Chapter 2
LEILANI
I wish we were walking next to each other, with him maybe holding a protective hand to the small of my back, helping me step onto the gravel alley before reaching the main road.
Sadly, he walks ahead of me as if he’s mad.
His loss, not mine.
I’m not crying crocodile tears.
Seeing him simmer in aggravation gets my rocks off, so it’s still a win.
He gestures toward one of the cars, and the driver rolls it closer before bringing it to a smooth stop. He climbs out and opens the back door for me.
My mouth falls open when I realize what the plan really is.
“Aren’t you coming?” I ask, staring at his back while he heads to a different limousine, followed by his men.
“Get in the car,” he thunders without looking at me, steadily moving away.
I sink my teeth into my lip hard to stop myself from screaming out my frustration.
He set me up. What a little fool I am.
Left in the middle of the road with my driver waiting for me to climb in, I have no other choice but to get in and forget about him.
Cold rain finds its way to my lips.
I reach into my purse while the driver slides the door shut. Slowly, I tap my lips, check my face in a small mirror, and retouch my makeup.
“I hate him,” I mutter to myself, happy with how I look, annoyed with how things have turned out.
The car glides away, following my late mother’s husband’s ride, while I begin to plot out my revenge.
Like mother, like daughter.
It takes us a full hour to navigate the wet streets of Queens, littered with glistening rusty leaves past their prime that now look like acrylic paintings, and join the detestable traffic to Long Island.
The closer we get to my family home–an ostentatious historic mansion and a perennial reflection of our social status–the fewer cars cross paths with us.
As soon as we roll past the gates, we’re nothing more than what’s left of a funeral convoy, only this time my hopes get buried in the freshly dug grave of my bludgeoned innocence.
The cars slide to a stop in the round driveway, the doors pull open, and sleek shoes meet the wet gravel as more rain touches and ruins the smooth fabric of our clothes.
I set foot down, and without looking at anyone, I head for the main door.
No one pays attention to me.
This is my home.
My empire.
My playground.
I was born here.
I played in the backyard under the old white oaks as a kid and skinny dipped in the ocean as a teen.
I know every secret of this house, every whisper hidden in the corners, and some of the most unexpected turns of events that have killed people and twisted lives like they were pretzels.
But I don’t know much about him, and there’s a reason for that. My beloved mother had never trusted me with anything that had to do with her life.
Always jealous of me, she tried to keep––sometimes unsuccessfully––her men away from me.
In retrospect, I wish she hadn’t failed at that. My life would’ve been different.
With him, though, things escalated fast.
She was more protective, more secretive, and more vicious than ever. But it wasn’t her who put a wall between us, a guardrail, a golden cage around me.
It was him.
He kept me at arm’s length and didn’t want to be anywhere near me, and I thought that once she was gone, he’d be different.
Man, was I wrong, or what?
Yes, I was. So damn wrong.
My heels click across the slabs of striated black marble as I head straight to his home office, a vast reading room no one had used before he moved into the house and became her husband.
He rarely used the space himself, despite its nostalgic beauty stemming from a refurbished eighteenth-century walnut, hand-carved desk and upholstered chairs, rare paintings, and long drapes that reach the floor.
Carelessly, I push the door open, and it hits the wall with a bang.
I don’t even flinch.
What will he do to me? Come here and chide me? Give me a good spanking?
I wish.
The truth is, I can do whatever the hell I want and no one can stop me.
I’m the queen of the house now, and none of them can tell me what to do, how to feel, what to say, or what to think.
Not even him.
The widower.
I drop my purse on his desk, remove my coat, and toss it on his chair in spite.
The place is neatly organized since he rarely spends time in here, and the maids clean it every Friday and Tuesday with the rest of the house.
Sucking in a long breath, I press my hand against my stomach and look around, trying to find something to ease my pain.
The gray, wet view lining the windows makes me scrunch my nose in displeasure. Please, winter, bring us some snow. I’m sick of this rain.
Like a flock of misguided birds, my thoughts move quickly to something else. I’ll skip dinner tonight and sleep like a baby, but first I need a drink.
Sure, I’m too young to drink, but who’s going to stop me?
My stare glides over the bar.
He may not spend time in this room, but the bar is stocked up as if he is.
