by S. Massery
I stare at her until the plane touches down, and my new wife groans. She blinks, rubbing at her face.
She isn’t pretty. Her hair is a wild tangle of waves—whereas prior to today, I’d never seen it anything other than pin-straight—and there’s drool crusted in the corner of her lip. She’s in my clothes. No, she isn’t pretty like Wilder used to taunt, used like a whip against my skin. She’s goddamn beautiful.
And mine.
She liked Wilder. Maybe even deluded herself into loving him once upon a time. He would return from meeting her and give us details of their outings. Aiden didn’t care, but I had to work harder for my indifference.
Maybe that’s why Wilder always divulged—he could see that it got to me.
According to Wilder, their conversations were superficial. She never divulged her hopes and fears, and he didn’t ask. They weren’t part of the equation. Who cared if she wanted to finish college or get a job? She’d be too busy carrying the heir.
I choke back my laugh at the irony. Now she’s married to the bastard son. The condolence prize.
I won’t rule this family. I’ve barely been allowed to touch it. Aiden… he’ll struggle, and I’ll help him. Aiden and I are close. Almost the same age, just a few months off.
Amelie’s eyes flutter shut, then open again.
Not willing to face reality, perhaps.
“Where are we?” she murmurs.
Her bags—at least three of them, judging from the grunting and back-and-forth of the driver who took us to the plane hangar in New York—are locked away below with mine. We’re not going stateside until the coast is clear.
Dad’s orders.
In New York City, a war has bloomed out of the cease-fire. The Wests destroyed the city’s peace by killing Wilder. It’s a bold move. One that hasn’t been tried in the last few decades. It’s sure to rock the foundation of New York’s underground… but again, I won’t have a part in it.
I’ll be keeping Amelie alive—because we promised her family safety, and that meant leaving the country.
“Luca,” Amelie presses.
I push up the window shade, exposing the countryside shrouded in twilight. She’ll be familiar with this airport—she’s flown into it many times. It’s a small one for private planes, set on French soil, but only ten minutes from Italy.
She inhales slightly, nostrils flaring, and I nod to myself. She recognized it faster than I would’ve guessed. Now she pulls back and glances around, and I wait for it to click.
“This is my parents’ jet,” she says slowly.
The plane parks by a hangar, and she unbuckles, standing on shaky legs. I need to figure out what to do with her. Marriage is so outside the scope of anything I expected, but I can’t deny that I’m feeling a bit… possessive.
“Why are we here?” she asks.
I shrug. “We’ve been removed from the playing board.”
She raises her eyebrow. “Did you steal our pilot, too?”
I don’t answer. Her feistiness is a pleasant surprise. She wanted Wilder to like her, and I think she succeeded by making herself demure.
I know better, though. I see through that mask—and I’m going to rip it off.
7
Amelie
Jameson shipped us off so we’re not liabilities, and because we’ve become useless.
Dad and I used to play chess, but we haven’t sat at a board together in a long time. High school dramatics got in the way. The rush of being the best, of having attention centered on me, was too heady. And then I learned I was going to be married to a stranger, and my attitude soured.
My bad.
But can they blame me?
I almost wish I could go back to those days of sitting across from Dad, studying the pieces. Sometimes he was quiet, but most times he’d offer advice. The reason behind moves, chess theory. I soaked it all up back then.
I fear I’ve forgotten most of it.
The drive into Sanremo is short, winding through mountains—sometimes literally, blanketed in darkness as we pass through tunnels—coming into the city from the west. I ignore the tingling that zips through my body at Luca behind the wheel. He doesn’t pay me much attention, even when I’m ogling him. In the back of my mind, I’m wondering how the hell I slept so long. Maybe he drugged me.
If I remember correctly, there’s a turnoff of this main road that will lead to the villa Jameson DeSantis owns. We didn’t go there too often—just once or twice each summer—but it tugs at my memory.
Instead, Luca carries on straight. I don’t realize we must’ve passed the road until we enter the city limits, and the houses crowd closer to the road.
“Where are we going?”
He scowls. “You think I live on my father’s property? I made my own way in the world.”
I chew on that. Honestly? I did think he coasted along on his father’s coattails. It would have been easy enough for him to do it. His father provided a lot, and Luca was present at the DeSantis estate when my family visited.
Never mind the bastard rumors—clearly Jameson took him in, raised him as his own.
The streets get narrower, more winding. My eyebrows hike up the farther we get into the city. It was built into the side of rolling hills, each house stacked up higher than the one in front of it. Each one has a view of the ocean—and their neighbors’ yards. Privacy here would be a luxury.
Several sharp turns later, the car slows.
He hits a button, and a garage door to our left slides open. The garage seems to be built into a hill. Above it stretches the house and a glass-walled yard.
He kills the engine in the garage, and the door rumbles shut behind us. I follow him through a laundry room and upstairs, onto the first level of the house. One wall is made almost entirely of windows, giving us an uninhibited view of the city and ocean in the distance. The yard has a small pool tucked in the corner by the glass fence.
