Chapter 6
GIANNA
The most beautiful autumn day is unfolding outside.
And the garden around this huge mansion that is my prison now is the perfect backdrop for it to play out in.
Everything’s lush and green and so overgrown that a Halloween party out there would be an event.
Some of the trees are already turning those wonderful fall hues of orange and red.
It’s something straight out of a fairytale, and I’m half expecting a witch or some other magical creature to poke her head out from behind some dark green bush or from around the wide trunk of one of those magnificent oak trees out there.
Birds are singing so loudly, I can hear them clearly through the thick glass of the windows.
I woke up when the sun was already high in the sky. Matteo is still sleeping, his silver suit all wrinkled up because he didn’t even bother to take off his shoes, let alone his clothes, before laying down next to me.
I got up as soon as I saw him lying there, before I could even get a good look at him, because I’m afraid looking at him will bring back all the old feelings I had for him.
As it is, it feels like they’re bubbling just beneath the surface of this cold black hate I’m trying so hard to hold onto.
I want it to become armor that will protect me from everything and everyone who wants to do me harm, that will make sure the curse I put on the man who married my sister sticks, and that will let me avenge my family.
The alcove by the window where I’ve been sitting since I got up is snug and cozy. I can see over and through the trees all the way to the dark blue ocean in the distance. That same ocean that hopefully carried my parents and my sister Lidia to safety last night.
Even if I don’t succeed in getting my own revenge, they’ll bring the calvary and save me and Chiara. That’s probably the better option anyway. Seeing as all I actually know how to do is fall stupidly in love with the wrong man and shop for clothes that I never end up wearing anywhere.
I couldn’t even prevent my little sister from being married off to a tall, dark monster.
I couldn’t even stab Matteo even though his knife is right there, sticking out of his pocket.
It’s all black, handle and blade. All I had to do was slip it from his pocket and stab him in the neck with it.
Then the sheets would be covered in his blood, and I’d have my revenge.
But the thought of doing it made me almost as physically sick as watching my sister get married did yesterday.
I wish the sun wasn’t so very warm and sparkly, I wish the birds didn’t sing so very prettily and I wish I didn’t still have feelings of love for Matteo.
And as though he can feel me thinking his name, he stirs, opening his eyes a little, before realizing I’m not beside him anymore and jerking up to look around the room, his knife in his hand.
“You’re awake,” he says as his eyes finally find me by the window. I wish his gaze didn’t warm me better than the sun ever could.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I say. “But I’m glad you had no trouble doing it after selling me and my sister out and betraying my trust. That must’ve really tired you out.”
I didn’t know my voice could be so cold and so venomous. I sound like one of the villain women in those rom coms I used to spend my days binging.
“Yeah, it would seem so,” he says, the sun gone from his eyes.
Good. He has no business looking at me with that sun in his eyes. Like he cares about me. Like he wants to take care of me. Like he’s worried about me when he doesn’t know where I am.
He gets up and walks across the room, the ancient floorboards creaking beneath his feet.
“I’ll take a shower than I’ll see about some breakfast.”
“I’d prefer to starve that take food from you.”
But I doubt he heard that before slamming the bathroom door behind him so hard the whole room vibrated.
It’s fine. I’ve got a lot more venomous words for him. Because I might never be able to actually take his life. But I can make his life unbearable with words and actions. And curses… he deserves one of those too.
Just as soon as he comes out of the bathroom, I’ll lay one on him too.
Because one way or another, he will forever regret the day he met me. Just as I will always regret the day I met him. And the first thing I’ll do is wipe that sunshine from his eyes.
GIANNA
The bathroom door opens and he comes out, a greyish white towel wrapped around his waist and droplets of water sliding off his wet hair and clinging to his skin. It makes the sad angel on his chest look like she’s crying.
I’ve been rehearsing the words of the curse I’m about to throw at him, wanting to get them just right, wanting the make it as powerful as I can. But seeing him, they grind to a halt in my mind. All thoughts do.
This, watching him come out of the shower in only a towel, or better yet, taking a shower with him, was among my top ten fantasies of the two of us together. As was swimming in the ocean… water would cling to his naked skin then too.
