Chapter Four
CHAPTER FOUR
Georgia/ Seven Years Ago
I take a deep breath and lift my knuckles to the door, repeating the same words in my head over and over again for practice. I want to celebrate my birthday with friends this year, Daddy. Plain, simple, and to the point. Nikolas Del Rossi likes people who go after what they want. He says bluntness is a trait he looks for in business partners because he doesn’t have time to waste on those who talk in circles.
I know the second the door to his study opens, I’ll be greeted with the smell of expensive tobacco, whiskey, and leather. I was allowed to sit in on meetings inside the room when I was younger, and it was one of my favorite spots to sneak into where I could take one of the books off the shelf and spend time absorbing eighteenth-century literature when I was a teenager.
As I got older, the things I took from inside my father’s favorite room changed, like my first taste of alcohol from his liquor cabinet, which contained only the finest scotches, whiskeys, and bourbons. I hated the initial burn from one of his favorite bottles of Macallan but found it soothing by the third time I’d tried it.
Swallowing down the anxiety that’s been building since my best friend Emilia DeMatteo, or Millie for short, suggested we go out for my birthday tomorrow, I gently knock three times on the thick wood. Biting hard on my lower lip, I wait until I hear a firm, “Who is it?” before cracking it open.
“It’s only me,” I say, flashing him my best smile where he’s perched behind his desk, still in his pale green polo tee that I bought him for Christmas and the designer khaki slacks that my stepmother found to match that he was in when he left for golf this morning.
He used to say my smile was my best feature, capable of making even my worst enemy like me. I always thought of it as a compliment until I was older and wondered why I’d have enemies to begin with. But he always said the same thing when I asked. “You’re a Del Rossi. And Del Rossis have far more enemies than we do friends. That’s the price of our last name.”
“I’m sorry for interrupting,” I apologize, stepping in and staying near the door. I do my best not to fidget with the hem of my dress like I normally do when I’m nervous. Millie said it was one of my tells when I had something on my mind.
“Georgia,” my father greets with a tip of his head, gesturing me forward. “We were just talking about you. You remember Antonio Carbone, don’t you?”
I turn to his companion and flash him the same smile I gave to my father. He’s far too dressed up for golf, which I thought was where my father had spent his day off. The graying man must be around my father’s age and looks familiar, but I can’t say I remember him. There are always people coming and going from the house thanks to Daddy’s booming construction business that’s expanded past the five boroughs and into New York City and Jersey, so it’s hard to keep track of them all.
“Hello, Mr. Carbone.”
Antonio’s eyes flash appreciatively as they rake down the front of me in a way that has hair standing on my arms. “You’ve certainly trained her well,” he muses, his eyes roaming over my chest in a way that makes my toes curl in my shoes uncomfortably. “I do agree, Nik. She’d certainly fit the part. If you’ve raised her as I’m sure you have, she’ll be as dutiful as Leani is with you.”
Confusion furrows my brows at the mention of my stepmother, but I don’t have time to ask him what he means when my father speaks. “Is there something we can help you with, Georgia?”
I shift on my feet, gathering my courage. “I was hoping we could talk about something. I wasn’t sure if your…friend was still here or not.”
Once upon a time, I’d gotten to sit with him while he smoked and talked to his friends and associates. But that was when I was eight and still wore pigtails in my chocolate hair that I got from my parents and hideous frilly dresses that my stepmother insisted on putting me in. That quickly changed when puberty hit, and curves took over the stick figure I’d been sporting since my girlhood.
Millie said my father’s protectiveness was inspired by the C-cups that grew on my chest overnight, and the feminine slopes of my hips that accompanied them. Gone were the days when I could mingle with the men who now looked at me like a prize to be won, and in its place were strict demands to stay in my room when I wasn’t helping Leani with whatever charity event she was hosting in the Del Rossi name. It was busy work that I rarely found fun, but it was better than sitting around bored to tears because I wasn’t allowed out with the friends I’d been able to spend time with when I still attended school at St. Mary’s.
My father watches me with raised brows, lifting his cigar to take a drag in wait. No beating around the bush. Got it.
