Chapter 6 Bambalina
Bambalina
“That’s a beautiful color on you, my love.”
Antonia’s gaze drops to my nails as the technician works her magic, making them look longer, smoother, more elegant. I’ve chosen coral to complement my olive skin and dark hair.
I smile, timidly. I’m beginning to feel a little more comfortable in my stepmother’s presence, especially since she’s been making such a big effort to get to know me, but I still feel strange doing this stuff with her and not my mama.
It’s not just because she’s my stepmother either—the woman my papa has chosen above all others. She’s also the mother of my crush.
Since the convention a few days ago, my feelings for Nicolò have ballooned. I went from feeling guilty and imposing as he drove me to the convention hall, to feeling helpless and frustrated, then protected and smothered in the best way.
I still can’t believe I threw myself at him. A blush creeps up my cheeks at the recollection, though there isn’t a whole lot I can recall—my thoughts were obliterated by the feel of his skin beneath mine.
I’d half expected him to be cold, like his demeanor, but he was so warm.
And beneath the soft, smooth skin of his neck was hard muscle.
His pulse thudded against my cheek, slowing down time.
Honestly, I don’t know how long I’d hung onto him for because my brain seemed incapable of tracking time.
When my heels lowered to the ground, my head spun and I could offer no resistance to the condition he laid down.
It was impossible to escape his watchful gaze the entire day, and I know I was the only photographer there to have her very own bodyguard.
Having the subject of my fantasies follow me around a convention center was a tad awkward, but it was nothing compared to what had happened in the car.
Just casting my mind back to the way he cupped the back of my head and pulled me onto his lap makes my knees weak.
The fact some guy was being beaten to death wasn’t at the forefront of my mind as my cheek heated against the crest of Nicolò’s leg. The round of his thigh muscle and the firm mass at the back of my head, however, was.
We were witnessing a brutal crime, yet Nicolò was hard. I had to bite my lip at the point I realized that Nicolò was turned on by violence.
The memory of it makes my pulse thunder and the temperature inside the salon heat by several degrees. I have to fan my face, passing it off as an attempt to dry my freshly painted nails.
“Have you thought about what you might wear to your eighteenth birthday party yet? Something in that color would really pick out your eyes.”
I inspect the coral again. “I haven’t really thought about it all that much. It’s still weeks away.”
“Those weeks will fly by with all the time you spend studying. Honestly, if Nicolò had spent half the amount of time with his head buried in books as you do, he could have made something respectable of himself.”
I blink up at her. “You don’t approve of what he does?” I say quietly.
“Approval is…” She mulls over the word. “I’ve never really thought it was my place to approve or disapprove, to be honest. He’s followed in his father’s footsteps.
” She shrugs. “But in his… line of work… the skills aren’t as, shall we say, transferable as those he might have developed in another profession. ”
She rests a pointed gaze on me and I nod to acknowledge I’ve decoded her explanation.
She sighs heavily and returns her focus to her own nails. “But,” she says, clicking her tongue, “I understand he’s very good at what he does.”
Something hot passes through me, dragging a breath from my lungs.
“And Cristiano certainly seems to agree.” Her tone dips slightly. “He keeps promoting my son, so he must be doing something well.”
I swallow and glance at the technician. If she knows what we’re talking about, she’s doing a good job of not showing it.
“Anyway, you probably know more about that than I do, what with how close you are to your sisters, and how close they are to my son’s colleagues.”
I shrug. “They don’t really talk about him. And he barely says two words to me—”
I snap my mouth shut. I don’t want to speak badly of my stepbrother. I don’t particularly want to speak about him at all. Not when the mention of his name elicits images and feelings I can’t handle unless I’m alone. I don’t know what just came over me.
Antonia cocks her head to one side, assessing me softly.
“I mean, I hardly ever see him anyway,” I bluster. “It’s not like he comes to the house much, or wants anything to do with a seventeen-year-old girl.”
