by LJ Shen
“Be gentle with her, Wolfe.”
“That would give her false hope that what we have is real, and that’s entirely too cruel, even by my standards,” I drawled, pushing the cake across the table.
“She’s lonely. She’s young, isolated, and frightened to the bone. You’re treating her like an enemy before she even lets you down. All she knows about you is that you’re a powerful man, you hate her family, and don’t want anything to do with her. Yet you made it clear that you’ll never let her go.
“She is a prisoner,” she finished simply. “For a crime she did not commit.”
“It’s called collateral.” I laced my fingers behind my head and sat back. “And it’s not very different from the life she would have led with anyone else. With the exception that unlike the majority of Made Men, I’d spare her the lies when I cheated on her.”
Sterling winced as though I’d struck her across the face. She then leaned across the table and took my hand in hers. It took everything in me not to withdraw. I hated touching people in any capacity in which my cock wasn’t in one of their holes, and Sterling was the last person on the entire planet I’d fuck. Not to mention, I particularly disliked it when she exhibited her feelings openly. It was inappropriate and way out of her job description.
“Choosing something doomed and being forced into it are two very different things. Showing her mercy will not weaken you. If anything, it will assure her you’re confident in your power.”
She sounded like Oprah.
“What do you have in mind?” I sneered. If I could throw money at Francesca and send her off on a shopping spree in Europe to spend some time with her cousin Andrea and get her out of my hair, I would do it in a heartbeat. At this point, I even considered Cabo as an option. It was still on the same continent, but far enough away from here.
“Take her to her parents.”
“Have you been drinking?” I stared at her blankly. I hoped not. Sterling and alcohol were a lethal combination.
“Why not?”
“Because the reason I’m celebrating Romeo’s birthday without Romeo’s presence is due to her father.”
“She is not her father!” Sterling darted up to her feet. Her palm crashed on the table, producing an explosive sound I didn’t know she was capable of. The fork on my plate rattled and flew across the table.
“His blood is running through her veins. That’s contaminated enough for me,” I said drily.
“But not enough to prevent you from wanting to touch her,” she taunted.
I smiled. “Tainting what’s his would be a nice bonus.”
I stood. A vase fell to the ground behind me, no doubt knocked down by my future wife. Bare feet jogged across the dark wooden floors, pitter-pattering as they slapped the stairs on her way back to her wing. I left Sterling in the kitchen to stew in her anger and followed my bride-to-be up with deliberate leisure. I stopped on the cleft between the west and the east wing when I reached the top floor, before deciding to retire back to my office. No point in trying to pacify her.
At three in the morning, after answering every email personally, including replying to concerned citizens about the state of Illinois’ tomatoes, I decided to check on Nemesis. I hated that she was a night owl since I had to wake up every day at four, but she seemed to like getting out of the coop at nighttime. Knowing my quirky bride-to-be, it was not out of question for her to try to escape her cage. She certainly made a habit of rattling the bars. I strolled to her room and pushed the door open without knocking. The room was empty.
Rage began to course inside my veins, and I bit down on a curse. I moved to her window, and sure enough, she was downstairs, a cigarette dangling from the corner of her pink, pouty mouth, weeding a vegetable garden that wasn’t there before I threw her in the east wing and left her to her own devices.
“With a little bit of hope, and a lot of love, you will make it to winter,” she told the…radishes? And was she talking about herself or them? Her conversing with vegetables was a new and disturbing twist in her already awkward personality.
“Be good for me, okay? Because he won’t.”
You hardly make the cut for fiancée of the year either, Nem.
“Do you think he’d ever tell me whose birthday it was?” She crouched down, fingering the lettuce heads.
No, he won’t.
“Yeah, I don’t think so, either.” She sighed. “But, anyway, you drink some water. I’ll come check on you tomorrow morning. For lack of anything better to do.” She chuckled, rising up and putting her cigarette out against a wooden passageway.