“My twenty-first birthday is tomorrow,” I remind him, standing taller with feigned confidence. “I was hoping I could go out with Millie for it. She mentioned a dance club opening that has very respectable reviews. It’s—”
“Absolutely not,” he answers before I can convince him otherwise.
My smile slips, and heat settles into my cheeks as Antonio chuckles from his spot in the leather armchair.
“Twenty-first birthday parties are full of nothing but debauchery, and that DeMatteo girl is hardly the right kind of influence you need in your life right now. It’s bad enough she’s got you to dress like her, looking like an escort for hire. I will not allow you to look like a hooker at some nightclub where you’re unsupervised.”
His tone warms my face, shrinking my posture. Any confidence I had before washed away as I feel Antonio Carbone’s eyes on me.
Millie has always been unapologetically herself—from the short, tight clothes she wears to the bright colors she dyes her hair to the people she associates with. She’s stubborn and opinionated. Two things that my father has never liked me being as I got older. He said I needed better influences if I was going to make it in the world he was building for us, but I never understood what that world was if I couldn’t be my own person in it.
“Plus,” he amends, tapping the cigar against the ashtray, “Leani has already planned a get-together here to celebrate with close friends and family.”
She hasn’t said a thing to me about it. Then again, the woman who always took me shopping for ugly dresses, shoes, and jewelry so I could fit into high society never quite enlightens me on anything unless she has to. Her sole focus has always been maintaining the household, which I learned all Italian American wives strive to do. I’m an afterthought more times than not, only getting attention when my appearance needed to be worked on for outings I was reluctantly dragged to. Usually, ones where I’d be squeezed into fancy dresses that hurt my waist, forced to sit through hours-long hair styling, and dolled up with makeup that made me look ten years older.
I know better than to press my luck and push the man watching me, but I do anyway. “Couldn’t I do both if I promised to behave myself? Most of the parties we host here only go until nine. I could get a ride with—”
“The decision has already been made,” he tells me firmly. “Trust me, dear. Tomorrow is far too important to miss out on. In fact, you’re going to formally meet Antonio’s son Luca tomorrow night. I already told your mother that you’d be needing a new outfit for it. I imagine you’ll go out tomorrow morning to find one.”
I’ve known Luca Carbone since we were little because we’d been dragged to the same galas and events by our families. As he got older, he started acting like the other boys he hung out with from other important families from the city. He schmoozed like a future politician—those were my father’s words. He’s always liked Luca and the connections he made, while I found him…less than impressive. He was a flirt back then, and I doubt he’s changed any now. Not to mention, there have been whispers about how he treats some of his intimate female friends. Why would my father want me to formally meet him of all people?
“I’m sure I could find something in my closet if you tell me what the theme for the occasion is,” I tell him, trying not to let my confusion show.
Antonio and my father share a look before my father turns those dark, espresso-brown eyes on me. He says I got my eyes from my mother, which is probably why he’s never able to look at me for long. “Find something formal and elegant and consider it your pre-engagement party.”
For a brief moment, I swear my heart stops.
Thump. Pause. Thump. Pause. Thump.
It echoes in my ears as I repeat those words in my head.
Antonio stands and walks over to me, giving me another cursory glance with a look of hunger in his eyes that I’ve seen too many times during the events I attend with the family. “My son is certainly going to be a lucky man, isn’t he?” A slick grin spreads across his face as he tilts my chin up to meet his eyes before his own goes to my chest. Goose bumps cover my arms as I withhold from the shiver that quakes my spine. His touch feels wrong. Dirty.
My parents always told me to never let a man touch me without permission or supervision—that my virtue was my strongest asset.
Sure, I would dance with random men at charity events, no matter how little I wanted to, but it was always under their watchful eyes. And, most times, I was more than glad when the song was over, and I got to smile and leave my partner behind in favor of trivial conversation at my parents’ table discussing politics and the state of the economy.
My experience with the opposite sex is limited at best. I’d snuck my first kiss behind the bleachers at St. Mary’s when I was fourteen because Millie told me it was lame to be in high school with no experience. Then again, she’s the same person who lost her virginity at fourteen at a party she snuck out to in the middle of the night. I was open to kissing a boy or two, but I never let her pressure me into doing more.
