Chapter 31
“Okay, we’re here. Everyone out of the car.”
Boyan cheered, throwing his door open. Lou muttered a simple “Great,” tossing her braids over her shoulder with a roll of her eyes, and exited.
“God, I’m looking forward to the end of this latest teenage attitude phase,” I said, pulling the keys from the ignition.
“You and me both,” Bee croakily whispered. She signed, “You can forget about any babysitting anymore.”
I laughed. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”
“You sure you are ready to see him again?”
I sighed, folded my arms over the steering wheel, and looked up at Tore’s villa through the windshield.
“What choice do I have? It happened. Avoiding the facts isn’t going to change them.” And I’d be damned if I let Renzo see how much he hurt me, especially in front of everyone else at this family brunch.
I thought I had lived through the worst of my life’s humiliation years ago in the Hayes house, until last night.
The worst part was that I’d gone through with it willingly, believing some stupid, puffed-up lie in my head that he cared about me the same way I did for him.
After all those years of letters, after everything I told him and he told me, all to lose my virginity to that asshole and get absolutely nothing out of it. Not even a decent freaking orgasm.
I took one last deep breath to center my thoughts and got out of the car.
Ruminating over last night wasn’t going to do me any good today.
With my sunglasses on to hide the remaining redness from my last good crying session on the drive over, I sauntered up the D’Amico mansion driveway in the vineyard countryside, one door down from the Iannelli mansion.
At least today I was dressed as myself—tight top, baggy jeans, and a pair of colorful gumshoes.
“Good morning, Ms. Burch. Ms. Johnson,” Gerald, the house manager, said. “They’re waiting for you in the veranda.”
“Wonderful.”
Bee and I hooked arms and headed down through the wide spaces.
I adored this house, with its open rooms and an endless garden.
I used to love getting lost in it when I’d been a girl, trying to figure out what I wanted and how to release all that pent-up anger I didn’t know what to do with.
Not much had changed since I moved out. There was the dining table where Vinny taught Boyan how to play chess.
The couch with old popcorn probably still stuck under the cushions.
The chandelier we hung Christmas and Halloween decorations from.
The veranda where we ate breakfast and dinner, watching the sun rise and set on different sides.
The place was filled with good memories.
It was a shame he was tainting some of them now.
By the sound of the kids’ voices mixed in with a volley of others, they must have already joined up with Tore, Uncle Vinny, and their guest of honor. Bee and I paused at the back door.
“You can do this.”
I nodded, took a deep breath, and stepped out into the veranda. I waved to those who raised their heads. Lou was already buried in her phone, texting her life away in a corner, while Boyan bragged about the latest video game I bought him, a portable console in his hands, ready to demonstrate.
“Sorry we’re late.” I made the rounds around the long table, air-kissing the cheeks of my adoptive family and friends. “We hit some traffic on the way.”
When I reached Renzo, I debated for one foolish second whether or not to lean in for an air kiss.
He was just as handsome as last night, his eyes gleaming with the morning sunlight despite their frosty glare.
His features were a bit leaner than seven years ago, with the first few wrinkle lines starting to set in at the corners of his eyes, but if anything, it made him more attractive.
“Who are you?” Renzo’s voice was as detached as his face.
He recognized me all right, but it was the kind of awkward recollection that he’d rather not mention at the table. That burned. He really hadn’t known it was me. Nausea crept up my throat. I swallowed it back down and focused on my little brother.
“What’s the rule at the table?”
“I just want to show them this game. Please, two minutes,” Boyan pleaded.
“Two minutes that somehow always end up turning into a half hour. Put it down, Boyan. You’ll get it back after we’ve eaten and not at the table.
” He stuck his tongue out at me as I handed around the wicker basket specifically reserved for collecting our electronic devices during family time.
“Real mature. You too, Lou. Put it away. Tore, Vinny, Jac. Take a break. It’s not like you guys don’t work enough. ”
“Spoilsport,” Tore said, flicking one of his trusty lighters open and closed, then placing his phone upside down in the basket.
“Oh, please. Someone’s got to do it. Otherwise, we all know none of us’ll eat for hours. Come on. Chop-chop, everyone.”
“You play a hard game, Anzy.” Vinny slid his phone my way, then saluted me with a raise of his Bloody Mary.
“Only when it’s the one that was handed to me.” I placed it in the basket and collected Nannu and Nonna’s phones, Tore’s parents, whom we treated as our grandparents.
“You’re a good girl.” Nonna gently clapped my hand.
“Anzy?” Renzo’s voice registered in the background.
“Yes, reintroductions.” Tore clapped. “Renzo, you remember Ainsley Burch?”
I expected to see wide-eyed recognition on his face, or at least a smile.
All I saw was a smidgeon of confusion. Just a twitch of an eyebrow, a bob of his throat, there and gone so quickly I might have imagined them.
Apparently, that was all I merited, and it was like a punch to the chest. He stood and extended his hand.
“It’s been a while,” Renzo said.
With the basket clutched to my side, I forced a pleasant smile and shook his hand.
Two seconds later, I dropped it—long enough to be polite, but short enough to make him understand that I wasn’t at his beck and call.
If he didn’t want to acknowledge what had happened between us last night or acknowledge us at all, I wasn’t going to humiliate myself further by bringing it up.
“It has, hasn’t it?”
Those emerald orbs of his inspected me from head to toe before turning decisively to the person beside me. Just like that, he was done with me. Jesus, I really was an idiot with delusions of grandeur.
“And you must be Brielle.”
He shook Bee’s hand just as impassively as he had mine, for just as long. It made our handshake feel even more insignificant and pointless. I sucked in a shaky inhale and dug my nails into the basket.