Nem had been sending Smithy to buy her a pack a day. I made a mental note to tell her the wife of a senator was not allowed to puff like a chimney in public.
I waited a few moments, then made my way to the corridor, expecting the balcony doors to slide open and to catch her going up the stairs. After waiting for long minutes—something I despised doing with every bone in my body—I descended the stairs, making my way to the terrace. Her disappearing act was grating on my nerves. First, she broke Romeo’s picture, and now, she snooped around and talked to her future salad. I pushed the balcony doors open, ready to roar at her to go to bed, when I found her at the far end of the garden. She was in the open, second shed where we kept our trash cans. Great. She was talking to garbage, now, too.
I made my way to her, noticing that leaves were no longer crunching under my loafers. The garden was in much better shape. She had her back to me, bending into one of the green recycling cans, surrounded by garbage. There was no way to sugarcoat what I was seeing here. She was going through the trash.
I walked in the open door, leaning against it with my hands stuffed inside my front pockets. I watched as she sorted through bags of trash, then cleared my throat, making myself known. She jumped, gasping.
“Looking for a snack?”
She placed a palm on her chest over her heart and shook her head.
“I just…Ms. Sterling said that the clothes that I…uh…”
“Ruined?” I offered.
“Yeah, they’re still here. Some of them, anyway.” She gestured to the heaps of clothes at her feet. “They’re going to send them to charity tomorrow. Most of the items are salvageable. So, I figured, if the clothes are still here, then maybe…”
The picture was still here.
She was trying to save Romeo’s picture without knowing who he was, after seeing Sterling and me celebrating his birthday. She didn’t know that she wouldn’t find it—I asked Sterling, who confirmed that the batch with the picture had been already taken away. I raked a hand over my face. I wanted to kick something. Surprisingly—she wasn’t that something. Heartache and regret etched her face as she turned around and looked at me with eyes raw with emotion. She understood she not only ripped fabric—fuck the fabric—but also something deep inside me. Tears hung on her eyelashes. It struck me as ironic that I’d spent my entire adult life choosing cold-blooded, unsentimental women for my flings, only to get married to a complete wuss.
“Leave it alone.” I waved her off. “I don’t need your pity, Nemesis.”
“I’m not trying to give you pity, Villain. I’m trying to give you comfort.”
“I don’t want that, either. I don’t want anything from you, other than your obedience, and maybe, down the road, your pussy.”
“Why must you be so crass?” Tears made her eyes shimmer. She was a crier, too. Could we be any less compatible? I didn’t think so.
“Why must you be such an emotional train wreck?” I responded curtly, pushing off the door and getting ready to leave. “We are who we are.”
“We are who we choose to be,” she corrected, throwing a piece of clothing at her feet. “And unlike you, I choose to feel.”
“Go to bed, Francesca. We’re going to visit your parents tomorrow, and I’d appreciate you hanging on my arm without looking like shit.”
“We are?” Her mouth hung open.
“We are.”
&
nbsp; My version of accepting her apology.
My version of letting her know I wasn’t a monster.
Not that night, anyway.
The night that marked the birthday of the man who taught me how to be good, and as a homage, I allowed this one small crack in my shield, giving her a hint of warmth.
My dead brother was a good man.
But me? I was a great villain.
“JUST TELL ME WHO IT was. An ex-girlfriend? A missing cousin? Who? Who!” I probed Ms. Sterling the next day between tending to my vegetable garden, chain-smoking, and looking through the trash for the broken picture—the one thing my future husband cared about, and I somehow managed to ruin.
I was met with stern, snippy answers. She explained, between huffs and phone calls, barking at the cleaning company once again, that if I wanted to learn more about Wolfe’s life, I needed to earn his trust.
“Earn his trust? I can’t even earn a smile from him.”
“Have you actually tried making him smile?” She squinted, checking my face for lies.
“Should I have? He practically kidnapped me.”
