Chapter 11 Eleanor
Eleanor
The morning air is cool on my skin when we return from breakfast at Il Paradiso. Leonardo pretended he was dragging me there, but I saw through him. He was helping me escape from the insanity of his family. I might be grateful if it weren’t for the way he smirked in victory.
The Rosetti mansion rises in front of me, full of angles and long windows. It's a skyscraper, a prison, a dragon’s lair. Everything but a home.
I take a breath and walk through the front doors, and it is like walking into another world.
Not the silence of my childhood or the dark corners of last night, but chaos and voices that pull at me.
Rosettis in every room. Brothers. Sister.
Even the parents and the tiny grandmother, even though they don't live here, as far as I can tell.
All shouting, teasing, yelling over each other.
“It’s like the place threw up Rosettis,” I mutter.
“We were here first, Eleanor.” A tall figure—Raffaele, I'm starting to get them straight—moves toward me.
“And we’re not leaving.” A sharp voice from the corner, the older brother, Domenico, who arranged my marriage. He crosses his arms, looking every inch the future boss.
“Don’t scare her off. You’re both such dicks.” Carmela flutters over, full of curls and wide eyes. She bounces on her feet, and I’m not sure what to make of her.
“I’m fine.” I pin a smile in place. “Just getting my bearings.
I walk through the rooms, watching, listening.
Carmela shouts over everyone, trying to explain some new business plan.
Raffaele doesn’t seem to care, while Domenico tells her to focus on family instead of running around like an ungrateful brat.
Her answer is a barrage of words so quick that Matteo jokes she’s better suited for law school than family matters.
Emilio leans against a wall, a ghost with black hair, and grins at me.
It is more than a little overwhelming, all of them together like this.
A house of chaos and voices. A mansion that isn’t empty.
I feel like a spy, an intruder. I have never seen anything like this.
They fight. They yell. They hug and insult each other, and nobody gets slapped across the face.
There’s something loud and bright that I don’t understand until I finally realize: this house is alive.
My father’s was a tomb. The rooms as empty as the hearts inside. Every conversation hushed and cold as we moved from one surface to another, never touching, never connecting. This is like a foreign country.
I slip into the library, settling on the leather sofa, letting the words wash over me from the other rooms. Raffaele arguing with Leonardo, Salvatore attempting to stand up to his tiny mother, Nanna Toni.
A warm mug appears in front of me. Carmela stands with another smile, full of eagerness and caffeine. “Coffee? Or are you a tea person? We have a whole cabinet full.”
I accept it. “Coffee’s perfect, thank you.”
I sip my coffee and wait. Wait for her to interrogate me. Wait for her to demand something. Anything.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come back from breakfast,” Carmela finally says. “They say you agreed to the marriage, but you seemed kinda weirded out this morning. I thought you’d make a break for it.”
“And leave before I’ve properly met everyone?” I answer.
She leans against the door frame. “That’s what I’d do.”
“You’re not very polite.”
“Yeah.” A sharp grin, a small laugh. “That’s why I’m the favorite.”
I consider my options. They were so simple yesterday. Fight. Flee. Now? Who knows? Plus, there are those damn rules. No lying, no running, no touching other men. But I have no intention of being any man’s toy, so the only question is: which rule should I break first?
No lying.
The corners of my mouth lift again, just a little. "Did you know, I used to learn tap dance,” I tell Carmela. “I got pretty good. Performed in state competitions and everything.” It wasn’t tap, it was ballet, because father thought it would improve my posture.
Carmela’s eyes light up. “Tap dance? Could you teach me?”
“Sure. Anytime you like.” The tiniest lie fills me with joy, my first small rebellion against Leonardo, and my smile is genuine.
I weave more lies into every conversation, little white fibs that give me shudders of happiness. I’m already breaking Leonardo’s rules, and he doesn’t even know it.
It isn’t hard to find a willing ear for one of my tales. The house is more crowded than a three-ring circus. Rosettis everywhere. On couches, in chairs. Lying on the floor. Shouting, whispering, fighting over everything. There’s no air in the rooms, no space, just people, voices. Life.
It’s exhausting.
The only quiet comes when Nanna Toni swears at everyone to get the hell out of the kitchen and let the staff cook. We don’t eat dinner until after ten, and I’m famished. They fight and drink wine and live. I stay in the center of it all, alone in a crowd, watching. Trying to keep myself separate.
By midnight, even the Rosettis begin to flag.
I thought they might never tire, that I'd be lost in the noise forever, but I see eyes start to droop around the long dinner table. Leonardo sits beside me, a silent challenge in his eyes. He can’t expect me to be the first to give up, the first to leave.
I hold out for as long as I can, my eyelids heavy, my muscles aching, until his chair scrapes back and suddenly he is towering over me.
He leans down, his breath on my skin. “Ready for bed, princess?” The heat of him, the closeness, curls through me, and it takes every ounce of determination to force out a reply.
“Not in your room,” I say. I can hardly sleep on the rug by the fire like last night when the house is full of Rosettis.
The appeal of snuggling into my husband’s arms is too strong, almost enough to break me, but I can’t give in.
Can’t let Leonardo win that easily, no matter how tired I am or how much I enjoyed his touch last night.
I get up, leaving him with a defiant look, and drift toward the spare rooms until I find one that’s empty apart from a single bed.
I slip in, letting the door click shut behind me, letting the darkness swallow me.
It’s softer than I imagined. More like a pillow than a jail cell.
I sink into the mattress, pulling the covers around me like a shield.
I’m safe from him, at least for tonight.
But I should have known better.
When I wake, I’m not alone.
His body presses close against my back. He slides into the single bed, into my defenses. I should mind, but I don't. His heat seeps through the blanket, every part of him wrapping around every part of me.
Suddenly, there’s only rule I don’t want to break. No touching other men.
When his arms close around my waist, when he breathes against my neck and tightens his hold, I am too tired, too tempted to push back. I reach for his hands and tell myself it’s only to keep him from touching me, but it’s a lie, and I know it as I lace my fingers in his.
His closeness is safe. And chaos. I don’t know which I crave more, and as I drift into sleep, I think about this murderous stranger, about his rules, his terrible, impossible family. And then I smile in the dark.
Here, in his arms, this feels more like a home than my father’s ever was.