CHAPTER 13
Edoardo
“I’m going to crawl into bed the second this is over. And you owe me an entire day of spa services tomorrow.” Elena tries and fails to smother a yawn.
“Same here, sis. And yes, the whole week if you want.” I pull her into a hug. “Thank you for everything. This is huge. The turnout is ways beyond what I expected.”
I’m happy. Wildly, incandescently happy. Tonight’s the gallery opening and it has seen a huge success.
The gallery is alive. Top-tier art critics, journalists, advisors - the ones who actually move markets - are everywhere, glasses in hand, deep in conversation with our curators and gallery director.
Earlier private parties have already paid off; the looks, the nods, the carefully veiled enthusiasm tell me we’re walking straight into glowing coverage.
Several featured artists have flown in just for tonight, signing books, charming collectors, and sealing relationships that will last years.
Clive, Nadine, and Amina have effectively airlifted half of London’s old money into the gallery tonight.
Absolute godsend. Our staff moves with precision while Lisa and my gallery director handle the heavy hitters personally.
Orders are already coming in. I can feel them accumulating, stacking quietly behind the scenes.
Lisa has been relentless, already orchestrating a discreet private showing for the artist I flew to New York to court three days ago. She’d found him and I’d bet on him. Tonight confirms it.
The space is stunning. The opening night. Breathtaking. A huge success.
“Congratu-fucking-lations!” Clive bellows directly into my ear. “Look who I dragged here straight off his doorstep.”
I turn, and there’s Stefano. My grin breaks wide before I can stop it.
Stefano steps forward and crushes me into a hug. “Congratulations, man.”
Over his shoulder, I spot a tall figure.
“Wait. What?” My voice pitches embarrassingly high. “Oh my God.”
Xander steps out of Stefano’s shadow, laughing as he pulls me into a hug that knocks the air from my lungs.
“Congratulation, brother.” He pulls back, eyes scanning me. “I still can’t believe you finally opened a gallery here. In London.”
“When did you get back?” I grin like an idiot. “We’ve been playing tag... how long?”
“I know.” He laughs. “It’s been two years.”
Boarding school. The four of us, Stefano, Xander, Clive, and I, are as thick as thieves. We’d sworn allegiance, applied to schools in the same city, landed ourselves in Boston together. College was chaos. Loud, stupid, unforgettable chaos.
And this. This is the first time in years all four of us are in the same room.
“This is going to be a good night!” Clive shouts from behind us.
“Yes,” Stefano says, grinning. “It is.”
“Well, unless you have to run home and attend to your princess…” Clive smirks.
“My princess already has plans.” Stefano snorts.
“Princess?” Xander raises a brow. “That was fast.”
“What can I say?” Stefano shrugs, smug. “I’m lucky.”
“You are,” Xander and I say at the same time.
Clive scoffs. “You’re all getting fucking old.”
“Says the man who can’t get Caroline to look at him,” Stefano fires back, laughing.
Caroline. The name lands heavier than it should. Where is she?
“At least you didn’t screw it up, Edoardo,” Clive gestures wildly. “You invited her. She came. She just doesn’t give a damn about me. Maybe you should try your luck, mate.”
I snort, dodge the comment, and turn to Xander. “How long are you in town for?”
“Three days. Family time aside, I’m yours. Call me.”
My gallery director appears when I’m mid-sentence, pulling me toward my private office upstairs.
“Be right back,” I tell them. “Don’t disappear.”
Caroline rsvp-ed. Clive saw her earlier. So, she’s here. Yet I haven’t seen her.
As I move through the crowd, my eyes betray me, searching but finding nothing. And my traitorous mind drifts backward. To the pre-opening private party, a few nights ago.
“I’m a stickler for a theme.” I’d turned at the sound of her voice and there she was.
Caroline. Emerging from the crowd like an angel and a curse. Elena had her by the arm, parading her toward a cluster of London socialites. Every head turning.
God. Save. Me. That was the exact prayer that’d ripped through my mind.
Caroline in her Aphrodite costume - radiant, ruinous, obscenely flawless.
Gold and silk clung to her as if they’d been dreamed up for her body alone, the fabric skimming the elegant slope of her bare breast, sheer enough to tease, merciless enough to reveal just how smooth, how sculpted she was beneath it.
Every breath she took seemed to make it whisper against her skin, daring me to look closer.
The image seared itself into me, into my traitorous eyes, into my useless and fevered brain, and into whatever fragile architecture was still holding my body upright. My soul fled, abandoning me to the consequences.
Heat slammed through me, sudden and violent, a hard, undeniable ache tightening in my pants sparked entirely by that fucking silk.
I forced the sensation down, jaw clenched, breath measured.
My luck, if I could call it that, was the Pharaoh’s costume.
The rigid front panel, the gilded apron embroidered with coiled cobras, stood like a final line of defense, concealing my arousal just well enough.
A thin, ornate shield suspended between dignity and absolute, spectacular disaster.
I avoided Caroline after that. I spent the rest of the evening pretending not to look for her while scanning every face in the room. I’d gone completely, irreversibly mad.
And then, because fate has a vicious sense of humor, I cursed myself and every decision that put me on her godforsaken plane to Manhattan the very next day.