“Lovely to finally meet you.” Then he sat, back to cold and aloof.
I shook my head slightly at Bee’s glance of pity.
“And you know of her…because…?” Tore asked.
“I know everything, cousin. Bars or no bars.”
Tore reclined in his seat and clicked on his lighter, twisting the collection item left then right. The flame danced with the motion. “You ever going to tell me who your informant was in my inner circle?”
Renzo didn’t even glance my way. “This secret keeps you on your toes. Why would I?”
“They’re lucky it was for you and no one else. Only reason I didn’t pry deeper.”
“’Course.”
“I still need your phone,” I cut in, holding out the basket in front of Renzo. It was all the more gratifying that, for once, I was taller than him, looking down at him sitting at the table.
“And if I refuse?” There was a dangerous edge to his tone, one that quieted every conversation at the table. A saner person might have gotten the chills or pulled their hand back, but sanity was overrated, and, in my opinion, it just held people back.
“The rules apply to everyone.”
“I make a habit of breaking them.”
It took effort not to scoff and roll my eyes. “Go ahead. You just won’t eat. Looking at Tore won’t change anything. I’ll be as stubborn as I have to be on this, and he knows it. Outside this house, you made men make your own rules. Inside, you follow ours.”
Now I had his full attention, and my body awakened under the blaze in his eyes.
The twinge between my legs where he’d been only last night flared, begging me to rub my thighs together.
He’d been distant and cold before going to prison.
Now, there was a darkness to him that was as alluring as the sharp contours of his face and the broad width of his shoulders.
If glares could kill, I’d probably already be six feet under, and somehow that only made me want him more.
“Ren, cugi, you have to excuse her. I told you she can—”
Renzo held up his hand, effectively cutting Tore off. As if to prove his point, he pulled out his gun and placed it on the table, hand still on the grip, finger poised over the trigger.
“Anzy…” Lou’s voice was unnaturally uncertain and shaky.
Ricco half rose, his chair grating against the flooring. I stopped him with a shake of my head.
“Isa,” I called out to the house manager without breaking eye contact with Renzo. “Would you please serve brunch? But please hold off on Mr. Iannelli’s plate. He’s not hungry.”
He sneered, picking up the gun and turning it around. “Aren’t you afraid of what your arrogance is going to cost you?”
“What’s the point if you’re willing to do this all because of a little rule?
If not now, you’d find another reason later.
So if I die, I die. If I don’t, then I’ll live my life to the fullest. Always on my own terms.” Then I bent in closer and whispered, “I know you. If you really wanted this, I’d already be dead. ”
Our faces were inches apart, our breaths intermingling.
I could see the small flecks of yellow mixed into the deep green of his irises, the pores on his nose, and the slight scar at the corner of his temple.
If I leaned forward just one step, our lips would touch.
I was closer to him now than when he’d been inside me. How ironic.
The weight in the basket suddenly increased. I broke our stare to find he’d placed his phone inside. As if we’d agreed upon it, Isa and the maids came out to serve brunch.
“Thank you.” I pulled away, setting the basket on a side table along the house wall.
“Salvatore,” Nannu started, his voice grave and coarse after decades of smoking cigars. “I think it’s time you arrange a marriage for Ainsley. Someone strong enough to tame that will of hers.”
“Tore’s well aware of what’ll happen if he or anyone at this table tries.” I covered Boyan’s ears with my hands, even as he struggled to force them down. “I’ll happily take a scalpel to every set of balls involved.”
“Anzy,” Nonna scolded, her pitch too high and gentle to be taken seriously.
I had a lot of respect for Ruid D’Amico, the man who asked me call him Nannu—a Sicilian nickname for grandpa—within days after his son Salvatore adopted the three of us, but he was old school.
To him, women belonged at home, in the kitchen, with the kids, with little else on their minds but chores, getting married, raising kids, and supporting their husbands.
He’d fought tooth and nail against my going to medical school two years ago.
He tried coddling and spoiling me as much as he tried toughening up Boyan.
It never worked. I thought he’d given up.
Boyan tore my hands off his head. “Seriously, I’m old enough to hear all this.”
“You’re lacking discipline, young lady.” Nannu slammed his fist against the table. “You owe it to the family for taking you in.”
“I’ve already stitched up knife fights and mended broken bones. Once I’m a doctor, I’ll more than make up for what I owe. But I will never, ever sell my body and life so that someone other than me gains from it.”
“What about us, Nannu?” Boyan asked. “You think we’d let someone take our sister away? I’ll shoot him first.” He waved at Lou to speak up.
“I…I guess I’d stick him with my heels,” she said in that blasé tone of hers.
Tore chuckled. “You won’t win this one, Papa. Can’t you see Anzy’d chew and spit out any man you tried to set her up with? Best to leave her be. Anzy knows what she wants in life. I’d wager she’ll find a man worthy of her.”
“And should he betray her trust, we’ll be here to cut him, limb by limb,” Jac added, digging into his plate.
“And what of the debt you owed prior?” Renzo drawled, his tone caustic, almost inhuman.
“I’d argue that debt has already been paid. Tenfold.”
“Remember what I told you. I decide when it’s paid off. Not one. Moment. Before.”
My mask dropped, my eyes shutting just for a second to collect myself.
They prickled with pooling tears needing release, as if that would change anything.
He wasn’t the man I’d built him up to be.
The kind words were all in my head. Or maybe they weren’t, and they had been just another tactic for him to manipulate the end result: him out of prison.
If that was the case, he won. I’d fallen for it—hook, line, and sinker.
I forced a smile. “Anybody want some tea? I’m going to have Isa boil some water.”