44. Ara
Lily is patiently waiting for the cocktails she ordered us beside the bar. When they’re handed to us, I notice they’re pink and sparkling in theme for the charity. As if my mood from today couldn’t have soured any further, my father has brought my stepmother, Sarah, for once. They circulate the room with ease. After the emotional turmoil and stark reminder of my mother, I can’t stand to look at either of them.
The truth of the matter is I hate these events. I’ve especially hated how Sarah so easily replaced my mother. Just like my father, all the adults surrounding me have pretended like she never existed but would often whisper between themselves the tragedy it was. Very few had the balls to claim any suspicion, which they certainly should have.
I hate even more that Luca is standing across the room from me. Women flock to him. It’s no different to the usual but it’s massively pissing me off tonight.
The events haven’t changed.
I have.
Or more specifically I am struggling to cling to the mask I’d hidden behind for years.
After discovering he bugged my office, I left work early for the first time since taking the role. Although I announced it was to get my hand checked out, I actually wanted to search my entire home immediately. Unsurprisingly, I found six cameras. I wasn’t entirely sure if that was all of them.
“Stare a little harder, Ara, you might be able to make it more obvious,” Lily says as she offers me my drink.
“I’m not,” I grit out, not even realizing I’d been staring in his direction.
That’s when she notices the bandage on my hand.
“Oh, what happened to your hand?” she asks, worried.
“I cut it on a broken piece of porcelain in my office. I wouldn’t worry about it too much.”
She doesn’t seem pleased by my answer but doesn’t ask further. I am slipping and fucking my role up royally.
“I don’t know what’s been happening between you two but if you had some kind of fight you can always make up for it. Now Luca’s made himself available for you… If you’re out of the picture every woman’s going to try.”
No one would understand the depths of what’s happening between Luca and me because they don’t even understand me. Although that is for self-preservation, I wish it wasn’t getting under my skin as it does now. Or the fact women idolize this crazed maniac. I take a sip from my cocktail hoping it’ll drown out the thoughts.
I feel like I am in a fucking pressure cooker I can’t escape.
This whole thing is a fa?ade and I’ve become too complacent, even enjoying my time with Luca as much as I curse and begrudge it. I am meant to play a role, but not fall for it myself.
“It’s a shame Lorenzo hasn’t joined him, but I don’t ever see him at events like this, I suppose,” Lily says.
If Lily knew who I really was she wouldn’t be my friend but if I can offer her any form of advice it would be to stay away from both men entirely.
“Lorenzo works for Luca as a bodyguard. I don’t know if I’d get involved, Lily. He’s dedicated to the Armani family and his job.” I try my hardest to draw the venom out of each word, with only a hint of success.
She seems uncomfortable by my straightforwardness. “You and Luca are both dedicated to your jobs and you somehow make it work, right?”
“There is no Luca and me,” I snip back and a pang of guilt washes over me when she goes quiet at my harshness. “I’m sorry. It’s been a hard day in the office. I always find it uncomfortable when my stepmother’s here.” Both truths.
My stepmother never did wrong by me. Her simple and easy replacement of my mother makes me bitter toward her. That and the fact my father started isolating me well before my younger half-brother was born and they went about creating a new happy family that considered me more a hinderance than family.
Lily doesn’t ask for an elaboration when they walk toward us.
“You might want to say hi to Camille.” I offer Lily a hint of kindness in way of excusing her. Since my father’s and my last meeting, I doubt this will be anything pleasant. The only saving grace is we’re in public so it mediates his temperament slightly. Hopefully mine as well because I am clearly not handling my shit today well.
“You can ask her all about her engagement,” I encourage Lily, knowing she’s dying for all the details. Sienna of course wasn’t all too impressed their engagement was announced on the same week as hers and felt like it was stealing her moment.
“Are you sure?” Lily asks, rubbing her hand along my arms, reassuringly. With a sad smile she leaves.
My stepmother, Sarah holds out both her arms. “Ara. I feel like it’s been so long,” she says as she hugs me. My body locks up and I freeze under the affection. Conscious of the room full of people I place a hand on her back. “Your father tells me you’re looking at marriage seriously, now?”
I stare at my father who waves to a person passing by. Of course, he would’ve told her that. And she’d be none the wiser to the facts behind it.
“Yep,” I say in a tight, clipped tone.
My father looks me up and down. “The dress is a bit short tonight, wouldn’t you say?”
My jaw clenches. It’s no different than most of my other dresses, which come to my knees. Sarah seems uncomfortable by the remark.
“I think it’s a beautiful dress.” Luca’s voice carries over my shoulder.
My jaw grinds as Luca wraps his hand around my waist possessively and pulls me into him. My father looks like he’s about to turn purple.
Sarah’s brown eyes light up. “Oh, is this the man who’s made you think differently about marriage?”
“No.” Both my father and I say the words in unison. We both realize we have onlookers.
“Luca is a friend,” I say politely as I try to push out of his firm unyielding grip. I fail.
