Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
E lisabetta
I turn on the TV and stare at the screen for about five minutes. My mind is racing. I don't know what to think. I don't know what to do. Everything in my life is crashing down around me, and I don't understand why. Just a month ago, I'd thought I was one of the luckiest women in the world, but not when it came to love.
I've never had a successful relationship, but I've been blessed in many other ways. I’m pretty. Men, at least some of them, think I’m gorgeous. I have the best best friend in the world. My father had enough money to keep me in a lifestyle I enjoyed. I could shop until I dropped.
"But were you really happy?" I whisper to myself. I stare at my grandiose apartment, and I know the answer, but I don't want to admit it to myself. I'm lonely. I've been lonely for much of my life, but living with Skye has helped to mask my inner solitude. And now, even Skye is gone. She is in love. She has someone else who is the most important person in her life, and I feel all alone.
I debate calling Romeo, but I don't want to upset him. He would absolutely break down if he knew that my father was going broke or perhaps already broke. I don't know what to do. I don't want to have to marry a man just so my dad could get enough money, but I also don't want people to suffer, not Romeo, not my dad, not my aunts, and not the other people that my father took care of.
I take a deep breath, grab a throw pillow, and scream into it. I beat my fists into the couch and feel tears running down my face. Right now, I wish I had a dog to hug and kiss and hold tight, someone to lick me and tell me that it is all gonna be okay.
And then my mind goes to Liam. Liam, Liam, Liam. I jump up. I don't want to think about him. He's further complicated my life. How did my dad know my boss was English? Is my dad spying on me? Does he have a mole in the law firm?
I grab my phone and call Skye. She answers immediately, which I'm grateful for.
"Hey, you didn't come back to the office. Where are you?" she asks me.
"What do you mean, where am I? I'm at home. It's eight o'clock at night."
"I mean, I know it's eight o'clock," Skye responds, "but I thought you were gonna come back in the afternoon after your business meeting with Liam, but he said that you weren't feeling great and had to go home. Is it because he's absolutely horrible? Do you want to quit already? If you do, it's fine. I will?—"
"Skye, stop it. It's fine. I enjoy working for him."
"That's a lie if ever I’ve heard one." Skye giggles.
"I mean, yeah, I don't think I enjoy working for him, but it's not really like I've done much work either."
I sigh and collapse back down onto the couch. I rest my head against the armrest and grab a throw blacket to wrap over me.
"My life is going to shit," I say dramatically. There's silence on the other line. "Did you hear me?"
"I heard you," Skye says softly. "I just didn't know if you were gonna follow up with something."
"I mean, how would you like me to follow up? My life is going to shit."
"Are you okay?"
"No, I'm not okay. I'm really, really not okay."
"Do you want me to come over?" she asks.
"No, it's fine. Stay with the love of your life and…"
"Really, Elisabetta?" Skye sounds annoyed. "Do you really think that I would put Kingston above you?"
"Um, yeah. He's the man you're gonna marry. He's gonna be the father of your child, and you're my best friend."
"And you will always have a very important role in my life."
"I noticed you didn't say I'd always come first."
"Well, I can't say you'll always come first. It depends on the circumstance."
"Exactly."
"But I'm coming over now."
"What? Why?"
"Because I can tell that you need me, and I love you, and I'm not gonna just let you be there by yourself."
"It's fine. I'm wallowing in my own self-pity and?—"
"Hold on."
"What do you mean, hold on?"
"I said, 'Hold on.'"
I listen to Skye calling Kingston. "Skye, stop it!" I say into the phone. "Don't?—"
"I'm coming over, and I'm just telling Kingston that I'm spending the night."
"You don’t have to do that," I say, but secretly, I'm excited. I've missed my best friend.
"I'll be there in twenty minutes."
"Skye!"
"Skye nothing," she says. "See you soon."
"Okay. You want me to order a pizza or something?"
"Hellooo! Pepperoni and ham!"
"You got it," I say, hanging up. A smile crosses my face. Why am I so pathetic?
I jump up and go and look in the mirror. "What is wrong with you?" I point at my reflection. "You should be so much stronger than this, Elisabetta Franco. You may be the daughter of a Mafia boss…" I groan.