Male voices echo in the house as I wrap my fingers around a heavy bottle of bourbon and grab the bottom of a clean glass, flip it over, and pour myself a drink.
A quiet rumbling moves through the air before my nostrils get filled with the spice of his cologne, and a hand I could recognize if only I had my touch to feel it wraps around my drink and tears it away from my lips.
His smoldering eyes meet mine.
“What are you doing?” I ask, outraged by his gesture.
How dare he?
I suck in another breath to move my chest up and make him look––it’s not working––before grabbing the glass he just put down, in defiance.
His eyes look like southern electric storms when he yanks it away from me, and with a short, powerful move, he sends it flying into the old art adorning the wall.
The glass shatters at impact, and a curtain of bourbon sprays through the air, the intoxicating smell flooding the room.
The booming noise is amplified by the room's acoustics, sounding even more terrifying.
I zap a glare at him, my lips pressed together in resentment, my eyebrows raised in protest.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I shoot at him.
His eyes could easily turn me into a crime scene.
He spends a second gauging my stance on the matter before heading to the door, slamming it shut, and walking back to me.
Shards of glass crunch beneath his Italian shoes.
No one, and I mean no one, would dare to walk into his office now.
He could kill me with his bare hands and dispose of my body in the morning hours if he wanted, and no one would lift a finger or try to stop him or call Giorgio.
It dawns on me that the enemy is inside.
Inside the house, inside this family, and inside their stupid arrangement.
What kind of deal have they struck with this man?
This was never about Bianca Gallo.
I mean, it was––she wanted this beautiful man in her bed––but other than that?
What was it that made him want to marry her?
What did Giorgio Gallo give him in exchange? Besides his daughter?
Was it power?
He had power.
Was Callum indebted to him?
What was it exactly?
I don’t understand.
Calmly, he saunters toward me, unbuttoning his jacket and taking it off as if he’s about to roll his sleeves up and apply corporal punishments.
I dream that it might happen someday.
I cheekily plant a hand on my hip, arch my spine, and thrust my chest out––he’s still not looking.
Who is he fucking these days? Who has warmed his bed all this time?
Mistresses have never been frowned upon by the men or women in this family.
Giorgio didn’t publicly cheat on Sylvia.
She threatened to kill him in his sleep if he did it in the open.
He laughed her off, but never did it overtly.
What he did in private was a different matter.
As a rule, having side pieces has never been a problem.
Having men on the side hasn’t been a problem for my mother either, although getting Xavier killed mustn’t have been on her bingo card that day.
Bianca cheated because that’s who she was. A toxic, vile woman. Like me, now.
He makes me stare at his back as he pours himself a drink and slowly turns to me, bringing his glass to his lips.
His eyes are deep and heavy like a solitaire moon floating in the universe.
They push a shiver through me while carving my heart out like it’s a peach pit.
His drink meets the cold marble counter while he winces and draws in a troubling breath.
I wait for him to deliver his blow, fully aware we’re not here by accident or to engage in a philosophical conversation about life and death.
Struggling to keep his temper under control, he ponders his words. Nothing in this world can stop me from having a crush on him. Not even his bad words.
He is the epitome of raw maleness, and everything about him turns me on.
His eyes, his hair, his hands, and his lips.
The way he tilts his head while holding my eyes, never letting me run free again.
It doesn’t even matter whether he does it intentionally to put a spell on me or if it’s innate to him.
His eyes slide to my hair only for a second as he leans back against the bar, his arms crossed over his chest.
“You need to get a grip,” he says evenly before picking up his drink and emptying his glass in a voracious gulp.
I watch his Adam’s apple bob like I’m watching an astronaut crew landing on the moon.
His eyes dive into mine like nuclear missiles.
“What are you talking about?” I murmur facetiously.
He slowly lifts an eyebrow, rubbing a hand over his face as if he’s bored with me. Or with my becoming a persistent problem.
“You’re leaving for Sicily tomorrow morning,” he says casually as if he’s stating that we’re having fish for dinner.
A visceral pain tears into my stomach.
My mouth falls open.
“What?”
The word teeters on a shallow breath.
“What do you mean I’m leaving for Sicily tomorrow? I’m not going anywhere. This is my home. Besides, you’re in no position to tell me what to do.”
“It’s a done deal, Leilani.”
My heart leaps to my throat. Not even the sweet echo of my name on his lips makes the news bearable.