Chapter Nineteen
Lorena
“You’re glowing today,” Hilda piques, staring up at me with a glimmer in her eyes.
“I thought I was the only one who noticed,” Blanco snorts from the opposite of the counter. “You have that post-fuck glow…”
Hilda snickers as I shake my head in feigned amusement. It’s hard to slide into our normal dynamics when my thoughts are such a mess. It isn’t just about my confliction about whether to go ahead with my plan or not, it’s the fact that a large side of me doesn’t want to do it that’s bothering me the most. That side of me desperately wants all of this to be some sort of mistake.
With the tip of my knife, I make a sharp incision on the belly of the small sardine on the cutting board. Then, I throw it into a bowl sitting before Blanco on the counter. The bowl is filled with sardines, and his fingers work deftly in deboning the fish and arranging them on a tray.
Beside him, Hilda skillfully prepares the stuffing, combining breadcrumbs, pine nuts, raisins, and aromatic parsley. The fragrance of these ingredients fills the air, making my stomach rumble. We are making Sarde a Beccafico , one of my favorite traditional Sicilian dishes. This dish resonates well with me because it was one of the first dishes we were taught to make in culinary school.
“So, who’s the lucky guy?” Blanco wriggles his eyebrows at me.
Our boss, whom I plan to gut as easily as I just gutted the sardine on the counter , I think to myself. But of course, I can’t tell them that.
My body still thrums from the wracking orgasm I experienced two nights ago. The memory of Leo pulling my hair and whispering dirty words into my ear sends a light shiver down my spine. I haven’t been able to function normally since that night. I think about him every passing second. I think about the ownership he claimed over my body. I think about how I still haven’t felt his lips on mine, and how I can’t wait to do that.
“Oh, my goodness, you’re totally thinking about him right now,” Blanco gasps, bringing me back to reality. “Look at your face. You are flushed, darling…”
“Now I need to know all the details,” Hilda says excitedly. “Is he hot? How many times did he make you cum…”
Once, but the intensity felt like a million orgasms in one .
Instead of egging them on, I roll my eyes and instruct Hilda to begin stuffing each sardine.
I wonder for the millionth time if it was such a good idea to let the man I was making plans to eliminate touch me and bring my body to heights that I never knew existed.
What happened between us the other night was more than sex. It far transcended any sexual experience I have ever had in my life. For those brief moments, my body had been floating on a cloud of ecstasy until everything I had just learned from Pedro came rushing back and I was hurled back to reality.
What I can’t keep doing is second guessing my decision to end Leo for what he did to my family, though. He is far from innocent, and he deserves my wrath. The man must have more blood on his hands than entire armies; he needs to die.
So why am I full of indecision?
The longer I spend wasting crucial time, the slimmer my chances of killing him get.
Just then, the sound of female laughter echoes in the air, and I hear another male voice speaking above the sounds.
“That must be the twins,” Hilda mutters, her expression suddenly becoming stiff.
“How did you even become friends with them?” Blanco huffs.
He seems to share the same sentiments as Hilda.
“Friends?” I snort. “We just spoke for some time yesterday.”
After Leo’s driver brought me back home in the early hours of dawn, I changed out of the t-shirt and jeans I’d worn to cover up the lingerie beneath, then I moved straight to the kitchen. A few minutes into making breakfast, the twins strolled in, asking me a bunch of questions. Apparently, they’d been arguing about Italian and Sicilian cuisine, and they wanted to get the opinion of a ‘well-seasoned chef’, as Fabio had put it.
Along the line of our conversation, they’d decided to join in the breakfast-making process. If joining meant them standing at a corner and watching as Hilda, Blanco and I mixed ingredients together, sure.
After breakfast, Aurora had complimented my cooking, and she told me she wanted me to teach her how to cook.
“They never speak to any of the other workers around here,” Hilda muses, before adding. “Stuck-up rich kids.”
“They don’t owe you that, Hilda. We are just employees here,” Blanco says as he rolls a stuffed sardine between his palms.
Hilda stares at him, an offended look on her face. “I thought you were on my side here.”
“Nope. I was just wondering how they suddenly started talking to Lorena, that’s all,” he says, flashing a smile at Hilda’s scowling face.
“Well, at least they’re not as bad as Carmela,” Hilda huffs and I chuckle.
Her beef with the teenager is amusing.
The two voices get closer, and soon, Aurora and Fabio step into the kitchen.
“Hey everyone,” Aurora exclaims at the same time Fabio says, “What smells so good in here?”
Hilda and Blanco immediately go mute, and I almost laugh at their innocent expressions.
“Hey, Aurora,” I greet, before tilting my head slightly at Fabio.
“You are late for your culinary lessons,” I muse, which earns me an apologetic look from her.
