Chapter 15
CARMELA
“ H ow was your day, Carmela?” Ettore asks, checking his cell phone and barely sparing a glance at me.
We are having dinner at Il Giardino, a stark contrast to my last meal here with my parents. It was the evening before my party. I was thrilled with the bracelet Dante had given me for my graduation present and excited about the future.
Now I lurch between obsession and worry over the necklace Dante gave me, and I’m anxious about my future.
How times have changed.
“It was good.” I cried about Mama again.
“We visited Papa.” He looked old and frail, and I barely recognized him.
Visiting him made Jessica cry. “Then we came home, and I helped Jessica with her coursework.” Her coursework is all done, but neither of us can stand spending time with your sister.
“Cosmo called by, which was nice of him.” It wasn’t nice.
He makes me deeply uncomfortable. “He didn’t stay long.
” If Christian hadn’t been there after bringing us home from seeing Papa, I’m certain he would have lingered a lot longer.
I honestly don’t know what to make of Christian. My feelings regarding him are chaotic at best, but he has a presence for a man so young. Cosmo’s face when Christian walked back in was comical in its terror. Christian clamped a hand on Cosmo’s shoulder and cheerfully quipped, “How’s it hanging?”
Cosmo’s face lost all color. He mumbled an excuse and left.
“Cosmo?” Ettore’s brows pull together.
His cell bleeps, and he quickly checks the screen.
I wish I could say I was warming toward the man who will be my husband in five days, but really, I’m not.
“Yes,” I say. My hands are shaking where I hold my cutlery. It’s just a simple dinner. It shouldn’t feel so hard. “He called this afternoon.”
I’m eating poached salmon. I don’t like salmon, but Ettore ordered it for me without asking me what I preferred. Every mouthful is a challenge. I’m out of my depth and a little scared of him, although he’s done nothing I can quantify as threatening. He hasn’t even touched me yet.
It’s just a feeling, a sense, a premonition that darkness is coming for me.
“Did he speak to you?” He’s looking at me, not the cell now. I wish it were the other way around.
I lower my knife and fork. “Only briefly.” Why do I feel like I’ve done something wrong? “Christian had just left, but then he came back in for some reason. The two of them left together.”
Ettore smiles.
My return smile is nervous.
“Good,” he says, lifting his wine glass to his lips and sipping before returning it to the table.
The wine is red. I don’t like red wine any more than I like salmon.
I pick up my cutlery and move my food around the plate.
“That necklace is new. I don’t believe I’ve seen it before.”
My food turns to dust in my mouth. I take a sip of wine to cover my difficulty swallowing. “It was a gift from my mother,” I lie. “I’ve not worn it for a long time. When I noticed it in my jewelry case tonight, I thought… I feel close to her wearing it.”
Please forgive me, Mama.
“That’s understandable.”
God, this is so awkward.
And dangerous.
What if someone saw Dante purchasing this? What if someone makes a connection and tells Ettore?
My vision is turning dark around the edges.
I take another sip of the wine I don’t like and talk myself down from the brink of a panic attack.
I’m being ridiculous. No one knows where the necklace came from.
Only me, and now Jessica, and while she may be young and occasionally fiery, she would never intentionally or otherwise give me away.
My racing heart steadies.
But storm clouds are billowing on the metaphorical horizon.
A sepia tint stains my once colorful world—a strange, ever-growing determination that my life is sliding into a dystopia.
Dinners at home are equally awkward. Ettore joins us most evenings, where Jessica is barely civil, and Helena and her renovation plans dominate the conversation.
The only upside is that Ettore barely tolerates his sister, and she distracts him from Jessica’s sniping comments.
Jessica doesn’t like him, and I’m not sure she ever will. But she’s always been indulged, and her life has given her no skills for hiding her feelings.
It’ll be better for her when she moves out. It won’t be better for me, but I’m a woman now so I have to act like one.
We try to go out regularly to see our father or just to do something normal.
Except going out and doing something normal always involves Christian and that’s a double-edged sword.
Christian with his brown eyes that remind me of Dante, who calls me babe when no one is listening, and Mrs. Gallo the rest of the time.
On top of this boiling angst, Ettore has ripped my mother’s nature garden up and is building a huge garage in its place. And I don’t know why it makes me cry whenever I see it. It’s pretty trivial in the scheme of things.
But it does.
At least he has left her painting room in the attic alone. I might just lose my shit if he starts messing up there.