Whoever decorated this first floor had a good eye for details. Furniture breaks up the open space into different sections. A set of couches faces each other with a rug and coffee table, and a television mounted to the wall. A dining table toward the back—and another one outside. The kitchen is sectioned off in a U shape, but there’s an opening that creates a breakfast bar area. Three stools are tucked under it.
The whole space has a clean, very Italian villa vibe. I’m surprised that I like it so much.
“You own this?”
He nods, going to a side table and rifling through a few pieces of mail left for him. “Ricardo will grab your bags.”
I squint at him. We didn’t pass anyone. I didn’t notice anyone follow us from the airport, either. And yet, a second later, a large man appears with two bags.
Wait.
“Huh?”
Luca watches me.
Ricardo disappears up another set of stairs, then returns a minute later. We watch in silence as he comes back up with a third bag, plus a smaller black suitcase—clearly Luca’s.
“Where did you get those?” Because I certainly didn’t pack three bags worth of stuff.
When I left, I assumed I would be going back home—at least to get my things. My room needed to be boxed up, my clothes sorted. Had I been procrastinating those chores? Absolutely.
I didn’t want to leave. I’d delay it if I could.
But my mother must’ve known…
Luca just cocks his head, like I’m an object in the museum that confuses him.
I rush up the stairs and stop dead. There is no hallway, just… one room. One large room. Thick curtains hang from the four bedposts. Two plush chairs are stationed by the floor-to-ceiling windows. The glass walls are on sliders, and a wide balcony promises good views.
I turn away from it.
My bags are by the closet.
I drag one down and unzip it, flipping through the clothes. Nothing I would’ve picked for myself. Nothing familiar—just clothes I kept stuffed away, ignoring my mother’s pleas for me to wear them.
“Shit, shit, shit.” Foreign country, foreign husband, foreign clothes.
I go to the next bag, tossing clothes out. A pile grows around me. Everything is horrible. And then…
I pull out a long strip of lace, my face crinkling. I hold it up and try to figure out what it is. It takes a second to click.
My mother packed lingerie for me.
“Wow.” Luca laughs. “I didn’t know you were such a temptress.”
I shove it down. “Shut up.”
He stops next to me and stares down. My eyes are level with his thigh from my position on the floor, but I tilt back to check his expression. I figure it’ll either be thunderous at the mess I’m making or his usual scowl.
Instead, he seems curious. “What’s wrong?”
The switch is unsettling, so I squint at the piles of clothes. I’m untethered, but I can’t say that. I can’t say anything I’m thinking. “Nothing.”
“Okay.”
I didn’t expect that response. Most people pry. Surely something is wrong, Amelie. But him…
I rub at my eyes. When I look up again, he’s gone.
An hour later, I’ve sorted through the clothes and put them into three piles: acceptable, trash, and maybe. After careful consideration, the lingerie ended up in the maybe pile. The trash pile is quite a bit bigger than the other two combined.
What was my mother thinking?
Europe has been a second home for my family as long as I can remember. But now that I’m here without them, I’m lost. I miss Lucy and my bed. I miss the traffic of the city. Hell, my thoughts even linger on how Mom would knock on my bedroom door in the mornings. Rainy days cast my room in shades of grey, and she’d occasionally surprise me with a mug of tea.
I curl up in one of the chairs in the corner and stare out the window. The sun is shining, and the world continues to move on as if I hadn’t married a freaking stranger. Not a nice one, either.
Someone tried to kill me.
Every time I close my eyes, Wilder’s pale face is all I see. The smell of blood is so thick in my nostrils, I can’t breathe.
This is probably a panic attack.
I slide off the chair and onto the floor, pressing my forehead to the cold tile.
“Hey,” Luca whispers, his hands wrapping around my shoulders.
I flinch. He’s quieter than a ghost, that one.
He ignores it and lifts me into his arms. He doesn’t even grunt with effort. I’m cradled like a child, gasping for air, and wholly unprepared for his lips to touch my temple.
Holy shit.
“Your sister called you Ames,” he says. “Do you prefer that to Amelie?”
I focus on his words. He’s talking about my sister.
Wilder called me Ames, too. They were the only ones. I don’t mention that my stomach did somersaults when he did, because it felt forbidden. We weren’t married—we weren’t touching. We just existed side by side, and he did what he could to soften the blow of being chained to him forever.
Not to mention his talks of etiquette. Being proper.
Wilder once accused me of being an air-headed party girl. That was after he came to Rose Hill to see me, but I had already been drinking with my friends. Those two worlds weren’t supposed to collide, and I’d cringed seeing him in my home town.
He left, and the next morning his words sliced into me. He stood on the walkway, a good six feet away from me. The shame in his eyes hurt, but I wasn’t his yet.
The box with the engagement ring sat untouched on my desk. I was still desperately trying to get my ex-boyfriend, Caleb, to love me, to sweep me away to some far-off island so I wouldn’t have to marry Wilder.
I was seventeen and anxious for the rest of my life to begin.
For the anchor to attach itself to me and drag me beneath the waves.
That’s how I felt around Wilder sometimes. Like the rest of my life could be hopeless if I didn’t do exactly what he said. If I wasn’t perfect for him.
