Chapter 41
chapter forty-one
Natalia
The last two weeks before the wedding flew by. I picked up my gown and the rings, confirmed all the final touches and head counts with the venue and my vendors, did a trial run on hair and makeup with my stylist, and put together the gifts for our wedding party—given I still had a wedding party.
We were driving to Key West in three days, and I hadn’t had a full conversation yet with Isabella and Camilla. One group text, verifying that everyone had their dresses, was the most I’d received. I couldn’t care less if they showed up in their birthday suits, as long as they showed up. They’d had more than enough time to figure out how they felt about me and my little secret. It was either going to work out, or it wasn’t. I had become resigned to the latter.
I left the house to go shopping at the grocery store, attempting to try out a recipe Mateo’s mom had written down for me. It turned out cooking food instead of ordering it was in fact more financially responsible and nutritious, although I hated to admit it. Somewhere, a food delivery service was going bankrupt in my absence. I wasn’t gone long but when I pulled in the driveway, an extra car was there parked on the road beside the mailbox. Bella was sitting on the small concrete step on the front stoop.
My heart skipped over itself seeing her there. Pattering hard and then falling into the pit of my stomach just as quickly. My mind went to disaster immediately. My sister was no coward, so she’d likely come to tell me that my time was up and either I came clean to our parents or she would. Bella pushed her cat eye sunglasses into her short bob of hair as I approached carrying two arms full of heavy paper bags. I stopped at the edge of the stone walkway with a raised brow.
“Are you going to invite me in?” She stood and brushed her hands off on her sleek blue suit pants. Her matching blazer was perfectly fitted on top of a white silk tie neck blouse. “I’ve been out here for like twenty minutes.”
“Depends.” I brushed past her to the storm door, wedging it open with my hip and wrestling my keys out of my pocket. “Are you a two-thousand-year-old vampire?”
The lock clicked and I pushed inside the house into the open foyer, dropping the bags onto the small entryway table along with my keys. Bella was on my heels, not taking no for an answer. I hadn’t spoken to her in three weeks yet here she was, unannounced, at my and Mateo’s home for an unknown reason. One I was too afraid to ask about.
Her attention darted around, from the open concept kitchen and living room to the sliding glass doors leading into the backyard. The house was empty, but she was clearly looking for another person to pop out from behind a wall. When she realized we were alone her shoulders dropped from her ears and the rest of her body unspooled itself from the invisible tight wire tugging at it.
“Not what you expected?” I asked.
“Not what I thought a sex dungeon would look like,” she pondered. Her long, sharp fingernails swiped down the counter of the kitchen contemplatively and snatched a lone apple from the ceramic bowl at the center of it.
I choked out a laugh. “Sorry to disappoint you. I’ll make sure the bull whips and bondage chains are hanging from the fucking mantle next time you drop in for a visit. Is this like…CPS for sex workers? You’re filling out a case report on how unfit I am to exist in society?”
“Delightful as ever, Talia,” she shot back playfully, sinking her sharp white canines into the flesh of the apple and sending a spritz of juice to the floor.
I busied myself unpacking the grocery bags, taking the meat to the fridge and restocking an empty drawer with produce. “Sorry if I’m a little confused, I guess. The last time we talked you were walking out of a villa in Vegas basically promising to ruin my life unless I ruined it for myself first.”
“I was making suggestions based on my assessment of your situation.” She shrugged. “If I’m remembering correctly my reaction was tame compared to Camilla.”
“Tame?” I stood from being hunched over in the refrigerator. “You basically insinuated I was so poor I needed to sell myself for money.”
“You’re telling me you do it for the creative freedom?”
“Yes!” I flailed.
Bella sank into a barstool at the kitchen counter with her apple, eyes softening to a doughy light brown. She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, and in all my life I’d never seen Isabella struggle to find the right words for what she wanted to say. I’d at least never seen her care enough to use the right words with me . It was so easy for us to fall back into the childish back-and-forth and put off adult conversations, because it was too real, and too uncomfortable, and none of us were raised with that lovey-dovey, sibling gene that some families seemed to have. Serious discussions made my tongue prickle like an allergic reaction.
“Look, if you came here to pick my brain about what I do based on a handful of misogynistic stereotypes I’d rather refer you to a friend. I’m sure they could answer all of your questions without confirmation bias.”
“Do you have a lawyer?” Bella asked.
“What?” A spark of shock zipped up my spine, straightening my posture.
“I think it’s smart to have a lawyer on retainer for your line of work. Especially if there’s contracts involved, the verbiage needs to be airtight so that you can protect yourself. So that if something like what happened in Vegas with that creepy fucker happens again, you have every one of your t’s crossed.”