But that was before, in a life I still haven’t let go because I was pulled out of it so harshly. By him.
So in this life…
“I curse you to a life full of pain and heartache and an early death, Matteo Rovina. You’ll know no happiness from this day forward.”
His eyes burn hotter than the sun for a moment as he glares at me. But in the next moment, the darkness I could always see surrounding him returns and envelops him whole.
He walks to the ornate wardrobe covering one wall. The smell of ancient mothballs and old wood wafts out as he opens it. The smell of decay and dead hope.
“You’re a little late to the party with your curse,” he says. “I’m already cursed. Been cursed since the day I was born. Worse than anything you can come up with.”
He unfastens the towel and lets it drop to the floor, his back turned to me.
And I don’t want to look, don’t want to admire how his muscles coil as he reaches into the bag in the wardrobe, pulling out first a pair of boxers, then a shirt.
I don’t want to remember the heat, the overwhelming desire he woke inside me the first time he stripped for me.
Or the night I gave myself to him. Or the hours I spent committing every dip and rise of his muscles to memory.
Or how very much I wanted to memorize every line of ink on his arms and chest.
All that is disappearing now as he dresses in a simple grey suit and blue shirt, all of it with just enough sheen to make me think of long summer evenings by the sea.
“I also already have your curse hanging over me,” he says, turning to me and grinning. “Don’t all men who try to get with you die or something? So by my count, you’ve already cursed me, Goldie.”
“One more won’t hurt,” I say, finally coming to my senses after I realize I’ve been feeling sorry for him. “And you’re never getting with me again.”
He shrugs. “You keep repeating it, but that won’t make it any more true. You’re mine now. And I saw you checking me out before.”
He grins and I hate the surge of heat the sight of it and his words send straight through my core.
But that’s just a delayed reaction. Because my mind hasn’t yet fully caught up to this new reality he forced on me. One where I’m his prisoner and he betrayed me more completely than anyone ever could.
“Whatever attraction I feel for you is just physical,” I tell him, because I want him to know. “Because you tricked me into liking you just so you could do this… but don’t worry, it’ll fade. And you’ll never have my heart.”
He chuckles. “I guess I’m safe from your curse after all then. But don’t worry, ruin will come for me. Probably soon now that I’m on my way to finally getting what I’ve been craving for the last ten years.”
“Ruin?” I ask. “What’s that mean?”
Actual pain crosses his eyes for a split second before he chuckles. “It’s my curse. Everything I achieve will always turn to ruin. Guaranteed.”
“Why do all this if you knew you were going to fail? Why destroy my life?”
Why am I even talking to him? I should be turning my back on him and never speaking another word to him. I guess it must be the old Gianna talking, the one who wanted to know everything about him.
He shrugs. “I gotta try. Maybe it won’t happen this time. You must’ve been thinking the same thing when you got with me… knowing it could kill me, but hoping it wouldn’t. Right?”
I have no idea if he’s being serious or just messing with my head now.
Marriage. That’s what sets off my curse.
As long as we were never wed, he’d be fine.
I believed it. Along with many other things.
Like that true love would break my curse.
And that he was my one true love. And so much more other nonsense that seems so stupid now.
I wish the little pieces of it still floating around in my head would dissolve already.
“You didn’t think,” he adds. “Or you were just hoping for the best. Like me.”
The nerve. I lost sleep worrying my curse would kill him. Or my father would. How dumb was I?
He turns away and walks to the door. “You should take a shower too. And change. There’s clothes for you in the wardrobe. I’ll be back.”
“Were you planning to kill me too, along with my family? Or was it always your plan to drag me here and lock me up?”
He turns back with his hand already on the doorknob. “I could never kill you, Goldie. It’d be like killing myself.”
Then he leaves, the sound of the lock clicking echoing in my mind long after I can no longer hear his footsteps on the landing.
Why can’t I just hate him? Why is he talking to me like a friend, like a man who’s in love, and not growling at me like the monster he really is?
And how come can he still say exactly the right thing at the right time? Exactly the thing I want and need to hear?