14. — rain. #2
She leaned in, and Carina moved inward, just the opposite way. Frankie took in the two women, watching Vanna’s profile against her stepmother’s cheek. Her lips moved, forming words said so quietly that Frankie strained to hear. She did make out their greetings but more became lost in the breeze.
“Seriously?” Vanna asked slightly louder, her eyes glittering.
Carina nodded.
Vanna’s hand came up fast, squeezing Carina’s side and she kissed her before pulling away. A kiss that landed somewhere beneath Carina’s ear, at her throat.
“Don’t tell him; for as long as you can,” Vanna said.
“I know.”
Neither woman looked at the other as they parted. Frankie wouldn’t realize it until much later, but that was the only time that she saw Vanna and Carina together that evening.
She became distracted by the two men climbing the steps now while Vanna hurried to catch up with her husband in heels that would make the devil’s mouth water.
Well, she did sleep beside one. Maybe that was the point.
“Happy belated eighteenth,” a man she didn’t recognize said, his stride slowing as he passed both Frankie and Carina on the steps.
“And congrats on ditching high school,” Marco Russo, walking alongside the stranger, added with a wink.
The total opposite from his brother, he wore a similar suit, all black from top to bottom, and that was one thing that looked the same.
Dark eyes raked her over. The hand that held two gift bags had been painted by so many tattoos she couldn’t tell one from the other.
The ink climbed over from under the throat of his dress shirt and stopped where the ridge of his jaw met his handsomely cold face.
That was all he had going for him. One other thing the two brothers shared. His energy bit at hers, though. And not in a good way.
She lost the smile. “Thanks.”
He nodded at her, stopping a step above Carina to lean back and drop a quick kiss to his adopted sister’s cheek. That one, she allowed.
“Sis,” he greeted.
“Marco,” Carina greeted, and then to the other man who had remained silent throughout the entire exchange, she added, “And Anthony.”
“How’s Little Nicky been treating you?” Anthony asked, grinning. “Behaving, I hope?”
Carina didn’t answer.
“Nico is fine,” Frankie said.
Anthony’s chin jerked up slightly, his upper lip curving slightly higher on one side like he’d just got what he wanted somehow and was so pleased about it. Without another word, the two men took their leave to follow the others.
“Knew it,” she heard Anthony mutter, “fucking familiar.”
Marco said nothing but glanced back at her.
She forced herself not to look away.
···
Three hours later...
“Okay, take a break,” Carina said, coming up behind a grimacing Frankie who tried to hide it by downing a flute of champagne. Her third in an hour. “For your feet and from the liquor.”
“Where’s that spray?” she asked.
“I have a can in every bathroom. Find one upstairs. Your father has all the upper rooms and staircases roped off. No one will notice; I’ll make sure.”
Frankie let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”
“And that’s enough champagne,” Carina repeated.
“I heard you, mother.”
The flippant remark, which Frankie had meant to be sarcastic and playful, stopped both at once.
“U-uh,” Frankie stammered.
“Stop that,” Carina said firmly but with a smile playing at the edges of her pink lips, “it’s okay. Get going before someone comes to say goodbye and you’re standing for another ten minutes.”
“Right, got it.”
Carina’s laughter followed Frankie as she weaved through the people in the gallery room.
A massive space currently draped in rose-gold and black silks that could double as a dining hall and ballroom with ten-minute changes by a team her father and Carina always used for parties.
She admired the way the silk tapestries hung in ropes between the many shimmering chandeliers.
Frankie knew the deal when it came to avoiding people, so as she made her way through them knowing she was supposed to be the star of the show, she looked at no one in particular.
Still smiling the whole way, it was easier to look through people than meet their eyes which would undoubtedly cause a conversation.
Her feet really did hurt.
The pink So Kates was a personal favorite, and the red pop at the bottom of the shoe contrasted well with the pink of the heels and her dress.
Delicate gold jewelry hung like glittering threads down her throat, on her wrists, and even her ring stacks on both hands were made up of thin bands.
Nobody could ever say that Carina didn’t know how to style.
A few minutes later, Frankie safely made it inside an upstairs guest bathroom in the hallway that led to her father’s study. It was the closest. She dug for the lidocaine spray.
Frankie let out a sigh, already feeling the relief, when she found the can. Sitting on the corner stool, she pulled the heels off and got to work. The stuff needed time to work after applying, so she enjoyed flattening her soles to cold marble.
“Finally,” she breathed.