“Is that what we’re calling it now, sweetheart? Well in that case, I hope you don’t have too many friends.” He and Sarah laugh. My temper rises with each and every syllable that comes out of this man’s mouth. “Do you mind if I steal her for a moment?”
He does so without a response and my father is furious. Especially with him already insinuating the marriage ahead of our agreed terms. But as I slowly feel like I’m spiraling into insanity, I really have no choice but to act now anyway.
Members watch on curiously as Luca takes me onto the balcony. Surprisingly there’s only one other person out there puffing on a cigar but the moment Luca locks eyes with them they wisely hightail it back inside. The moment we step away from the glass door and are concealed by the brick wall of the building I push him away.
“I told you no tonight.” I hiss.
“You said no to escorting me. Nothing about me approaching you.”
He’s fucking everything up!
“Are you still mad about this morning, sweetheart.”
“Stop calling me that! We’re nothing to each other.”
“On the contrary. I literally hold your life in my hands. Or should I hand the reins over to your father who wants to sell you off like a mule to a farmer?”
My gaze narrows on him. “If you knew about the matchmaker, then why are you pressing me like this? I made that agreement with my father and with your association it’s just speed tracking the process.”
“Ever heard of applying pressure to someone so they reveal all their cards, sweetheart?”
My mouth shuts because that’s exactly how I feel right now.
“How could you expect me not to walk across the room when I see this.” His hand snatches my wrist raising the bandaged hand. “Who did this to you?”
My mind goes blank. “What? No one did this to me. I did find the cameras you hid as I picked up porcelain pieces from the jaguar you bugged in my office. Then the ones in my apartment as well.”
A smug, arrogant smile spreads on his face and it takes everything in me to lock my arms to my side before I try to break his nose. “It took you long enough to find them, Ara. Is your hand, okay?”
This time I do swing but he expectantly catches my wrist with an even more perverted smile. He is pushing me over the edge purposefully, to see what I’d do as if I were some caged animal. I struggle to free my wrist out of his grip but he’s just too strong. Too overpowering and overwhelming.
“Fuck off, Luca.”
His beautiful and devilish smile spreads as he stares at my lips.
“I don’t know what it is about you, Arabella Barone, but you are devouring my every thought and when you speak to me like that…” I stifle under his touch as his thumb rubs against my bottom lip. “This back and forth game is becoming tiring.”
I’m shocked by his confession. No, it’s a game. It’s always been a game. “I didn’t ask for your attention. I don’t want it.”
“Your little visualization board in your room would say otherwise.”
“That wasn’t a visualization board, dickhea—” My mouth shuts when he begins to chuckle. I realize he’s riling me up. “What about you, Mr. Intensity? You won’t even let me sleep now without breaking into my room. You don’t think I’m exhausted from all the obsessive behavior?”
“Isn’t that what women want nowadays? What do they call it…a cinnamon roll?”
“Okay I’m not even going to ask where you learned that terminology. Stalking, breaking into a woman’s house, sending cut up body parts, and taking her freedom is not the definition of a cinnamon roll. Or any sane man for that matter. I’d take a fucking serial killer over you because at least he wouldn’t fuck with my head as much as you.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Don’t.”
His hand slides over my jaw and my body already responds to him as if he is the very breath that brought it back to life. I step out of it, realizing we’ve already slipped so easily into our toxicity. “Luca, this is impossible and crazy. Don’t you understand, you’re the enemy. We are not allies. We aren’t even friends.”
Too close.
He’s gotten under my skin and breathing him in any longer is poisonous.
“What I do know is that you’re mine. Any other opinion is irrelevant.”
“No Luca. I’m your obsession. If you’re half as smart as you think you are, you’ll start viewing me as anything but yours. You don’t know what a partnership or a relationship is. And it’s not something I can offer. Find an obedient wife elsewhere.”
I try to walk away but he still firmly holds my wrist. “I don’t want or need anyone else.”
His seething tone seems to take us both by surprise.
We stare at one another, my thoughts a wild, heated mess.
I don’t know left to right.
Who I am or what I’m here for and so I desperately cling to the one light that’s helped me place one step in front of the other.
I think of my mother and revenge.
Because this feeling that keeps surfacing can’t be trusted. It’s drowning me.
There cannot and will not be a Luca Armani and me with feelings intertwined.
“Our paths were never meant to cross. It was always meant to be from a distance. So, let’s keep it at a distance for a while.”
And when I say a while, I mean forever. But I know Luca won’t comply with that.
So I have to create a devastating distraction.
I’ve given up on thinking up another plan.
My time had run out.
The door opens as someone steps out and I finally tug my hand free. A giggling couple come to a stop when they spot us.
“Goodbye, Luca,” I say before opening the door and taking my leave.
“There were seven cameras in your apartment by the way,” he says. “Not six.”
And just like that an explosion of anger hits me because I know he’s fucking with me.
Yet again.