by S. Massery
They part for her, and a girl steps forward. “Gemma,” she introduces. “Ignore my idiot brother. He likes to put his foot in his mouth.”
“Right.”
And then it clicks. Gemma West. The one Aiden would get all stabby over, apparently. Wasn’t that what Luca said on the boat? Uh-oh.
Honestly, I want to be nowhere near this right now, but I’m very curious over my new brother-in-law’s obsession.
“You went to Emery-Rose with Kai?” she asks.
I glance at him, then focus on her. She reminds me of Mariella Costa. Not in looks—they couldn’t be more different in that regard. But she’s swept along by her brothers, although maybe with a bit more spine in her. After all, she’s taking charge of this conversation.
Ice drips down my spine.
Do they know I married Luca?
How could they not? I’m sure Wilder’s death was in the papers—if I’m not actually staring at one of his killers. I’m glad I left the ring off today. It needs to be resized, I suppose, but there’s also a freedom in not wearing it.
Just as I think that, Colin’s attention goes to my left hand.
“I was two years younger,” I say. “And you?”
Gemma grins. She really is beautiful. Her light-blonde hair is pulled back in a loose French braid, flipped over her shoulder. Her dress and the sweater over it give her a doll-like appearance.
I don’t know where they’re going, but she doesn’t seem like the type to go knock down someone’s door for money.
“Homeschooled,” Gemma says lightly.
“Where’s the ring?” Kai asks.
I jerk back. “What?”
“You married one of them, didn’t you?” He rolls his eyes. “The least he could’ve done was give you a freaking ring.”
“He did,” I manage. “It didn’t fit.”
Colin narrows his eyes. “Are you staying around here?”
The warning sirens sound in my mind, and I have enough frame of mind to not look back the way I came. I’m glad I made it a few streets over—and that I’m not currently headed back. I press my lips together and narrow my eyes.
Gemma stares at me. “Which one did you marry? After Wilder—”
Colin makes a noise in the back of his throat. “Enough, Gemma.”
Oh shit. I know that gleam in her eye. Recognize it as one I wore through most of high school. Like she feels something she shouldn’t and is desperately trying to keep a lid on it. I don’t know if her brother sees it. If anyone would know what to look for if they didn’t experience it.
“Luca,” I answer her. “I married Luca.”
Relief crosses her expression—it’s weird, but there’s a little bit of fear in her gaze, too. Like the fact that Aiden didn’t get pawned off on me is a good and bad thing. She nods and steps past me. “We’re going to be late,” she says over her shoulder. “It was lovely to meet you, Amelie.”
“Maybe we’ll meet again one day.” I step aside and let the boys pass, and I stay immobile against the fence until they’re halfway down the block.
Then I book it in the opposite direction.
My head threatens to revolt, but I push myself into a quick jog to get away from the Wests. As soon as I see the train station, I slow. My body aches, but I can’t let that stop me.
I pause beside the row of taxis. I’m sure I’d have enough money to get to Rose Hill, but I hesitate. Going into Manhattan seems more unpredictable, and on the off chance Luca returns to his apartment to discover me gone… I don’t want him to find me.
He’s not going to bother going home—why should I?
I decide I can afford a moment of predictability and flag down a taxi. I want clothes of my own, and I think I have an old phone in my bedroom that I can reactivate. The urge to go back to my parents’ house is too strong to ignore.
The driver agrees, naming his price, and I slide into the back seat. Once we hit the highway, I allow myself to zone out. The past few days have been insane, and now Luca’s pulled a disappearing act.
The fact that it hurts is the worst.
We take an exit ramp off the highway, and I straighten. Anticipation chases my nerves away, and finally, we turn onto my street.
“Here’s fine,” I say.
He coasts to a stop in front of my neighbor’s house, and I hand him the cash. Once he’s gone, I cross the lawn and slip around back. It’s a weekday—both my parents should be at work. I run my hand along the top of the door to the mud room, quickly finding the key. Lucy and I were latchkey kids before they sent her to live with our grandparents.