“He also saved you from your parents.”
“I didn’t want to be saved!”
“Two things people should be grateful for without asking—love and to be saved. You are offered both. Yet, my dear, you seem quite ungracious.”
Ms. Sterling, I deduced, was senile to the bone. She sounded so different from the woman who persuaded my future husband to show me mercy yesterday when I eavesdropped on them. I saw through her game. Trying to defrost us toward one another while always playing the devil’s advocate.
I thought she was wasting her time. On both ends.
Still, bickering with Ms. Sterling was the best part of my day. She showed more passion and involvement in my life than Wolfe and my father combined.
My fiancé and I were to arrive at my parents’ house at six o’clock for dinner. Our first dinner as an engaged couple. Ms. Sterling said that showing my folks I was happy and taken care of was of the essence. She aided me with the preparations, helping me slide into a yellow maxi summer chiffon dress and matching Jimmy Choo sandaled heels. When she fixed my hair in front of the mirror, it dawned on me that our light banter about the weather, my love for horses, and her love for romance books reminded me a lot of my connection with Clara. Something that felt a lot like hope started blooming in my chest. Having a friend would make living here so much more bearable. My new beau, of course, must’ve sensed my cautious optimism because he decided to crush and burn it by sending me a text message:
Will be late. Meet you there. No pulling tricks, Nem.
He couldn’t even show up on time to our first dinner with my parents. And, of course, he still thought I’d try to run away somehow.
Heat bubbled in my veins throughout the drive. The black Escalade pulled up to my parents’ curb, and Mama and Clara hurried outside, showering me with hugs and kisses as if I’d just returned from a warzone. My father was standing at the doorway in his sharp suit, frowning at my nearing figure as I laced my arms with the women of my former household as we walked in. I daren’t meet his eyes. When I took the four steps up to our entrance door, he merely moved aside to let me pass, not offering me a hug, a kiss, or even a pleasantry.
I looked the other way. Our shoulders brushed, and it felt like his sliced mine with its rigid, icy stance.
“You look beautiful, Vita Mia,” Mama breathed behind me, pulling at the hem of my dress.
“Freedom agrees with me,” I bit out bitterly, my back to Papa as I went to the dining room and poured myself a glass of wine before Wolfe arrived.
The next hour was spent making idle conversation with my mother while my father nursed a glass of brandy and stared me down from across the room. Clara came and went out of the salon, providing refreshments and zeppole to curb our hunger.
“Something smells.” I scrunched my nose.
“That would be your fiancé,” my father said, sitting back in his executive chair. My mother laughed off his words.
“We had a bit of an incident in the backyard. It’s fine now.”
Another hour vanished, washed away by a stream of words as my mother brought my father and me up to date with all the latest gossip regarding the desperate housewives of The Outfit. Who got married and who got divorced. Who was cheating and who was being cheated on. Angelo’s little brother wanted to propose to his girlfriend, but Mike Bandini, his father, thought it to be a problematic announcement, especially as Angelo didn’t have any prospects to marry anyone anytime soon. Thanks to me.
Mom bit her lower lip when she realized it sounded a lot like an accusation, fiddling with the hem of her sleeve. She did that a lot. I chucked it to her low self-esteem after years of being married to my father.
“Of course, Angelo will move on.” She swatted the air.
“Think before you speak, Sofia. It would serve you well,” he advised.
When the grandfather clock chimed for the second time that evening—announcing it was eight o’clock—we moved to the dining room and began to eat our starters. I did not make any excuses for Wolfe since all my text messages to him went unanswered. My heart was soggy with shame and drenched with disappointment at the humiliation of being stood up by the man who ripped me from my family.
The three of us ate with our heads bowed down. The clinking of the salt and pepper shakers and utensils unbearably loud against the silence in the room. My mind drifted back to the notes in the wooden box. I had decided that this was all a mistake. Senator Keaton couldn’t be the love of my life.