I shake my head and reach for my glass of water.
“He doesn’t talk to you?” Antonia asks gently.
I swallow again. Her tone is genuine, not judgmental. More sympathetic than defensive.
My chin drops along with my shoulders and I peek up at her through my lashes.
“No. Not really. He doesn’t even look at me most of the time. It’s as if I’m not there.” My voice trails off as a wave of sadness catches on her features.
“Like I said,” I continue, “I’m just a seventeen-year-old girl. Of course he’s not going to care for a stepsister, not when he has a team of sol—”
“He had a sister once.”
Her words stop mine dead.
Several long, heavy seconds pass as I process what she’s just said.
“Excuse me?” I whisper.
Her chest rises and falls, the effort thick with emotion.
“You don’t have t—”
“I want to,” she says, firmly. “We’re family now. You deserve to know.”
My breathing turns shallow as I wait for her to continue.
“She would have been seventeen now too. Exactly your age.”
What? Nicolò had a sister who would be my age? There’s no wonder he can hardly look at me. My stomach feels like it’s folding in on itself, like I’m grieving something that never even existed.
“When?” My voice has dried up so the word comes out scratchy and parched.
The sadness deepens the lines on her brow. “She died twelve years ago. She was five.”
I can’t seem to do anything but blink.
“What happened?” I whisper.
“She had a rare type of bone cancer. We tried everything we could to save her, but in the end she simply became too weak. My husband and I, we couldn’t put her through any more chemotherapy treatment, so instead, we brought her home and stayed by her side until the Lord took her.”
Tears well in my eyes as her words sink in.
“Massimo, Nicolò’s father, he was never the same after we lost her. I didn’t know it at the time, but looking back, I can see that our marriage ended long before his own life was taken. We simply couldn’t console each other in the way we needed.”
“How did Nicolò handle it?” I ask, tentatively.
Her gaze drifts above the technician, latching on to something in the distance, far beyond the wall of the salon. She shakes her head slowly.
“He shut down. The boy I’d known until that day disappeared, and he became who he is now—a thick-skinned, single-minded businessman.” She ekes out that last word with a slightly bitter note.
I can’t help myself. “What was he like before?”
A breath of light touches her brow. “He was… everything,” she says, with a smile. “Naughty, cheeky, thoughtful, generous. He loved sports, he loved playing tricks, he loved going to the movies. He was never short of friends—or girls who wanted to be a little more than friends.”
She winks, oblivious to the wave of sickness that just came over me.
I feel myself taking a metaphorical step backward.
I like that Antonia trusts me enough to confide in me, but I also feel awkward.
I’ve been writing sexually explicit things about her son and I.
Okay, so I’ve been changing the names to avoid detection, but I still know who the stories are really about, and that makes me feel all kinds of weird when his mom discusses him with me.
Even when I can’t stop myself from probing.
I pin my lips together as she continues.
“But, as Sofia’s health worsened, his appetite for life just…
seeped out of him. When she died, he was a different person.
He was still only sixteen so I always hoped he’d get some of that spark back, but…
I don’t know, maybe this is always who he was going to be.
Maybe he just matured and would never have gone back to being the carefree, mischievous boy he used to be.
” She shrugs and her face falls. “I’ll never know. ”
The technician lowers my hands and I dart her a grateful look. “You’re all good to go,” she says, almost apologetically.
Antonia pushes back her shoulders like she’s shaking off painful memories. “Ah wonderful,” she says, with a forced smile. “Now, it’s time for some shopping!”
While Antonia pays for the treatments, I take a good, long look at in my reflection in one of the large gilt mirrors.
I wonder if Papa and Antonia would say the same about me—that maybe I’ve left the carefree girl behind, hardened in readiness for the dark underworld we now live in.
But, as Antonia returns, bringing with her a warm smile that reminds me of her son, I can’t help but wonder if the darkness is where I belong.