I pause, remembering the day they told me she was moving away.
We fought all the time, but what siblings didn’t? That didn’t mean I wanted her out of my life. I’d never cried so much. I had puffy eyes for a week. My parents acted like they didn’t care—really, the relief on my mom’s face that Lucy was going to be out of her hair made me furious.
After she left, the house was too empty. They didn’t trust me to get home by myself, so Mom picked me up from school every day. And the loneliness increased.
I unlock the door and let myself in, embracing the quiet.
Lucy taught me a valuable lesson: I had to be perfect, or I wasn’t any use to my parents.
And I was perfect until…
Nope. We’re not going there.
The house is different. Subtle changes of empty-nesters, maybe? The kitchen table where we used to eat dinner is now against the wall, perfect for two instead of three. The mudroom was practically bare. No cups by the sink, or extra silverware in the drying rack. The extra fat has been trimmed, and that seems to include all traces of me.
If today was a normal day, pre-wedding, I would’ve waltzed in through the garage and dropped my keys on the hook. I’d kick my shoes off and maybe head to my room, or flop on the couch. I can almost taste the normalcy, except for the weird way my stomach keeps twisting.
It screams at me to get out of here.
I shove the emotions down and jog up the stairs to my room. I halt in the doorway, almost choking. A tornado must’ve gone through it—then haphazardly cleaned. My bed is made, kind of. The closet doors hang askew. I’m pretty sure I didn’t leave any clothes on the floor, but even my hamper is empty.
It wasn’t like this wedding took me by surprise.
I did my best to prepare. I put away the baubles and books I’d collected over the years, made sure everything was neat. Perfect, remember? Up until I said “I do,” anything could happen.
And it did. The worst happened.
I drop to my knees in front of my nightstand and yank it open. I’m hit with a big dose of relief—the very top item in the drawer is my old phone.
A new SIM card and I’ll be good to go.
I plug it in and hunt down a bag. Mom packed none of my favorites, which I should’ve foreseen. Why would she want her daughter on a honeymoon in a faded black Three Days Grace t-shirt? I locate it and grin, pressing the soft fabric to my face. Under my shiny, perfect exterior was… is an angry girl who just wanted a bit of angry rock in her life.
I smile, remembering the time Savannah and I snuck into the city to see them live. It was the single best night of my life. Until I got home.
The smile fades, and I shove the t-shirt into the bag. I pile in more clothes, and the pain in my chest deepens the more I find. It’s like Mom didn’t know me at all when she went through my room.
In the bathroom, I tug the hair tie out and shake my hair loose. My straightener is one of the things that did make it to Italy, but I’m sort of digging the wild hair. It’s much more wavy than I realized. Every shower at home was followed by an hour of blow drying with a round brush, until it was gleaming and lying against my shoulders in large, sweeping flips. Otherwise straight except for those manufactured by heat.
“Gross,” I tell my reflection.
Too many memories of standing in this exact spot, trying not to burn my scalp. Applying makeup. Smoothing
my cheerleading outfit before games, curling ribbons. Waxing every inch of my body.
I’d be thrilled if I could never wear makeup again.
I put my spare hairbrush—the flat paddle brush that Mom always insisted did me no favors—in the bag and slip my shampoo and conditioner into a plastic bag, then shove that in, too. No more smelling like Luca.
My phone beeps in the other room, apparently on and getting some messages as it connects to the WiFi. It keeps beeping.
I raise my eyebrows and abandon the bathroom. There’s nothing else I need, anyway. I’m becoming the definition of low maintenance. It gives me some sort of sick satisfaction that my parents would be horrified at my behavior.
Not to mention the stitches in my face.
There are smaller cuts, too, raining down my temple and cheek in a crisscross pattern. Those are minor. An annoyance.
Back in the bedroom, I toss my bag onto the floor next to the door and kneel next to my bed. Have I been paranoid since sixteen? Yes. And it’s paid off.
