Chapter 11
CARMELA
T he sidewalks flash past the windows of the car. I sit in the back with Jessica. Our destination is a wedding boutique where a dress will be commissioned, post-haste.
A dress.
I don’t want a dress. Getting one takes me a step closer to marrying Ettore.
What I want is Dante.
God, Dante. Why did he do that? Why did he mess with my mind, showing me all that will never be mine?
I’ve been really stupid. Na?ve, I correct.
I feel used. Betrayed. Once more.
Secrets and lies.
Telling Ettore would be the sensible thing, to disconnect myself from the event, which was wrong on every level. More importantly, non-disclosure is its own kind of risk.
The necklace is still around my throat, hidden underneath my sweater. Its mere presence taunts me about what I should’ve done and did not.
I’m complicit now.
Doesn’t that make me an even bigger fool?
If I tell Ettore, Dante will be dead.
I don’t want Dante to be dead. I don’t even want him to leave me alone.
“It will be our little secret.”
My fingers itch to touch the necklace hidden under my clothes. I slept with my fingers around the heart all night.
“Lie for me.”
Only, lying doesn’t come naturally to me. My face is a giveaway. Really, it’s not my forte at all. Jessica? She could probably pull it off.
I guess I will learn.
My mind is stuck in a loop, remembering what he did to me in my father’s study. Making me believe it meant something, only to crush my hopes.
We took a stupid risk; one I must put behind me and out of my mind. The truth? I’d give anything to do it again, for him to put his hands on me once more.
“If you were mine, I’d have taken the time. But you’re not, and this is all I’ve got.”
His words are bitter poetry; the memory of his touch, burning flames.
“Happy birthday, sweetheart.”
The necklace he gave me singes my flesh: a piece of him is still touching me.
“This is going to be awful with a capital A,” Jessica mutters beside me.
I huff out a breath, glancing toward the front of the vehicle.
The driver likely can’t hear us, but I’m still glad she kept her voice low.
We’re meeting Ettore’s sister at the wedding boutique.
If Helena was a bitch before, she’s turned into a queen bitch now.
The only saving grace is that Ettore doesn’t cope with her either, so she will return to her other brother’s home after the wedding.
Helena will be gone.
But so will my sister.
“Yeah,” I agree.
Her eyes are still on me. “What happened?”
She’s too young for this conversation, but either way, the less she knows the better.
“I know something happened. Does he have a plan?”
I glance toward the driver again. He isn’t paying any attention and thankfully her words were suitably vague.
“No,” I say bluntly. “I wish he did.”
“What did you talk about then?”
I snort inelegantly.
“Did he kiss you,” she whispers, smirking.
I shoot her a warning glare. If only it were just a kiss. Words are forming in my mind. Ones I shouldn’t speak. My heart kicks up a beat. “I need you to lie for me.”
Her eyes search mine. She grins, showcasing the side of Jessica that thrives on drama. “As if I’d tell anyone.”
“Not that…” I grimace. “Not only that.”
God, I’m actually doing this, caught somewhere between jubilation at my first experience with a man, and desolation because it’s made everything worse.
I’d resigned myself to the wedding and told myself I could learn to like Ettore.
He’s polite and courteous. So what if his eyes on me makes me feel uncomfortable?
He’s going to be my husband. He has every right to look at me.
“I want your firsts. All of them.”
I don’t know what Dante’s plan is, but I know I’m going to see him again, that he will touch me, and, worse, that I will welcome it.
“Go on,” she says. “In case it’s not obvious, I don’t want you to marry Ettore. He’s almost as bad as his stalker brother, Cosmo.”
“Please stop calling him a stalker.”
She smirks. “He kind of is… But I promise not to call him that to his face. Christian calls him creepy Cosmo. Maybe I’ll start calling him that instead.”
“Christian is unstable. Please don’t learn from him.”
“Well, I like him,” she says a little defensively. “He says what he thinks. Probably calls Cosmo a creep to his face.”
I snort a laugh, and then I want to cry because our lives are going to hell, and I don’t want that to change Jessica. Yet how can it not?
“He probably does,” I concede. “But at least try not to learn from him.”
“I can’t help it. He’s going to be hanging around all the time. He’s fun.”
Fun? That’s not the word that comes to mind when I think of Christian. Bad news. Unhinged. I can’t believe he told me Dante wanted to speak to me when that obviously wasn’t true. None of this would have happened if Christian hadn’t sent me to speak to his brother.
I want to hate him for it.
Like I want to hate myself for not being stronger, for not pushing Dante away, for not fucking screaming.
But I don’t hate any of it. I have a feeling it’s going to be the highlight of my desperate life.
I carefully draw the necklace from underneath my blouse.
Jessica’s eyes widen. “Oh, that’s gorgeous.”
“My mother gave it to me,” I say.
“She did not,” she scoffs.
I roll my eyes.
“Ah.” She grins. “You’re right, she did.”
“I don’t want to take it off.” And doesn’t that feel like the deepest, darkest confession?
“Then don’t,” she says. “Mama gave us many things Papa didn’t know about or wouldn’t remember. It’s pretty. No one will question it.”
She doesn’t ask who gave it to me or why I need to lie about it. She’s only sixteen and more clued in than I’m sometimes comfortable with. She is also innocent, well, as much as any girl her age is, and I desperately want her to stay that way for as long as possible.
We pull up outside the bridal boutique. The driver opens the door for us.
Helena is already there with her demon child in tow.
Peony is swinging on a cream, diamanté-studded wedding gown hanging from a rack.
Lillete, her nanny, is hovering nearby like she’s torn between peeling the child off the expensive gown and not interfering at the risk of courting Helena’s wrath.
Peony? I still can’t wrap my mind around that choice of name for the daughter of Satan.
There are no less than five boutique consultants present. The shop is closed to everybody but us; our guards will wait in the lobby. No one will be confused about the kind of people shopping here today.
“Girls.” Helena lifts her glass of champagne in salute and comes over to bestow us both with air kisses. It’s ten o’clock in the morning, but I guess we’re starting early.
“I’ve been browsing and selected a few dresses for you to try. I know my brother’s taste.”
“What about Carmela’s taste?” Jessica says.
“You’re a child.” Helena pauses to sip the champagne. “You can’t possibly understand this. But trust me. Satisfying your husband in our world is the most important thing any wife can do.”
“So, she’s not allowed an opinion anymore?” Jessica says.
I can feel a headache forming. “Jessica, please don’t. Let’s look at all the dresses Helena has picked, and you can choose some for me too.”
The moment the words leave my lips, I realize I’ve just doomed myself to piss someone off.
I can’t help but reflect on how it might have gone if my mother was still alive.
How she would have encouraged me to choose, but also offered guidance.
Before we left, I would have found the perfect gown.
Jessica would have muttered about stupid dresses, but in the end she would have been happy for me.
“Perhaps you’d like a drink before you try a few of the selected gowns?” an assistant says, approaching.
I ask for sparkling water, and Jessica asks for juice. And so begins a farce about selecting a wedding dress for a wedding I don’t want.
Despite Helena’s coaching, it’s not Ettore’s approval I have in mind as I try on the gowns.
It’s Dante’s.