Suddenly, every little thing in my life that I didn't quite understand or appreciate feels like a weight on my shoulders that's threatening to crush me to the ground. I stare at my reflection again. My eyes seem sad. I don’t want to look washed out. I have my whole life ahead of me. I just don’t know where it's going.
I think about Liam and earlier in the day, and a hot flash passes through me. I was kinda crazy. "You're a crazy bitch!" I say at my reflection, and I shake my head. "I don't know how you had the nerve to do that, but if I could high-five you, I would," I say to myself and laugh.
I’m talking to myself. It's official. I'm going crazy.
I walk back to the living room and grab my laptop so that I can order some pizza. I feel happy and excited that Skye is coming over. Maybe it will be like the old days when we didn't have any worries other than when our next date was gonna be and if we were gonna have hot sex. "Well, I'm not even gonna bring that up," I mutter to myself. I do not want to hear about her and Kingston and the billion ways that he loves to please her and tease her and take care of her.
I’m happy for her because I love her, but I felt kinda sad for myself, and I hate that. I hate that I can't just appreciate what she has without wishing I also had it. It makes me feel like I’m not a good friend. Like I’m jealous even though I’m not, not deep down inside.
The doorbell rings, and I go to answer it. "You have a key, bitch." I look at Skye, and she just shakes her head.
"But I didn't want you to think I'm…"
"Nothing you could say right now would mean a thing to me." I stare at her. "You use your key and come inside whenever you come over."
"I know," she says, giving me a big hug. "Let me look at you." Her eyes narrow, and she looks me up and down. "What the hell is going on? You have me so worried."
"My life is crashing down around me, and I really don't know what to do about it," I say.
"Start at the beginning." She holds me close. "You know you can tell me anything, right?"
"I'm not pregnant, if that's what you're wondering."
"I know that, goofy." She laughs. "No more bad anal sex stories, right?"
"No, and I don't want to think about it again." I glare at her, then grab her hand and head towards the couch to sit down. "My dad called me today," I start. "And he said that my party that was meant to be full of bachelors that I may or may not want to go on dates with is now an engagement party."
"An engagement party? What?" She looks surprised. "But who are you engaged to? Like, what's going on?"
"I don't know. My dad said that he's having money issues." I lower my voice and look down. "And I don't really know what that means."
"Look at me," she says, shaking her head. "You don't know what that means 'cause you don't even really know what he does for a living."
"I know, and I hate that. Do you know how weird that is, to have a dad that supposedly loves you but has never really been in your life? I don't even know how he makes his money." I bite down on my lower lip. "And he never shows me pictures of Mom or…"
"I know. I can only imagine how hard it's been. I'm so sorry. You know that, Elisabetta."
"I know. And it didn't bother me, but I guess as I get older, I feel nostalgic." The familiar panging in my heart makes my heart pound. “I just want to know everything I can. Want to understand how and why I’m in this world.”
"You're not that old."
"I know, but as we're growing into adults, like real adults, I'm just realizing that I don't really seem to have any path in life. Like, what are my dreams? What are my goals? And I think my dad might be spying on me." I slip that last part in like it’s nothing. I’m starting to feel like I’m a part of some detective TV show. Or a self-help show. I feel like I need both.
"What do you mean, spying on you?"
"Well, he asked me if I could understand my boss’s English accent?"
"Why? Did he think he was from Liverpool or something?"
"I don’t know, but here's the thing. I never told him that Liam was from England. I just said that I got a job at the law firm you work at."
"Oh." She blinks. "Fuck. Then why would he ask you if you could understand his accent?"
"Exactly. Do you think my dad… No, he wouldn't do that, right?"
"I mean, I don't know your dad super well, so I don't know. If he's in the mafia, maybe he would."
"Do you really think he's in the mafia?" I stare at her.
She shrugs. "I'm not gonna lie. I wouldn't be shocked if he was, but let's be real, neither of us knows what it's like in the mafia. Like, if he's in the mafia, he shielded you pretty well, right?"
"Yeah," I say, nodding.
"I wonder if Romeo knows," she asks.
"What? What do you mean?"
