Hated (Hearts of Stone #3)

by Christine Manzari

  “After Mom died, Nana was the one who took care of Dad’s legal expenses.” He said “Dad” the same way someone might talk about Hitler—with hatred and disgust. “She borrowed money against the house, but after a while, she couldn’t make the payments. By the time Nana told us, the house was already in foreclosure. Tommy and I were in school, and Jimmy had a young family. We thought she was going to lose the house because none of us had the money to pay off the debt.” He let that comment sink in. “Until Frankie came back from Vegas.”

  I’d been staring at the water, but at those words, my gaze locked onto his with laser beam focus. “What do you mean when she came back from Vegas?”

  Pauly lowered the bottom of his beer bottle into the pool and watched it make patterns as he twirled it in the water. “Frankie went out for your opening night, just like she said she would. But she left later that same day and went straight to Texas. Before the week was over, she’d sent a check to Nana to pay off the money owed on the house.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” I said shaking my head. “How much money?”

  Pauly’s grin was almost sideways as he answered, “Fifty thousand dollars.”

  I almost fucking choked on my tongue. Fifty thousand dollars? “How would Frankie even get that much money?” Surely she didn’t win it gambling. Frankie was lucky, but not that goddamn lucky.

  He chuckled. “If you think I’m going to tell you that, you underestimate the fear I have of my baby sister.” His cocky grin said otherwise. “I shouldn’t have said anything at all. Frankie would rip my nut sack off with a pair of pliers if she knew I told you this much.” He lifted his beer to his lips and took a long swig, pool water sluicing down the sides of the bottle and dripping all over him.

  My mind was racing, trying to think of ways Frankie could have gotten that much money. None of the possibilities gave me any comfort. I didn’t even want to consider all the reasons that Vegas was popular and how one might walk away fifty grand richer.

  Reaching up, I dug my fingers into my hair and dragged them across my scalp, unable to make sense of what Pauly had told me.

  “My mom said that Frankie never came out to Vegas,” I mused, as if that was a plausible response. As if that was anywhere near as shocking as the fact that Frankie had that much money in the first place.

  Pauly used the leg that was dangling in the water to push his raft toward the side of the pool so that he could come closer to me. “I hate to break it to you, Stone, but your mama lies. Add that she’s a mega bitch and I wouldn’t put much stake in what she says.” Pauly reached down to splash water up over his heated skin.

  I stood up and walked to the bar that ran along the back of the house under the pretense of changing the music on my iPod. “So, Frankie came to Vegas?” I asked, staring down at the list of songs, not paying attention to what I chose. “Why did she leave? Why didn’t she come to opening night? She made a promise.” I finally looked up from my iPod.

  Pauly smirked at me. “Like I said before, I’m not risking my nut sack to give you any details. You’re going to have to get those from Frankie.”

  “But you know what happened,” I prodded. “You know why she left.”

  “Of course.”

  “So why not just tell me? She’s never going to.”

  “She’ll tell you,” he said firmly, almost as a reprimand.

  I set the iPod down and the first notes of Mumford and Sons’ “I Will Wait” echoed across the patio. Of course I’d inadvertently chosen this song.

  I crossed the patio and collapsed onto the deck chair. “And was her reason a good one?” I asked, although I couldn’t think of how it possibly could be.

  He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what I think. She thought it was a good enough reason.”

  I growled in annoyance. It was frustrating to almost have the answers, but not have access to them. Every single one of the DiGorgios was locked up tighter than Fort Knox.

  “Fine,” I said, knowing he wasn’t going to tell me any more secrets. A DiGorgio would rather give up their right arm than give up family trust. “So, the house was paid off. If Nana doesn’t own it, who does?”

  “Frankie.” Pauly frowned at me like I was an idiot. Maybe I was.

  “Nana just gave it to her?” I couldn’t imagine Nana being that frivolous, even if Pauly was right and Frankie had saved the house from foreclosure.

  “Have you met Nana?” Pauly asked, incredulous. And by the look he was giving me, I knew he was seriously questioning my intelligence. “Of course she didn’t just give it to her. Nana made us earn a plate of cookies through hard labor. No way she’d hand over her house for nothing.” His mouth twisted in disbelief at my comment and he waved his hand in annoyance. When I didn’t say anything in return, he sighed. “Nana offered to sell the house to Frankie for twenty-five thousand dollars if she could come up with the amount in a year.”

  “Why would Nana make a deal like that? And weren’t you and your brothers angry?”

  Pauly’s head shot up. “Are you kidding? No one loves this house as much as Frankie. Jimmy made a life for himself down in Texas, Tommy plans to live and work in New York, and even though I’m planning to stay close, I don’t want to live in this town. That house means a lot to me,” he said, gesturing next door, “but Frankie loves it. Nana knew that if she left the house to her, that Frankie would treasure it. It would be a place for our family to always come home to.”

  “So, Nana made her buy it? For twenty-five thousand dollars?”

  “Well, she couldn’t very well just give it to Frankie, could she?” He said it like I had no common sense. “Nana came up with an amount and terms that would be challenging for an eighteen-year-old to meet, but not impossible. And Frankie worked her ass off. She ended up giving Nana more than she asked for,” he said proudly.

  He jumped off the raft and hissed air in through his teeth at the sudden chill of the water as he sank chest deep into it.

  “Frankie has owned that house for three years, but this is the first time she’s been back to see it since she left for Vegas.” He waded through the water and rested his arms on the edge of the pool.

  Pauly pinned me with a hard look as if expecting me to say something. When I stayed quiet, he continued.

  “I think Frankie thought she would eventually move back here. Raise her family here.” He flinched at that comment like he’d said something he hadn’t meant to, and then wouldn’t meet my gaze.