“Aw, babe, come on,” came a voice from the doorway. Frankie’s head popped up, and Nico eyed her disapprovingly from the doorway. “That shit again? The pain means—”
“Look at this dress, Nico,” she replied hotly, needing him to get it for once.
They could quit having this conversation every time she wanted to put on a pair of shoes.
“Are you seriously going to stand there and tell me my body would look half as good wearing this dress if those heels weren’t on my feet? Honestly.”
“You’re gorgeous regardless.”
“Yeah, but—”
“No, that’s called a trap, babe. You’re not pulling me into it.”
Frankie grinned, shaking her head slightly. “I am serious, though. You know the heels do it every time.”
He sighed, coming to stand fully in the doorway and lean against the frame. His gaze drank her in, and she felt it from the soles of her feet to the roots of her hair. A heat raced and pooled in all the right spots. The ache in her feet changed to somewhere else entirely.
“If it’s lost on you,” he told her, shrugging, “I just made you feel like that in bare feet. The heels make your ass look great, but you’re wearing the dress either way.”
She swallowed hard.
“What are you doing up here, anyway? You’re not supposed to be with me, remember?”
“Not more than twice unless required. This is one, steps don’t count.”
He winked.
She just laughed.
“I think I saw you more than anyone else tonight, though.”
He smirked. “Seen but not heard.”
He had kept a distance.
“Quite a knack you’ve got there.”
“Oh, for what?” he questioned.
“Bending the rules.”
“Yeah, that’s a real skill. Trust me.”
She reached for the heels, but he gave her a look.
“Seriously, what am I going to wear, then? Carina would kill me if I came back barefoot.”
“I’ll go get those silk flats you like from your room. It’s not hard. I’ll be gone a few minutes, max.”
She considered it.
He went in for the kill and closed the deal.
“I will be asking you to put the heels back on later. You know, when everybody’s gone.”
“Oh, yeah?”
Nico cleared the huskiness from his tone, murmuring, “Oh, babe. Yeah.”
“Get me the flats.”
He nodded, already turning around. When he did get back, a short while later like he promised, she wondered...
“How did you know where I was?” she asked as he picked her up and placed her on the vanity counter.
“I asked Carina where you went.”
“You haven’t stopped watching me, have you?”
“I had to.” He picked up the shoes from the floor and placed them on the counter under the mirror. The flats, he waved them at her. “Once my sister left, I mean.”
“At least they’re pink,” she said of the flats. “Kinda matches.”
“Looks, comfort. A constant battle.”
“You have no idea. She looked so happy to see you.”
He seemed to know exactly who she meant as he slipped the flats on her feet one at a time. “Yeah, me too. She stayed through the dinner, but...”
“Vanna took her home, right?”
Nico shrugged. “I’ll get more days soon enough.”
“Did you talk to your father?”
“Nope.” Nico stayed on bent knee, his hands flat against the silk covering her thighs. “Unless he calls on me, I don’t plan to.”
“Ever?”
Something changed in his expression, and his eyes. A darkness seemingly carved into the planes of his face like she’d never seen.
“I thought I knew what I wanted,” he murmured, “but I don’t think I ever did.”
“What do you mean? Like, me—”
“No.” His fingers bit into her thighs, making her breath catch. “Hell no.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t worry about it. Tonight is not the time for that conversation, because I haven’t even unpacked what it really means to me. I’ve only just realized recently how much my perspective has changed in certain areas of my life. Priorities change. It is what it is.”
“What about your brother, or his...friend? Did you talk to them?”
“Carcoli?” Nico scoffed. “No, just viewed from a respectable distance. Gasoline and fire, me and them. Not the time or place.”
“He’s...a lot different than you.”
“Marco?” he asked.
She nodded. “Scary almost.”
Nico licked his lips, taking her statement in before properly replying.
“Bullet meet gun. With us, you never know which one is which. People only figure out I’m exactly the same—scary like that—when it’s too late.
You know with Marco straightaway. We’re two sides of the same coin, I think.
Both of us wanted the same things for a large part of our lives, and maybe he still wants some of it, but we made different choices to get there. It’s why he is who he is, and so am I.”
“Like what?”
“Well, we both wanted Dad to love us, for one. And trust me when I say, that’s the easiest part of the mess between him and I to deal with.”
Her teeth found her inner cheek because she could tell he didn’t want to talk about it, and so she let the conversation go. They could get back to it another time like so many other things between them. She didn’t mind.
“Okay, help me down here. I’ve got to get back.”