I’d had it drilled into my head since I was eight that my virtue was everything to me. I never truly understood why, but I held on to that, knowing how much it meant to my family.
Humming, Antonio releases my chin and circles me. “I hope he thanks me for this arrangement. Too bad they didn’t make them like this when we were younger, huh, Nikolas?”
“Careful, Antonio. That’s still my daughter,” my father says, deceptively calm.
I look at him, trying to hide my disgust for the stranger who touched me so nonchalantly. Hasn’t he heard about Luca’s indiscretions with women? If my virtue was so important, what about his?
“I don’t understand, Daddy.”
“You don’t need to, darling,” he answers, standing and pressing a palm down on his shirt to flatten the wrinkles.
“I’m to be engaged without any conversation then?” I doubt, my voice nearly inaudible. “I barely know Luca, and I highly doubt one party is going to change that. Marriage is forever.”
“Exactly. And marriage is important, Georgia. For both us, the Carbone family, and our social standing.” He extends his hand toward the door. “Antonio, I’ll walk you out. We can discuss the details later.”
Betrayal weighs heavily in my stomach at the news. Nobody has said anything about marriage . I’d thought about the day I would get married. What little girl hadn’t? But I never dated because I was never allowed to. I couldn’t even go to college because my father insisted that it was a waste of my time and money. He informed me I had other priorities. Unfortunately for me, those priorities consisted of co-hosting charity events and presenting myself as a dutiful Del Rossi in the public eye to help boost my father’s business and reputation. Once in a while, he’d let me go to work with him and help file paperwork at The Del Rossi Group office, but it was rare.
I watch as my father passes me without any further explanation. It doesn’t make sense.
I straighten, holding up a hand. “I don’t—”
“Don’t argue, Georgia.” He cuts me off with a stern look. “You’re to respect my decision as you always have. You’ve trusted me this long. Now trust me about this. It’s a good pairing. Now, go ask your mother to buy you a dress for the occasion. What’s done is done.”
Swallowing, I stare at his back as he walks my future father-in-law to the door. I say, “She’s not my mother.”
He stops, his back straightening before he looks over his shoulder. “No,” he agrees, with his mouth twitching downward. His eyes dim the same way they always do when my late mother, his first wife, is mentioned. Scanning my face as if seeing the ghost of her before him, he shakes his head. “She most certainly isn’t.”
My heart sinks to the bottom of my stomach when he opens the front door and says something quietly to Antonio, paying me no more attention.
Ever since my mother passed away when I was little, he’s buried himself in work. It seemed like no time at all that Leani entered the picture. Daddy told me I needed a maternal figure in my life because he was too busy to be raising me himself. But I could tell my mother’s death hit him harder than it did me. I was too young to understand she was gone. I’d been at her funeral, but even then, I didn’t grasp who lay inside the closed casket covered and surrounded by hundreds of flowers—all white carnations.
Her favorite.
I still smell them after all these years, and my mind goes back to that day in the big church full of people I didn’t know who offered me and Daddy their deepest condolences. He had been stiff and withdrawn as each person shook his hand but changed completely when a man in a fancy suit stopped in front of us. To me, he was just another stranger here to tell us how sorry he was for our loss, but there was something about him that stood out from the rest.
“It’s a shame it had to come to this,” the stranger tells Daddy, his grip on my father’s hand lasting longer than the line of other people before him. “Perhaps now you will listen the way your late wife did not.”
I look up at my daddy, then at the man.
His eyes lower to meet mine, and a funny feeling creeps up the back of my neck. “I would hate for something to happen to your precious daughter. She’ll be a stunner one day, Nikolas. Keep her close.”
He smiles at me, but there’s something weird about it. I reach out and touch my daddy’s hand, but he doesn’t hold it. When I glance up, I see the same expression on his face as when he heard about Mommy’s accident.
“Goodbye for now, Del Rossi family,” the man says in farewell, giving me one last glance before letting the people behind him have their time to talk. “And remember the conditions of our little deal.”
