Balotelli-Bale Series Book #4: THE OTHER MAN PART 1

Chapter 2: Masks

"...when it is real, you can't walk away..'

Nick's POV

Masks do not only conceal identity but get the wearer in a position to play the role of someone else. It could be someone who is not approved by social standards or a chance to be someone else entirely. I am drawn in by the idea of masks.

I wear masks every day.

For starters and this is my most important mask, the dotting father who will do anything for his daughter. Madeline is the best thing that has ever happened to me. She's the only good that has come from my failed marriage.

I consistently switch between being a father and the cold ruthless business man hell bent on success. This mask was given to me at an early age. I practiced to wear it untill it began to feel like the first one, part of me. Helena rarely treated me like a grandson. I was her apprentice from as early as I could understand what she said. She taught me how Bale Industries works from a very early age and she i still teaching me.

My least favorite one is the tolerant husband who goes home every single day to a house that feels empty and cold because his marriage is a failure. This haunts me because I don't handle failure well. I wasn't raised to fail. Mistakes were not allowed or tolerated. Helena mostly gave me one shot and it was either I excel or I fail. I had to excel in everything. But in regard to relationships, I'm failing if this damn marriage is anything to go by. I stay because of Maddie.

The one I wear well and too comfortably is the estranged son who has not gone back home to Florence for almost ten years and makes zero effort to mend broken bridges. I excel at burning them. Heaven knows how many opportunities I have squandered to fix my broken relationship with my mother. Yes, she is the problem. I have no issues with nonno but I refrain from talking to him because the highlight of our conversation has always been 'make peace with your mother.' My father and I don't talk much and it is all right because that is how we are. A little or no dosage of each other keeps things calm. I don't have the strength to get into my unending conflict with my mother. She is a drama queen who blows every little thing I say out of proportion. It doesn't help that I am petty. Dramatic and petty cannot share the spotlight!

My most recent mask is the married man trying not to drool over a desirable beauty. She will get me in trouble. I know that, but this mask doesn't care. I want to be reckless with her. I can't get her out of mind ever since I saw her at the construction site. I can't look at her like I do other women. There is something in me that is triggering my body into a need to misbehave. It is cold outside but I am sweating and my palms are not excused from it. I dabbed a hankie on my forehead hoping that no one can see the sweat I am breaking because of this woman. This has never happened to me before. It's not that hard for me to get a woman's attention. I am nervous! I'm going over 'pick up lines' in my head. It's like I am a teenager again but the irony is I never had trouble picking up girls. I'm not socially awkward and I can be the occasional flirt. But the script has changed. Keira has written a new one and I am the one going to her. She is turning me into the loser who can't pick up a girl because he is tripping on his words before he even says them.

None of the words I am thinking of saying to her seems appropriate. Is the ballroom overcrowded and too loud for me to think? Or is my body burning up too much for my mind to work? The cold ice box in my chest is beating but not of help where romance is concerned. Now it's romance! Dio! I should slap myself!

The silver dress she is wearing does little to conceal her well-endowed chest. If attention is to paid and proximity possible, I bet I can make out her peaked buds. I folded my hands into fists when I suffered an urge to fondle them. I want to slip off the thin straps from her shoulders and watch the slick dress slide down her frame, all the way to the floor. What a treat! I am so glad people can't read minds!