Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
DARIA
J et lag plagued my body. I was weak, I was tired, and I was hungry. I wanted to be back home in warm Sicily. But the car drove through a modern, metallic city, and a cold gust of wind whirled through the windows. Disorientation took over my mind. It was so different. I felt like I was in a Hollywood movie.
The shrill sound of sirens announcing death filled my ears. Tall skyscrapers with walls of glass reflected bright yellow cabs and red traffic lights on every corner. My heart yearned for limestone walls and gravel-filled roads. The man beside me barked orders down his phone while loss yanked at my heartstrings. The reality of marrying a stranger hit me harder than Papà’s venom-filled slaps ever could.
The car glided to a halt, and the thick-set man who’d come to pick us up in his black suit opened my door for me. I looked at Lorenzo with his tie popping out of his pant pocket. How was it that his chauffeur was more dressed than him? He threw me a glance and continued with his conversation on his phone. So I stepped foot out of the car and stood alone on the tarred street of a city I knew nothing about. The monster of all monsters glared down at me with bronze-stained windows gleaming cold in the air. Is this where he lives?
My gaze slid to the man standing next to me. He must have been in his early fifties. “What’s your name?”
“Orso, Signora .”
I felt like a puppet without its strings. Cold nostalgia pulled me to the depths of sadness. “ Parli italiano? ”
He shuffled uncomfortably with his gaze coasting behind my shoulder. “ Ovviamente, Signora .”
A warm hand wrapped around my elbow and yanked me rudely after him with a “Let’s go.” Didn’t his Mamma ever teach him to be polite? I stumbled and tried to keep up in my stilettos and small strides, while he swallowed up the ground as if he owned it. He probably did. He pulled me past a sparkling concierge and glass-clad walls to a private elevator. It must have been private if he had to key in the code for it. I watched in awe as the doors of the elevator closed. How high were these ceilings?
The air snuck out the moment the door closed. Just us inside the elevator, and my stomach dipped, and my head went up in a haze. The rush of rising high in a matter of seconds made me sway when we stopped, and he frowned at me. What is his problem, anyway? Not like he had to leave his family behind.
The door opened to the 129th floor, lasered on a chrome plate on a glitzy marble wall. I hadn’t even known a building could have that many floors. For someone who’d lived all my life in a two-story house, this would be as high as living up in the clouds. Panic clawed at my throat at the possibility of a fire and having to get down to the ground, or worse, falling off a balcony. Did people have balconies this high up?
Turned out they did. I realized this when I followed him hesitatingly into the doorway of an open area. This apartment had to be five times the size of Papà’s. All of this for one man living alone. Or is it? I couldn’t help but glance around nervously. Wouldn’t put it past him to have a whole harem of black-haired stewardesses in every room.
My eyes caught on glass and metal. Glitter and glam. It was all shining and all cold. The floors were marble, and the glass had frames in brass. No colors. I’d always had a thing for off-whites and beige. But here, it just looked flashy. There wasn’t a shred of wood, authenticity, or character to be found. It was all new and screaming to stand out. I hated it.
“You planning to come in?” He stood in the middle of what must be the living room, like a king in his castle. A massive chandelier with glass and crystal hung above him like a cluster of sharp icicles. My back edged towards the cold wall. My legs jittered, and suddenly I had the strongest urge to drop to my knees and weep. He must have caught on that I was nearing a psychotic breakdown, because his expression softened. The dark edges of his outline vanished as he ran a frustrated hand through his hair.
He strode closer to me, and I pasted my back against the wall. He stopped a few feet short. “Do you want me to show you around?” His words fell on shiny marble and echoed lightly in the vast space around us.
Do I? Was the rest of his place as cold and lifeless as this? It wasn’t even a house. I bit my lip to stop the wobble riding my lips.
“Daria.” He let out a frustrated sigh. “I need words. Do you want me to show you around?”
I shrugged.
He muttered something I couldn’t catch. It sounded like nothing nice and everything unholy.
“What?” he snapped, but he wasn’t looking at me. I turned my head to see Orso standing with our bags. Two other men were behind him with more.
“Where should I put them, Signore? ”
“In my bedroom. Where else?”
They moved awkwardly past me, crossing the path between us. He stood still for a few minutes, but my throat was clogged, and no words could have passed if I’d wanted them to. I was still deciding if I wanted them to or not.
“Fuck it,” he muttered and followed the men to God knows where.