The hate of my life? Absolutely.
Anything more than that was a stretch.
When Clara served us the reheated entrees shortly before the doorbell rang, instead of feeling relieved, more dread poured into me, heavy like lead. The three of us put our forks down and exchanged glances. What now?
“Well, then! That’s a pleasant surprise.” Mama clapped her hands once.
“No more than cancer.” My father patted the sides of his mouth with a napkin.
Wolfe came in a short minute later in a tailored suit, black raven hair tousled to a fault, and a purposeful expression that flirted with menace.
“Senator Keaton,” Papa sneered, not looking up from his dish of homemade lasagna. “I see you finally decided to grace us with your presence.”
Wolfe dropped a casual kiss on the crown of my head, and I hated the way silken satin wrapped around my heart and squeezed it with delight. I despised him for being so late and careless and myself for foolishly melting just because of the way his lips felt on my hair. My father watched the scene from the corner of his eye, one side of his mouth upturned in amused satisfaction.
You’re miserable, Francesca, aren’t you? His eyes taunted.
Yes, Papa. Yes, I am. Good job.
“What took you so long?” I whisper-shouted, bumping Wolfe’s hard thigh with my own underneath the table as he took a seat.
“Business,” he clipped, flapping his napkin over his lap in a whip-sharp movement and taking a generous sip of his wine.
“So, not only do you work all day,” my father launched into the conversation in full swing, sitting back and knotting his fingers together on the table, “but you’re sending off my daughter to college now. Are you planning on providing us with grandchildren anytime this decade?” he inquired flatly, not giving a damn this way or the other. I saw through my father’s behavior and knew without a shadow of a doubt this was not only about my college education.
In the time that passed between my leaving the house and now, he’d had the chance to process everything.
Wolfe Keaton’s future children, no matter how much of the Rossi blood ran in their veins, would never inherit Papa’s business. Senator Keaton would not let it happen. And so, my marriage to Wolfe not only killed his dream of a perfect little daughter raising beautiful, well-behaved, ruthless children, but it also killed his legacy. My father was slowly beginning
to disconnect from me emotionally to protect his own heart from hurting, yet he was breaking mine to pieces in the process.
My gaze darted to Wolfe, who glanced at his Cartier, visibly waiting for dinner to be over.
“Ask your daughter. She’s in charge of her school schedule. And her womb.”
“Quite true, to my utter disappointment. Women need real men to tell them what they want. Left to their own devices, they are bound to make reckless mistakes.”
“Real men don’t shit bricks when their wives gain higher education and the basic power to survive without them, pardon my language.” Wolfe chewed a mouthful of lasagna, signaling me with his hand to pass him the pepper. He was in hostile territory, looking as cool as a cucumber.
“Alrighty, now,” Mama chortled, tapping my father’s hand from across the table. “Has anyone heard the latest gossip about the governor’s wife’s latest facelift? Word around town is she looks permanently surprised and not by his tax scandal.”
“What will you be studying, Francesca?” Papa turned his attention to me, cutting into Mama’s speech. “Surely, you don’t actually believe you can become a lawyer.”
I accidentally dropped my fork onto my lasagna. Small splashes of tomato flew on my yellow dress. I dabbed at the stains with a napkin, swallowing a pool of saliva that gathered in my mouth.
“You can’t even eat a damn meal without making a mess,” my father pointed out, stabbing his lasagna with unabashed violence.
“That’s because my father is belittling me in front of my fiancé and mother.” I squared my shoulders. “Not because I’m incapable.”
“You are of average IQ, Francesca. You can become a lawyer but probably not a good one. And you haven’t worked a day in your life. You would make a lazy intern and get fired. Wasting everyone’s time and resources, including your own. Not to mention, the opportunity you’d receive being Senator Keaton’s wife could go to someone who actually deserves the job. Nepotism is America’s number-one disease.”