Luca’s grip tightens on me, and I curl my head under his chin. It’s the best way I can think to avoid his gaze.
“Sometimes I prefer Amelie,” I manage.
He sits on the bed, resting me in his lap. It’s oddly comforting, being held like this. I didn’t grow up with a lot of physical affection. But it triggers another memory: his body hitting mine, knocking me down. He carried me across the lawn and up the stairs of the building next to the chapel, setting me down on a chair. He knelt beside me and brushed his thumb across my cheekbone, then left.
“You were hyperventilating. Again.”
How do I tell him I hate this? Every moment of it. I don’t hate him because I don’t know him. And I can’t hate Wilder because he’s dead.
So where does that leave me?
I struggle to get off him. He holds tight for a moment, then releases me.
I shoot to my feet. “It’s a lot to process. Did you bring me here to rub it in?”
“Is that what you think of me?”
“I don’t know you.” I cross my arms, tempted to stomp my foot. “And you can honestly say you’re okay with being married to a complete stra—”
“Yes.” He stands and comes toward me.
I back away quickly, unsure of what to make of his expression. Dark like thunderclouds, but maybe there’s a bit of sunlight in him, too.
“I see you, Amelie. All of you.”
I put my hand on his chest, trying to stop his pursuit. Little embers of fear rain down, hot on my skin. Fear burns like no other.
It’s no use. He backs me against the wall and cages me in. “It’s just you and me, so you have to decide what you can live with. Can you handle this? Our life together?”
I lift my chin to meet his eyes.
I need to decide. Fear or… something else. I could embrace this.
When he doesn’t do anything else, I hesitate. There are too many emotions running through me, but the worst is a new, odd sense of comfort. Like the words coming out of his mouth are true, and not just lies to get me to be a good little wife and spread my legs.
“Are you afraid?” he asks.
Slowly, I shake my head. He can kiss me or strangle me—that doesn’t scare me. It angers me. Fear of the unknown scares me. I’m terrified of what I’ll become. And that’s the worst of it all, because I have no control over that.
He leans down until our lips are millimeters apart.
I close my eyes and brace myself.
This is it. He’s going to kiss me again.
“Fear keeps us alive,” he whispers. “It’s a good instinct.”
And then, nothing.
I open my eyes slowly, looking around.
He’s gone.
8
Luca
At the end of the street is a small restaurant. They’re famous to the locals, but it’s a hole-in-the-wall spot, generally kept out of the travel guides. I walk around the building and slip in through the back door. This kitchen is nothing like the commercial stuff they have in Manhattan. It looks more like the kitchen I have at home, with the addition of two more ovens.
A woman stands at the butcher block island, kneading dough. Her wild dark hair is caught back in a green bandana. It’s warm in here, and sweat dots her brow. I watch her work the dough for a moment, digging the heels of her hands into it, rolling it slightly. It folds easily. Over and over, until she has it just right.
It joins a pile of them.
When I was a child, I would be on a stool next to her with my own little projects. I can’t remember how many times we’d experiment with flavors or herbs, folding in seeds or cheese. After, we’d sit at an empty table and tear chunks off. Some tasted great—others, not so much.
Just remembering it brings a smile to my face. The kitchen smells of the same herbs and spices, of butter and toasting bread.
I rap my knuckles on the doorframe, and she nearly jumps out of her skin.
She gasps, bringing her hand to her chest.
&nbs
p; “Luca, dear boy. You scared me,” my aunt says in Italian. My mother’s sister is the only connection I have to her side of the family, and I don’t see her nearly as much as I should.
Just another reason to be happy I’m back in Sanremo.
“Sorry,” I reply. “It was an unexpected trip.”
She waves away my apology, coming forward and cupping my jaw. She pulls me down, kissing both my cheeks. I grin and snatch her hand before she can retreat, bringing her into a hug.
“I missed you, zia.”
She tuts. “Antonio will be here soon for our preparation. In the meantime, help me lay these loaves to rest.”
I can’t stop smiling as I stand opposite her and carefully cover each loaf. I follow her lead, feeling more like a kid than ever before. Father has a way of implying we should’ve been mature even when we weren’t. The only time I had a true childhood were my summers here.
That was the deal they’d struck, if Jameson was to welcome me into his house.
I can’t imagine what he would’ve been like at my age, fighting for his rank.
“How is New York?” she finally asks. She’s been chewing on the words for a while, rolling them around her mouth until she decided to spit them out. She hates the States. Hates my father for tearing me away from them and killing my mother.
He didn’t really kill her. Paloma will say my mother died of a broken heart.
That much I believe to be true. Summers weren’t enough for her, but she was forbidden from coming with me. I came back for the funeral, which took place on my eighteenth birthday.
The fucking irony.
After that birthday, I would’ve been a legal adult. I could’ve stayed with her, learned more of our history, built a life in this quiet town.
But she’d died, and I’d stayed in America.
My attention skates around the kitchen. It’s exactly the same as it was. There’s something about this town. At its heart, it doesn’t change. Even when the hotels go up, and things seem to chug toward modernism.
“I got married,” I tell her.
She snorts. “Always a comedian.”