I have to crawl half under the bed to find the canvas bag. It’s taped to the support beams of my bed frame, invisible unless you know where to look for it. I figured, if anything, my parents would clean out my room and convert it into a guest room. No moving the bed required. New sheets, new duvet, and good to go.
I carefully peel back one of the strips of tape to check its contents. I’ve collected every pre-loaded money card from birthdays, holidays. Spare cash, when it wasn’t suspicious for it to disappear, too. The result is almost five thousand dollars in untraceable money, and it all appears to still be here.
But I can’t take it back to Luca’s. I doubt he would respect my privacy… and it’ll be safe in its hiding spot. The urge to take it and run fills me, but I have no doubt Luca would hunt me down.
It might take a while, at this rate, but…
No, I need a better plan. Where to go. A budget.
I nod to myself as I tape it back in place and slide out. I can do that. Figure out what the hell I’m going to do. He clearly doesn’t give a shit about me. Italy was a fluke.
“No,” I tell myself. “He just thinks of you as a possession.”
I hate talking out loud. It’s one of my worst habits. But it’s not like I’m lying—he even said it himself on the boat: he married me because he wanted something for himself.
AKA: a toy his daddy couldn’t rip from his hands.
Enough is enough. I’m not a toy, or someone to order around. I am Amelie freakin’ Page, and I will show Luca exactly who he married.
19
Luca
Aiden kicks my leg, and I groan. I’ve been away for less than a week, and the place has gone to absolute shit. Whoever decided to leave the construction permits in the hands of Reggie seriously fucked up. For one, he’s dyslexic. Which would be fine on its own, but paired with an intense hatred of following deadlines…
Yeah.
“What?” I grunt at my brother.
“It’s almost noon. Have you eaten?”
I sigh. I’m pretty sure I was just snoozing. I didn’t sleep at all last night, surrounded by paperwork. I’ve got to pay a visit to a few people. Namely, the shipyard master who’s been squawking a little too loud, and the woman on the city council who approves our permits. It should be pretty seamless, but apparently no one can do their fucking jobs.
“No,” I finally say. “And I need some air.”
He nods and leads the way to the elevator. When we step out onto the street, I tip my head back and sigh.
“You look like hell,” he says. “Was he mad?”
He being our father. That meeting lasted longer than it should’ve, too. I had to explain everything to both Dad and Aiden. Almost every detail.
I kept some things to myself, except a curt nod when Dad asked if our marriage was official. Consummated, in other words.
Aiden left after my story was done, so I fill him in.
“He’s pissed that the Costas got the upper hand on us, and seemed extraordinarily angry that Amelie bartered by giving up Wilder.” I recall his expression and shake my head. “She told them he was at her parents’ summer home in France, which was honestly brilliant. It gave us time to get out of the country.”
He scoffs. “Because they’ll be even more furious when they realize they’ve been duped by a girl who only married into the family the day prior.”
“What would you have done?” I ask suddenly. He and I align on some things, some actions, but in other ways we couldn’t be more different. “If Matteo had been touching—”
“I’d slit his throat,” Aiden says without hesitation. “Put a blade in Cristian, too, for all I care. No one touches what’s mine.”
I nod along to his words, and guilt hits me that my reaction wasn’t his reaction.
“Of course,” he continues, “if you kill someone, you have to deal with the consequences. If you killed Cristian and Matteo, who would take their place in the family? Someone in the room? Mariella, maybe, or a cousin who only saw the aftermath and not the circumstance it was born out of?”
I grind my teeth. “So, what are you saying?”
He claps me on the shoulder. “You were in an impossible situation.”
So was she.
We step into a deli and grab sandwiches, eating on our walk back to the tower.
“Pretty sure Mariella harbors long-lost love for Wilder,” I mutter. “I felt bad we didn’t tell her he was dead.”