She barely acknowledged me, just a cool hello as I boarded and then nothing. She focused on her work, deep in conversation with the other three guys, but utterly unbothered by my presence just a few seats away.
Seven hours. Seven long, grinding hours from London to Manhattan. And I was annoyed the entire time. Unreasonably. Furiously. Completely. Annoyed.
I sigh as I pull myself back to my opening night. This is my week, my make-or-break moment. I’m drowning in pressure, crushed beneath expectation and still, Caroline haunts me. Caroline in gold. Caroline in that fucking white silk.
I violently shove my thoughts of Caroline down and plaster a smile on my face, focusing on the night ahead of me.
***
“Stop the car. Stop.”
“What?” I turn to Xander, one brow lifting. “What’s going on, bro?”
“I need to hit this place real quick.” He doesn’t bother finishing the sentence, one leg already out, door swinging open. “Get out. Now.”
I sigh, already moving, sliding out after him.
“Wait around the corner,” Xander tells the driver. “I’ll text.”
He’s halfway across the sidewalk before I catch up. Not walking but charging. He barrels straight into a cocktail bar.
We were supposed to be heading to late lunch. Clive and Stefano are waiting. Why a cocktail bar now? Weird.
I trail him inside and freeze mid-step, nearly losing my balance.
“Hi, Celina,” Xander drawls, casual as hell.
Connor’s ex looks up.
But I don’t see her. My eyes lock on the woman sitting across from her.
Caroline.
Her head snaps up at the exact same moment. Our gazes collide.
“Hi, Caroline,” Xander continues.
“Hi, Xander,” both women reply in eerie unison.
“Hi, Edoardo,” Celina says, already standing. “I heard your opening night was great.”
“Thank you,” I manage.
Caroline stays seated. She plasters a smile onto her face - thin, practiced,… wrong.
I didn’t see her at the gallery last night. Not once. And now - she’s warm and polite enough with Xander, but toward me? A glacier. Something cold and deliberate radiates off her, sharp enough to sting.
We’d been… fine. We’d been friendly and easy. So why does it feel like I’ve crossed a line I don’t remember stepping over?
“Hey,” Xander says to Celina, lowering his voice. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Sure.”
“I’ll wait outside,” Caroline says immediately. “Already paid.”
She’s on her feet before I can respond, already walking out. I follow, half instinct, half refusal to be left behind.
Outside, the cold is worse. Not the air. Caroline.
“I didn’t see you last night,” I try. “Did you have fun?”
“Uh-huh.”
Barely a word. More like a sound.
“How are you doing?” I press, searching her face. “When did you fly back? Friday night?”
“Yep.”
That’s it. What the fuck is happening?
She’s clearly mad at me. And for the life of me, I can’t figure out why. I haven’t done anything. I haven’t even spoken to her beyond a sentence or two in weeks.
“Is something wrong?” I ask, careful now.
“Nope.”
“Are we… down to monosyllables now?” I attempt a joke, forcing a smile.
“Uh-huh.”
Something snaps. I feel the irritation rise, hot and unwelcome.
“Okay,” I say. “What’s going on? You seem—”
“Nothing,” she cuts in, shrugging. “Just stop talking, please.”
I stare at her. “You’re mad at me?”
She keeps her eyes forward and says nothing. Silence stretches between us, thick, ugly, and public.
“Seriously?” I push. “You’re mad at me and you won’t even tell me why?”
“I said nothing,” she repeats. “Stop talking.”
I open my mouth to argue, to demand something, anything. But she turns away, body angling closed, every line of her posture screaming finality.
Conversation over.
And I’m left standing on the sidewalk, staring at her back, with the unmistakable feeling that I’ve just lost something I didn’t know I had.
***
What the fuck am I doing here?
I’m standing in front of Caroline’s house, frozen on the pavement, fingers itching - burning - to ring the doorbell. It’s past midnight. The kind of hour when people are asleep and uninvited visits feel like crimes. I know, with near certainty, that she wouldn’t be happy to see me.
And yet, I’m here.
The encounter earlier today has been gnawing at me.
It’s crawled under my skin and refused to leave.
I met up with the guys afterward, and God, we had a great time.
The first time in years all of us were together - laughing, loud, stupid, reckless in that familiar way.
Even Gigi gave Stefano space, disappeared with Elena and Celina so we could have our night.
It should’ve been enough. But it wasn’t.
Because no matter how hard I tried to drown it out, the question kept surfacing - Why was Caroline mad at me?
I replay every interaction. I replay every non-interaction. Still, I come up empty every single time.
I got her number weeks ago, at Elena’s birthday bash. It’s been sitting in my phone ever since, untouched. Tonight, I opened the message thread. My thumbs hovered.
I know she won’t reply if I text. I’m not sure she’d answer if I called.
So instead, I’m standing here in front of her house with her contact glowing on my screen. And I don’t even know what I would say if she picked up.
She made it very clear earlier that she didn’t want to talk to me. At all.
I exhale a harsh breath and drag a hand through my hair.
Jesus Christ. I’m an idiot. A spectacular one.
Standing alone in the cold, mist clinging to my coat, London silent and indifferent around me. In the middle of the fucking night. Debating whether to call or not to call. To ring or not to ring. Like a teenager with his first crush instead of a grown man with a functioning brain.
What the fuck is going on with me?