A baffled noise ripped out of me. It tapered into a confused hum and I steadied myself on the countertop. I’d gone into the conversation with my walls built all the way to my ears, expecting the worst, and hoping to be let down easy, that my body was still in fight mode. Bella had gone from telling me three weeks ago that she needed time to think about how my porn career would affect us, to now offering a legal liaison to lock the shit up like the family jewels. “Did I miss something?”
“I came off cold in Vegas, I know that. But it was because I didn’t know what to do with the information, and I needed to process it on my own, like I said I would. I’m pretty good at playing the pros and cons game, and even if the thought of it dries up my pussy with a burning hot coal, you’re not doing anything morally inept by fucking your fiancé on camera.”
I leaned back against the fridge with my arms over my chest. “It just feels too easy,” I admitted. “This all solving itself.”
“Is it really that hard to believe grown adults can find mature solutions to their problems? I’m thirty, Natalia. I’m a fucking attorney. This doesn’t have to be hard. Let yourself have something for once.”
“Mia didn’t have anything to do with it?”
“She was a little gnat in my ear, and Camilla’s. She said you were going to come clean all on your own.” A disbelieving jeer fell from her lips. “Why?”
I threw my hands up. “I thought it was my only option.”
“You’re not the only one who steers clear of our father. You just do it in the most dramatic ways. Trust me, I’d rather contract pink eye from a fucking hotel pillow than drum up a conversation with John Russo about porn.”
A grimace curled my lips and I started pinching the skin beneath my elbow. Bella scrunched her nose. “What are you doing, freak?”
“Making sure I didn’t fall asleep in the middle of the day on the couch again and I’m not being visited by a sleep paralysis demon.”
“The lawyer,” she reminded me with a roll of her eyes.
“Oh, right. No,” I said. “I don’t have one, officially. I mean, Mateo has a lawyer for TechOps, so I figured if we ever needed one he’s there.”
“No, no, no,” she rescinded, standing from the stool and turning in circles in the kitchen with her apple core pinched between her fingers. I pointed to the cabinet beneath the sink where our garbage can lived and she tugged it open. “That’s not good enough. I don’t want to know what you’re doing and I’m not asking for a spot on the quality assurance committee, but let me at least sleep soundly at night knowing my legal responsibility to you is fulfilled.”
“You want to work for me?” I smirked. My hands slid from my chest to my hips. “Is this you making up for the prenup?”
“That prenup would have been a mess considering all your extracurriculars.” Bella leaned against the edge of the counter. “Is that a yes? Are we in business?”
There wasn’t a reason I could think of to turn her down. Isabella was family, and proved her loyalty by showing up at our house to talk everything out. I was still adjusting to the change in the tide, and Camilla was still up in the air, but I didn’t want to push Bella away and risk losing my sisters all over again. She knew things about the industry I never would. She was smart, cunning, fierce, witty, and she took her job very seriously. It was the one thing that Bella prided herself on the most in life. To extend that to me and Mateo was incredibly generous, and something I would be stupid to refuse, especially after the incident in Vegas.
“We’re in business.” A pleased grin brightened my sister's face as I extended a hand. Then I drew it back, spat into my palm, and presented it to her again.
Her smile flatlined as she looked down at my wet skin. “You’re pretty good at that, huh?”
My eyes widened expectantly, and I jutted my hand out farther. A giggle was at the tip of my tongue as she slowly brought her palm to her mouth and spat onto it. I couldn’t help myself as I mused, “Must run in the family.”
We shook two damp hands together, and Bella immediately took off to the sink to scrub her skin clean as the front door knob wiggled and Mateo came barreling through it. “Hey, baby, you know whose car is parked outside?” He rounded the short wall and found me and Isabella standing in the kitchen and his steps slowed, eyes slicing from hers to mine inquisitively. “Hey, Bells.”
She dried her hands on a dish towel and swiped her purse off the counter. “I was on my way out. Talia, keep your phone on. I’ll be sending contract drafts your way and will need some preliminary information from the both of you. And listen, this is a referred case, so let’s keep it between us.” Bella brushed by Mateo and patted him on the shoulder, his confusion getting more apparent the deeper the crease between his brows became. “See you in Key West this weekend, bro .”
Laughter shook my shoulders as she disappeared into the foyer and the door closed behind her with a whoosh. Mateo doubled back, his jaw cracked open, mulling it over. “I’m guessing whatever the hell that was went well?”
I shrugged, but my lips tugged upward. “I guess it did.” I couldn’t pinpoint my emotion exactly, but Mateo didn’t need me to. He opened his arms and let me melt into the firm cavern of his chest, resting his chin at the crown of my head. My cheeks started to ache with a smile.