"I mean, he seems to get around town, right? And he's your stepbrother, so maybe your stepmom knows the truth about?—"
"She doesn't. She sees my dad even less than I do. I don't even understand why he married her. I…" I sigh, trying not to feel overwhelmed by sadness. "Everything in my life feels like a lie, and I don't even know why."
"I'm sorry. What can I do to help you?"
"I don't know." I shrug. "Nothing. Find me a man so I can think about something else."
"Is that what you really want? Do you think a man?—"
"No." I look down. "And you're not gonna believe what I did today."
"Oh, boy. What did you do?"
"I went back to Liam's place."
"You what?" she screams. "Oh my gosh, how did you go back to Liam's place and have sex with him and not tell me?"
"I didn't have sex with him."
"Oh, my gosh, Elisabetta!" She interrupts me. "What is going on?"
"I'm telling you, Skye, I did not have sex with him."
"So what did you do at his place?"
I blush and look away.
"Oh my gosh, you went down on him, didn't you?"
"No, I didn't go down on him. In fact, I've never even seen that man's naked penis."
"Okay, well, that's good. So you haven't seen each other naked."
"Well, I didn't quite say that."
"What do you mean, you didn't quite say that?" She grabs my hands. "Elisabetta Franco, you tell me right now what went down."
"So, you know he's highly flirtatious."
"Um, he's never been flirtatious with me."
"Well, he's flirtatious with me, and I've been flirtatious with him, and let's just say we had a moment."
"Um, like what?"
"Let's just say he watched some things going down."
"Do I want to know or do I not want to know?"
"I don't really think you want to know," I say, giggling slightly. "Let's just say it was hot, and that makes me even more confused about life."
"Why does that make you more confused about life?"
"Because I don't really know if I can get out of this unscathed. If I'm honest, I'm very attracted to him, and I would like to pursue something with him, but I also know that he’s not the sort of man who is going to be my forever. And he's not the sort of man I think would really care about my feelings. And we both know that I can be cray-cray if things don't go my way."
"So you're saying you wanna hook up with him but you don’t want the complications."
"Exactly, especially seeing as I work for him."
"Yeah, I mean, it's his fault that his assistants always quit." She shrugs. "If he weren't such a jackass, he'd be able to keep an assistant for once."
"I guess. Also, he said I'm not even gonna be his assistant anymore."
"Oh, what do you mean?" She blinks. "He fired you?"
"No, but he said that he feels like I have other talents that could help him."
"Was that his way of trying to get you to have sex with him? Because we can go to HR. I will speak to Kingston right now because that's unacceptable and?—"
"No, no, no, I don’t mean like that. I mean he is trying to start some sort of hotel chain or tourist destination, and he thinks that I'm classy." I grin at her. "And that I would have good ideas."
"Oh, so he still wants you to work with him."
"Yeah, but if I'm not being his assistant and no one else at the law firm is being his assistant, does that mean he's just doing it all himself? Like, that's a lot."
"I mean, it's his own fault," she says. "He's a jackass. I've never met someone so mean and rude. It was like he didn't even want to keep us. Like, I was speaking to Lyla, and Lyla was like… Sometimes she would see him looking at her in a way that made her feel like he was waiting for her to be like, 'I'm never working for you again.' Isn't that crazy?"
"I mean, I've heard crazier things." I shrug.
"But why would he want you guys to quit?"
"Exactly. I think he just is that sort of guy who likes to push buttons and see how far he can take things.”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. I mean, I get it, you think he’s hot, and he is really cute. And that British accent is to die for, but I don’t know. You can do better than him, Elisabetta. You can find a man who's looking for a relationship, that can commit to you, that you can?—"
"Don't even say it," I say, staring at her.
"Don't even say what?" she says. But then the doorbell goes again.
"Saved by the bell!" I jump up. "That's the pizza. You wanna get some plates?"
"Okay," she says, nodding. "But Elisabetta?"
"Yeah?" I say, looking over at her.
"Just remember that you're quality, and you deserve someone who sees that, not some jackass who feels like he's the king of the world and plays with people's feelings."
“You think that's what he's like?" I ask her.
"I don't know," she says, "but he doesn’t seem like he's the nicest man in the world, does he?"