“I woke up late…”
“That’s what you get when you go to bed late because you’re watching Gossip Girl,” Fabio interrupts.
Blanco snorts, but he quickly masks it with a cough.
“The spices,” he mutters, his eyes watering.
“Ah. What if this was a bad idea?” Aurora asks, casting Blanco a sympathetic look.
I chuckle inwardly. What a damn good actor.
Fabio shakes his head. “Nope. This was your idea. You said you wanted to learn a new skill. Well, here we are…”
“And luckily for you, you don’t have to spend years in culinary school with rude professors and zero time for yourself,” I add.
Aurora sighs deeply. “Alright. Let’s do this.”
Grabbing her twin brother’s arm, they both move to where Blanco and Hilda are currently standing.
“We’ll take over from here,” Aurora says.
My kitchen assistants both look up at me, a mixture of shock and confusion on their faces. Hilda looks scared shitless. She’s probably scared that she will lose her job if she lets any of the Vitale kids take her place in the kitchen.
“It’s fine,” I say, and her chest visibly deflates in relief.
“We’ll set the table,” Blanco mutters as Hilda practically drags him out of the kitchen.
Drumming her false nails against the countertop, Aurora beams at me.
“So, what do I do?”
It almost strikes me how pretty she is, but considering that good looks run in the family, I’m not shocked. A certain Vitale man has been haunting my thoughts since the first day I set my eyes on him.
“We’ve done all the hard work, so all you have to do is fill the belly of the sardines with the stuffing in that bowl,” I say, and they both nod.
They wash their hands in the sink behind them before getting straight to work.
“What do you think about age gap relationships?” Aurora suddenly asks.
“Please, don’t tell me you have an older men fetish,” Fabio groans beside her, earning him a jab in the waist.
I chuckle. “That’s a very random question. Um…”
The first, and only, man that crosses my mind is Leo. From my findings, Leo will be turning thirty in a few months, and I am twenty-three. While a seven-year difference isn’t exactly considered bad when it comes to age gaps, I feel I might be qualified to answer Aurora’s question.
“It depends on a lot of factors,” I say, fishing out a large oven pan from a cabinet above me.
“Power dynamics, communication and compatibility, and emotional maturity,” I say, then narrow my eyes. “That someone is much older doesn’t mean they’re smarter.”
That makes her laugh.
“We are done,” Fabio announces.
I take in the filled sardines. It’s not as neatly done as the ones Blanco and Hilda filled, but it’s good for a set it first-timers.
“You both did well,” I commend before taking charge of the rest of the cooking process.
I arrange the sardines on the pan, and with a drizzle of olive oil, I gently place them in the oven.
“Leo won’t like the idea of you dating someone much older,” Fabio smirks at his sister.
She rolls her eyes. “He can’t do anything about it.”
They seem close to Leo, which makes me wonder how they suddenly came to accept him after their father died.
“I might agree with Fabio on this one,” I say. “I’m sure Don is very protective of you.”
It feels weird calling him that after I’ve moaned his name several times.
“Leo isn’t that bad. Sure, he used to be overprotective and overbearing when he first took over, but he’s not a bad guy. He’ll let me date whoever I want to date,” Aurora huffs.
“When he first took over?” I ask, feigning ignorance.
Talking to the twins might be a good shot at getting some info about Leo and the Vitale family.
The twins share a look before Aurora finally sighs.
“Well, Leo has a different mother from the rest of us,” she starts. “We don’t know much about the story, but what we know is that our father was ruthless to Leo. We were still kids and, well, he had enemies, so he wanted his first son to learn everything about the business and family, in case anything happened to him.”
I digest the information carefully, and Fabio quickly resumes from where Aurora stopped.
“From what we know, Dad wasn’t a good man, and he definitely wasn’t a good father to Leo. He was ruthless in his training, punishing Leo for any little mistake he made. The way he treated Leo was so different from how he treated us. When Dad died and Leo took over, we all hated him. We weren’t exactly close to him, and we thought he would punish us for how our father treated him, but he didn’t.”
I ignore the way my heart softens at the information I’ve just received. Leo had every reason to exert his revenge on his half-siblings, yet he didn’t. It makes me wonder if he’s as ruthless as everyone paints him to be.
Dammit! I can’t afford to let anything sway my thoughts about Leo. He’s a monster, the end . I’m sure he wouldn’t hesitate to end my existence if he finds out who I am. I decide resolutely that I’ll do what needs to be done the first chance I get.
“Guess I wasn’t invited to the party?”
We all turn at the sound of the voice. Carmela steps into the kitchen, still in her pajamas.
“Fabio and I are learning how to cook,” Aurora says proudly.
Carmela’s gaze meets mine, but she quickly averts it.
“And what are you guys making? I don’t see anything on the counter,” she says as she stands beside Aurora.