Holding onto the past isn’t healthy, but I’m not ready to embrace the changes yet.
Our wedding is in five days. The dress is ready. I don’t hate it, just what it represents. I keep thinking I’m going to wake up from this nightmare.
But I don’t.
I keep telling myself that I don’t have to trust Ettore, just my father’s trust in him, but that is getting harder the closer I get to the date.
No amount of makeup can cover up the dark shadows under my eyes.
I’m still grappling with the enormity of what has happened in such a short time.
My mother is gone. My father’s moving out of the convalescent home and into a brownstone he’s having renovated to meet his new needs.
My sister will have the entire top floor—I think she might even prefer it.
I would prefer to live there, too, given a choice.
I’ve only got five more days with Jessica.
The conversation that follows with Ettore is inane. He must check his cell phone twenty times. When we leave the restaurant and our driver takes us home, all I can think about is crawling into my bed.
His phone rings as we are pulling onto the drive. He answers it while I look longingly at the front door, thinking that this might be a good opportunity to make my escape.
“Yes, approved,” he says to whoever is on the line. “Keep me updated.”
When we exit the car, he’s smiling again.
Once we enter the home, he dismisses the driver and helps me out of my coat, his fingertips brushing over my shoulder and down my arm before he gathers my hand.
My head lifts slowly, almost reluctantly, to meet his eyes. An undercurrent settles between us, and apprehension crawls down my spine.
“You are so beautiful, Carmela.” He tips my chin and presses his lips to mine.
It isn’t horrible, but I have to resist the urge to flinch away.
He lifts his head, but his fingers linger against my skin. “I have something for you.” He leads me into his study. Leaving me in the center of the room where the plush rug is soft under my shoes, he rounds what was once Papa’s desk and returns with a slim jewelry case.
“I’m aware that you lost one,” he says. “It wouldn’t be appropriate for you to wear something Dante gave you now.”
My breath hitches. The necklace feels like a fiery brand. The risk I take in wearing it, should Ettore realize, sets my legs quaking.
“Lie for me.”
Fool that I am, I have.
Ettore opens the case and shows me the bracelet. It is diamond studded and unquestionably more expensive than the simpler, elegant one Dante gave me for my graduation.
Ettore is making a statement. One that I’m forced to comply with as I allow him to clasp it around my wrist. He traces his fingers over it, his eyes darkening before he lifts my hand and presses a kiss to the back.
“We will be husband and wife very soon,” he says, drawing me closer and sliding his fingers into my hair.
He smiles.
My return smile feels wobbly. My stomach is all at sea, and my heart is beating too fast.
“It might be appropriate for you to thank me, your husband-to-be?”
“Thank you,” I stammer over the words, feeling trapped and deeply uneasy. “It’s beautiful.”
His smile only grows. “I was thinking in ways more than words.” His fingers curl around the back of my neck, and he applies downward pressure.
I’m confused, stumbling forward slightly before my eyes widen.
“I do?—”
He pushes harder now, and I drop to my knees. My cheeks burn and my mind turns blank. His crotch is right in front of my face with a telling bulge.
I’m confused as to how I came to be on my knees. And utterly overwhelmed.
“I-I thought… Wedding… After.” The words come out disjointed.
I swallow nervously.
His fingers are still in my hair, holding me there and preventing me from rising. He uses his other hand to undo the buckle of his belt and his zipper.
“The wedding is a formality,” he says.
My mind is full of white noise. I try to shake my head, to jerk away, to unpeel his fingers from my scalp, now holding my hair so tightly that my eyes begin to water. My mumbled protest is cut off when he pushes his cock into my mouth and straight to the back of my throat.
I gag. He grunts approvingly, pulls out, and pushes back in.
His taste is in my mouth. It’s so shocking that I completely disconnect.
I let it happen.
Distantly, I acknowledge that my lack of resistance pleases him, and his thrusting turns erratic.
He stills, filling my mouth. I choke on it. He pulls out. I cough and spit it out.
His low chuckle arrests me from the daze.
I’m on my knees, my cheeks damp from tears, and my chin covered in his cum and my saliva.
He cups my chin and chuckles again. “You’ll do better next time, yes?”
I think he wants me to nod, so I do.
He helps me to my feet. But I’m shaking all over, and my legs threaten to cut out. I can’t look at him as I wipe off my chin with the back of a shaking hand.
I feel used.
“I’ll see you for breakfast, Carmela.”