My feet were heavy and held me frozen where I stood till the three men went back outside. Orso looked at me with, I think, pity in his eyes. “ Buon pomeriggio, Signora, ” he muttered and pulled the front door closed behind him. The sound of closing doors to a different life thumped in my heart.
It was eerily quiet in here compared to the outside. The heavy beat of my heart was the only sound I heard. Reluctantly, I inched my way to the massive living area. Two monstrous L-shaped sofas faced each other across a ballroom with an occasional single chair placed strategically, I was sure. I imagined myself on one and him on the other. That just could be enough distance between us.
My jelly legs gave away, and before I knew it, I was plopped on the frosty blue couch, looking out towards a wall of black, glossy metal with big, white lights popping in and out. An artwork, maybe. This place screamed money.
What was the point of looking at a black wall? If I wanted to do that, I could have stared at him. I edged my way around and found the doors leading to the balcony. Of course, the balustrade had to be in glass. The moment I opened the door, honks and sirens floated up to me.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
I jerked back to see him striding towards me, dressed all in black. Shirt and pants. His chain was more visible with his black shirt on, which was, of course, not fully buttoned.
“Going out?” My voice sounded rusty, and it skidded like roller blades trying to find ground.
“I am. I was asking about you.” He strode up to me. He’d taken a shower. I could smell it. Something very woodsy. It felt too intimate to notice this. What was that smell?
“Just wanted to see the view.”
He let out a sigh. I wasn’t sure why he was so impatient with me. Turning my back to him, I stepped out and held on to the cold chrome metal bar while looking down. Minchia! It was high. I stepped back dizzily to a wall of hardness that gripped my hip with a tight fist. “Done already?”
I managed a shaky nod. “It’s high.”
“Of course it is,” he chided.
An embarrassed flush rushed through me. I hadn’t felt that ten-year age gap right up till now. He made me out to be a child.
I tottered back inside, and he swiftly closed the door to the balcony.
“The balcony is off limits unless I am with you, Capisti? ”
“Whatever,” I muttered before wandering off.
He followed me like a dark shadow.
“I need to go out for some business.”
I couldn’t help the sigh of relief that left me. He must have heard it, too, because his lips thinned into two tight lines. “One of my men, Ciro, is outside if you need anything.”
“Does he speak Italian?”
“What is it with you? You speak English, so what’s the problem?”
I flipped around to find him standing too close for comfort, with his hands in his pockets. My feet backtracked immediately. “But he’s Italian, right? He speaks Italian?”
Another annoyed sigh. “Of course, he’s Italian. How else would he be a made man? But you won’t be sharing much with him.”
My mouth gaped open. How could he not speak his mother language?
“He’s not going to speak your Sicilian, Daria.”
“Yes, my Sicilian,” I muttered angrily.
“You can bundle it all up till I am home and let it loose on me.”
Was that amusement on his lips? It annoyed me that I didn’t know the man well enough to know.
“Can’t you keep Orso with me?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
He rolled his sleeves up. “Because he’s coming with me.”
“So you always go with a driver?”
“No, I am taking my bike. What’s with the million questions now? The ice dissolving already?”
I ignored him. The truth was, I suddenly didn’t want to be alone here. This place felt too big. Too hollow. “You have a bike?” Of course, he did. Now that biker attitude he carried made perfect sense.
“Well, I am not using another man’s ride if that’s what you want to know.” He looked at his watch impatiently. “I need to go. You’ll be okay, s ì ?”
I just stared at him.
He let out a sigh and came towards me. I didn’t back away this time. Even if it took the greatest effort, when something all black and large loomed over me. His palm came up to wrap around my chin. It was warm and rough and all I wanted to do was hang on to it. Stupido ! It was probably because he was the only familiar face now.
“I wish you’d tell me what you’re thinking. I can’t help you if I don’t know. You’ll be okay, s ì ?”
This close, his voice sounded more soft than tight. His thumb was rough on my cheek as it traced my jawline. He made me uncomfortable with those dark whiskey eyes on me. I didn’t understand this feeling. I felt tipsy when not a drop of liquor had touched my lips. I gave a shaky nod and pulled away. His hand dropped, and after an awkward minute, he strode out. The echo of a thick door closing filled the hollow room and sounded like dread.
My eyes followed the metal artwork between the hallway and the living room right up to the ceiling. I counted the huge squares in between. Ten, twenty, twenty-five… I lost count, so I restarted. Anything not to think about his hands on my cheek. I hated how it had felt. Warm. Not going to be Mamma. Not going to be Mamma.