“ Sarde a Beccafico ,” Fabio grunts. “What are you doing here? The kitchen isn’t really your scene.”
“I heard you guys were learning how to cook. I decided to confirm,” she replies.
“Yeah. We made yesterday’s breakfast,” Aurora says with a hint of pride in her voice.
“Really? No wonder it tasted bad,” Carmela says. I bite my lips to hide my chuckle. “I know Lorena isn’t a bad cook.”
The last part surprises me because Carmela and I don’t exactly get along. But I guess the teenager has her moments, as do all teenagers.
“Hey!” Carmela yelps as Aurora tugs her hair firmly.
“Don’t insult my cooking next time.”
“Maybe you should stick to the only thing you’re good at, which is going on trips and looking pretty for your Instagram pictures,” Carmela taunts back.
Aurora laughs. “Just say you’re still jealous we went to Santorini without you.”
Carmela flips her sister off with both hands, then she runs out of the kitchen before Aurora can smack her head.
“As we were saying before that cockroach interrupted,” Aurora huffs, flicking her long hair behind her shoulders. “Leo is really nice. I know the workers here might not share the same sentiment, but truly, he is.”
I nod, believing her words.
“Our family is into… bad stuff, but Leo never lets that get to us,” Fabio speaks. “He keeps it far from us, and he acts like a real older brother.”
“He is our real older brother,” Aurora corrects him, and my heart tugs in different directions.
It’s hard to see him as a monster when his half-siblings speak of him this way.
“What’s going on here?”
Speak of the devil .
Leo’s deep voice fills the kitchen as he walks in, asking the same question Carmela just asked seconds ago. Aurora gives him the same reply she gave Carmela, but I barely focus on anything else as I feel his warmth behind me.
“Good morning, Don,” I mutter.
He grunts, and my mind flashes back to the last time he was behind me like this, and what we were doing, the sounds he made…
The oven beeps at that exact moment, and I exhale a shaky breath before moving over to open it.
“I’ll do it,” I hear Leo behind me again.
Barely a minute ago, I had decided that I would go ahead with my plan and now, I am this close to throwing myself at him like a dog in heat. What the hell is wrong with me? Not having it in me to argue, I step out of the way. My breath hitches as my arm brushes the material of his suit.
“You have to wear this,” I mutter, slipping the oven mitten out of my hands and handing them over to him.
“Can you even take a pan out of an oven, brother?” Fabio snorts as Leo slips his hands into the thick, wool material.
“I feel insulted.”
Leo’s reply is lighthearted, and I watch closely as he bends to carry the tray out.
A pleasant aroma wafts through the kitchen, tempting my taste buds. Leo places the tray on the counter, and I observe the golden-brown sardines glistening with savory goodness, the combination of the crispy exterior and the succulent, flavorful filling.
“Wow, you did that without burning yourself,” Fabio slaps Leo’s shoulders. “I’m proud of you.”
“He would have burnt himself if Lorena hadn’t given him the mitten,” Aurora adds, and they both snicker.
“I’ll cut off your allowances if you keep taunting me,” Leo says in a gruff voice.
The laughter gets louder, and I can’t help the chuckle that slips out of my lips. Leo’s eyes meet mine, and I swallow thickly at the intensity of his gaze.
Biting my lip, I look away quickly before the twins can notice anything. I distract myself by sprinkling the baked sardines with fresh parsley and a squeeze of vibrant lemon. I have no idea if I’m making a total mess of the meal, I just need to be doing something with my hands to distract me from my sudden realization.
The sinking realization that I’ve gone and fallen for Leonardo Vitale.
Hard.
How did I not notice myself being pulled into his orbit?
It happened so fast. Too fast for me to do anything about it. Not that I would have even been able to. From the first moment, I should have walked away when I felt that primal attraction.
None of it was normal for me, but I told myself I could control it. I told myself I was stronger than whatever feelings Leo could elicit in me. Silly me for not realizing how bad things had gotten when I couldn’t pull the trigger on him. I should have packed my things and run as fast as my legs could carry me when I saw myself hesitating.
At least then, I would have still been able to lie to myself that he means nothing to me.
Why him?
Why couldn’t have I fallen for Maximo? It just makes more sense, and at least then, I know we may have some sort of future together. But there is no future for Leo and I. No matter what I think I feel for him now, it’ll never make me forget that he’s the reason I don’t have a family anymore.
This love is built on a patch of thorny, parasitic weeds, and eventually, it’ll get strangled out by bitterness and hate.
My newfound feeling is irrelevant, though. Leo doesn’t love me. I’m not even sure a man like him is capable of love. If I were smart, I’d stay as far from him as I can, and end this before it goes too far and it destroys me. If I were smart, I’d forget all about the brown eyed Don who makes my heart sing and bleed at the same time.
I have a feeling, though, that I’m already too far gone to be saved.