I would choose to help you over my wife. She is legally bound to me, you are just someone I used when I wanted to have a little fun." he hissed in her ear before letting her go back to her station. Tears began to well up in her eyes but she willed them away knowing it wouldn't be long until he got bored of his new toy and came back to her.
It wasn't long before Alessandra came out sporting a pair of jeans, a loose t-shirt, and a pair of black converse. She had taken the liberty of taking her hair out of her wedding updo and putting it in a braided ponytail. Her face was also freshly washed and cleaned. Luca decided she was even prettier without the makeup on, but that he would never tell her that.
Since Alessandra's chair was now wet she had no choice but to sit on the couch with Luca. She was still mad at him for being so blatantly flirty right in front of her and even waiting until she left to pull the stewardess closer to him even for just a moment. From this vantage point, however, she could see that the thing in Luca's lap was a book. She couldn't see the title but he seemed pretty interested in it, he hadn't even noticed that she had come back.
.....
Luca may not have looked up from his book, but he knew that Alessandra had returned and sat down closer to him than before. And even though he thought his book was interesting, the truth was, he couldn't focus on the words he was reading. He still felt something was off with Alessandra. She had barely spoken two words to him the entire plane ride, granted she was asleep for half of it.
"Are you alright?" He asked closing his book.
"I'm fine, thank you." she said coldly. Truthfully she was angry angry he would flirt in front of her without caring. But she felt a slight tinge of jealously, too. She was upset that she would probably never have a relationship like that, one where she didn't care who was around them, all that mattered was they were together. The thought upset her even more so she tried to push it out of her head.
"You don't seem like you're fine. Is it your head? I can get your medicine, or if you want something else." Luca began to get get up to get her bag, but she stopped him.
"My head is fine, and I don't want anything, but thank you." she was getting angry now that he was pretending to care after flirting with another woman.
Luca started getting irritated with his wife's attitude. He was trying to help her and she wanted to continue to be cold towards him. He didn't do anything wrong, why is she being rude?
"Look, I don't know what crawled up your ass but could you cut the attitude with me." he hissed at her. Alessandra looked shocked at his statement and scoffed.
"Maybe if you could keep it in your pants, I wouldn't have an attitude. I knew I would have to deal with other women but I thought you could at least have the decency to wait 24 hours." she spat back at him clearly catching him off guard.
It suddenly made sense to Luca. Alessandra obviously saw him and the stewardess flirting and being close together, and she was right, she would have to deal with other women in his life but the 12 hours from their wedding to now was record time to move on to someone else, especially in her presence. Luca realized that he couldn't be mad at her anymore because she wasn't mad at the thought of him being unfaithful, just the idea of him doing it in their first night as husband and wife and right in front of her. Her thoughts and attitude were justified. He imagined if it would have been the other way around he would have already had the guy killed for damaging his ego. After calming down a little Luca began to speak.
"It was not what you think. I was not flirting with her." he took a deep breath and decided to tell the truth. "we did use to have a relationship in the past and she seemed to think that was still going to happen. After telling her it wasn't going to she got upset, I was trying to make he feel like I didn't completely reject her." After Alessandra didn't say anything he continued, "if you want, we can come up with ground rules, but I will not promise anything, especially if you're not willing to compromise with me."
Alessandra nodded her head in agreement but didn't say anything. She was shocked that Luca was truthful with her. The Luca she heard about didn't care if he hurt others feelings, why should he care now. This Luca was different than everything she had heard over the years, and it completely dumbfounded her.