My father loved my mother so deeply that he used work to distract himself from the pain of her loss until I spent more time with my stepmother and house staff than I did with him.
Now it feels like he’s trading me off to be somebody else’s problem. What would my mother have thought about this?
I close my eyes and count to five. It’s only when I hear a soft, “Georgia?” from the housekeeper that I open them to see a concerned expression on the elderly woman’s face. “Is everything all right, dear?”
Voice shaky, I whisper, “No.”
Mrs. Ricci gestures for me to follow her into the kitchen, so I do. Guiding me to a stool at the large, marble kitchen island, the gray-haired woman sits me down and pours me a glass of homemade hot chocolate. She even keeps a secret stash of mini marshmallows hidden in the cupboard because she knows they’re my favorite.
Sliding me a mug of the hot drink, she offers me a comforting smile. “I know those eyes. Tell me what the matter is.”
“Nobody said a thing about me being married off to a stranger,” I say, gripping the mug handle until there’s a bite of pain in my knuckles. “Don’t I get an opinion? It’s my life.”
Her smile only saddens. “You’re a Del Rossi, my dear. And your father cares very much about your future because he loves you.”
She must have known about this. What has she heard? I know she eavesdrops. I’ve seen her do it outside of my father’s study. “I know he cares. But what about me and the love I want?”
“What about it?”
Shoulders dropping, I shake my head. Maybe love is for fairy tales. Movies. Even the books I’d lock myself in my room to read. I haven’t witnessed it firsthand before, not in the same way I’ve read about or watched in film. I don’t think my father ever felt the same way after my mother passed away in a tragic car accident when I was four. Maybe selfishly, I’d always assumed he never felt the way for Leani as he did with the woman I get my looks from.
“I thought…” I loosen a sigh, letting go of the hot chocolate and dropping my hands into my lap. “I thought I would fall in love with the person I marry. Is that too much to ask for?”
Mrs. Ricci is quiet for a minute before patting my hand. “You can still fall in love with him, Georgia. Love takes time to grow, no matter who it’s with. It takes a strong and special woman to change a man. But I think you’re capable. And Luca is young too. There is always time for change.”
I glance down at my fingers, fiddling with the hem of my dress. “I’ve heard bad things about him. What if he doesn’t change for me?”
There’s a momentary pause that has me peeking up to see a pinched smile on her face. “I don’t have an answer for you, I’m afraid.”
What did I expect?
The kind older woman who’s been here for as long as I can remember squeezes my shoulder once. “You didn’t hear this from me, but I happen to know your parents have dinner plans with the Coopermans tonight.”
My brows pinch at the information I hadn’t known. Howard Cooperman and his family founded New York City’s most prestigious law firm. My father is always doing business with them now that The Del Rossi Group has grown outside of the metropolitan area of New York. I usually get told to wear something classy whenever we’re having dinner with them because it’s typically at a ritzy steakhouse where the side salad alone is a hundred dollars.
“Alone,” she adds with a small smile teasing the edges of her mouth. “So if you happened to go out for a small birthday celebration of your own, nobody here would stop you.”
Instantly, I’m out of my seat and lunging at her, my arms wrapping around her body. “Thank you, Mrs. Ricci.”
She pats my back. “No need to thank me. Personally, I always thought you deserved a little more freedom than you had. Nobody your age should be cooped up inside for as long as you have been. You’re only young and pretty once, and I think that scares your father.”
When I pull back, I’m met with a strange look that has her smile wavering. She affectionally pinches my cheek. “I know being a Del Rossi is hard, so I want you to remember that freedom comes with consequences. Whatever choices you make tonight should be ones you stand by because it’s right for you and your future. Understand?”
My nod is minuscule, but I’m not sure I know what she means.
One night.
I have one night before my life changes forever thanks to decisions I had no say in.
One night to make it count.
Mrs. Ricci’s throat bobs in a thick swallow like she can see the choice I’ve made for myself long before I’ve had time to process it fully myself.
“Go on,” she urges, those eyes becoming glassy as she nudges me out of the kitchen. “Go.”