He shrugs and takes a huge bite of his sub. He doesn’t seem particularly bothered one way or another, and I suppose he’s right. The Costas are an ocean away. It doesn’t really matter to him whether she’s upset or not. He probably doesn’t plan on returning to Sanremo. Not when he’s suddenly the heir.
“Has Dad been treating you with kid gloves?”
He shoots me a glare. “No. I’ve been avoiding him—and I don’t plan to stop just because you’re back.”
I grunt. “Fine. Want to come with me to see the councilwoman?”
She’s a little promiscuous, which would usually get Wilder’s attention. I should’ve known that wouldn’t appeal to Aiden, because his expression asks, Are you fucking dumb? A hard no, then.
“Fine,” I repeat. “Are you going to be any help?”
He shoots me a baleful look. “I reminded you it was lunchtime.” He flicks something off my shoulder. “Speaking of, did you sleep there?”
“I pulled an all-nighter,” I say. Which fucking sucked. “Everything is a mess. How did it go sideways so fast?”
“You’re asking me? Who put Reggie in charge?” He laughs, then sobers quickly. “I’ve got to go, anyway. Sam’s been talking to an arms dealer who’s seen an uptick in West purchasing.”
I narrow my eyes. “Like they’re preparing for something?”
“Possibly.”
For once, I’d like some real answers.
“When are you going home?” he asks. “You know, to the wife? You said you consummated the marriage, but understandably you didn’t want to say how it was in front of Dad. Did you fuck her just to get it over with?”
This coming from the man who’s barely noticed any woman in years. Of course he would feel that way. To get it over with.
That’s the last thing I wanted.
“Sometimes I like her, and other times I’m wondering what the hell we’re doing.”
He snorts. “It’s been less than a week, brother.”
“And in that time, her fiancé was killed on the altar, I got blindsided by the Costas, she ran away and nearly got assaulted, I killed two people—”
“Okay, okay.” He holds up his hands in surrender. “Why are you here, then? Go home and figure it out.”
We stop in front of the tower’s doors, and I contemplate what he’s saying.
But then I remember that New York City is all I have left, now that Italy is barred to us, and the anger flushes through me all over again.
“I’ve got work to do,” I mu
mble. More things to organize, permits to straighten out, people to see—and one person to avoid.
Besides, Dr. Matthews was pretty sure Amelie had a mild concussion. She won’t make it out of bed, let alone out of the house.
Aiden’s laugh follows me back to my office.
I fall back into my chair and lift a piece of paper. It’s a note from our construction company, Woodrow Builders, that we’ve been shorted three pallets of concrete mix from one our suppliers in upstate New York.
I rub my eyes and grab my coat. I guess I’ll start there.
20
Amelie
I pull into the parking garage below the DeSantis tower. I have no doubt my parents will call me now. The guard nods to me, and the little blockade rises. I tap my steering wheel and park close to the elevator—just in case I need a quick getaway.
This car has been mine for three years. It was my sixteenth birthday present once we got back home from France. I’m pretty sure the extravagance of it was supposed to mask the horrified expression I was walking around with. All I could think was that in three years, I’d be married to Wilder DeSantis.
And here I am, not married to Wilder but still very much trapped in the family.
Okay. Deep breath, Amelie.
I slip from the car and hit the button for the elevator. Once I’m in, I swipe the keycard over the sensor. It changes to green and allows any of the upper floor buttons to be pressed. I found this keycard on the table in the front foyer at my parents’ house, and I’m sure glad I recognized it. Otherwise I would be stuck waiting for permission…
And that doesn’t fit with Operation Luca Can Suck A Dick.
It’s a working title.
Jameson’s office is on the twenty-fifth floor, and I could’ve sworn I remembered passing an office with Luca’s name on it, and another with Aiden’s. I’m not sure why Aiden needs an office, but whatever. Wilder’s office was giant, in the corner across from his father’s. We visited there the morning of our rehearsal dinner to sign the marriage license.
My nerves rise. I had signed a marriage license, and Wilder, too. Our parents stood around us. And then Dad took it and said he’d file it.