  Maybe he thought it was rubbing salt in my wounds to mention family and Frankie when she’d been avoiding me for four years.

  It was.

  “Anyway,” he said with a shrug, turning to lean his back against the wall of the pool to prop his elbows on the side, “when Nana had her stroke, everything changed. We had to put her in a nursing home after she came home from the hospital because she needed ‘round the clock care. Jimmy and Frankie moved her down to Texas to this place that has some of the best care available in the country. They’ve got her in physical and occupational therapy. Frankie is determined to get Nana back to a place where she can have her independence again.”

  Pauly shook his head and cast a sideways glance at me. “That kind of care doesn’t come cheap. We’ve already gone through the savings Nana had from the money Frankie paid her for the house. We’ve all maxed out credit cards, and Jimmy even took out a home equity loan on his house.” Pauly lifted his bottle of beer and took a sip. “And we still don’t have the money we need.”

  His words hovered over the pool where we sat, as if the ripples caused by his body were from the echoes of his confession.

  “The house is all we have left to offer up for Nana’s future. As Frankie said, if the money we get from selling the house gives her even the smallest fighting chance at being able to live a normal life again, how can we not take it? It’s just a house, but Nana is family. She was there for us when neither of our parents could be.”

  I felt like an ass for all the snide comments
I’d made to Frankie. No matter how angry I’d been with her, the thing was, I didn’t know the truth. But I did know Frankie. And I should have trusted that she would have a good, selfless reason for her choices. I’d never known her to be selfish, and the more I listened to Pauly, the more I realized that despite her secrets, she was still the same Frankie I fell in love with as a kid.

  The same Frankie I was falling for all over again.

  Knowing that she had worked so hard to save the house and Nana, I had to wonder what else she had taken responsibility for or sacrificed over the years. And how that affected her broken promise to me.

  More than ever, I wanted to know the secrets Frankie was keeping from me. I had a feeling that even though she was scared to tell me what they were, they just might make me love her more than I ever imagined was possible.

  — FRANKIE —

  17. STAY WITH ME

  Pauly left a message on my cell phone letting me know that everything had gone well with the yard sale and that he and Austin had cleaned up afterward, but I was still surprised to see the property looking so clean and clutter-free when I pulled into the driveway. I had a feeling that may have been more due to Austin’s work ethic than Pauly’s. Either way, I was glad that for once I didn’t have to clean up.

  I grunted in frustration as I remembered that when I left, ping pong balls were still scattered all over my bedroom floor like a deadly obstacle course. I would have to clean that up before I went to bed.

  My feet found the familiar path up the fronts steps to the house as I brainstormed the best method to clean up hundreds of ping pong balls. As I approached the door, I noticed that since replacing the decking on the porch, there was no more creaking and groaning with each step. Although I was happy not to be putting myself at risk just by entering the house, I missed those old familiar sounds—the sounds of home.

  When I entered the house, my eyes focused on the boxes in the living room that contained the things that weren’t sold. I lifted the flaps of each and a quick scan informed me it was nothing but random items that would go to donation later this week.

  All of the furniture and big items were gone, and I felt a pang of sadness at seeing the first floor look so vacant and empty. I knew the second floor, except for my room, would look much the same.

  For the first time since coming home a few weeks ago, reality hit me hard enough to take my breath away. We were so close to selling this house….to giving it up forever…and even though I knew that had been my reason for coming home, it got harder to accept with each passing day.

  Giving up the house, in a way, was a lot like watching a loved one slowly fade to the clutches of a terminal illness. At first, there is the sense of deep sadness, of knowing that your time with them is short. Deep down, everyone knows that nothing lasts forever, but then when the expiration date becomes a reality, a fixed date in your mind, there is a constant state of dread intermingled with the hope for a miracle.

  I’d watched my mother suffer for months before she eventually succumbed to her illness and in many ways, selling the house gave me a similar sense of heartache. Every change I had made to the house, every item I removed…it was like watching the life drain out of something I loved.

  Hot tears burned behind my eyes and I blinked them away because I had no reason to cry. Not tonight. The meeting had gone well, and I needed to tell someone about it. I was so used to dealing with everything on my own—hard decisions, frustration, disappointment. But this time it was good news, and I didn’t want to keep it to myself.

  I walked over to the window and pulled aside the sheer curtain that still hung there, limp and forgotten. I searched out Austin’s window and was disappointed that he wasn’t in his room playing his cello. My good mood wavered and then my stomach flipped excitedly when my eyes roamed to the fence because I could see Austin was in his pool, relaxing. I was still surprised that he wasn’t playing music and, selfishly, I wondered if maybe he didn’t want to do it if I wasn’t around to hear it.

  No. That couldn’t be it. Austin had played his cello almost every night for four years without me. Why should it be any different now?

  Letting the curtain fall back in place, I made up my mind. I wanted to tell someone about my meeting, and Pauly had left hours ago to return to Baltimore. He was probably out with his friends at a bar somewhere. Even if he answered the phone, he likely wouldn’t hear a word I said to him.

  The ping pong balls could wait. I needed to talk.

  I crossed through the kitchen and slipped out the back of the house, catching the screen door before it could slam against the wood. I opened the gate to let myself into Austin’s yard, but even with the slight creak of the hinges, he didn’t acknowledge my presence. Music was playing over the speakers of his new sound system. It wasn’t loud enough to disturb neighbors, but it was loud enough to mask my approach. When I heard what was playing, I had to smile to myself.

  “Californication” by Red Hot Chili Peppers. Why was I not surprised?

  Austin was stretched out on his raft, his swimsuit slung low across his hips, and his arm flung over his forehead where it covered his eyes. I stood there, transfixed by the sight of all his bare skin. The sudden urge to run my tongue along the grooves of his muscles was so intense, I thought I might have to slap myself to keep from indulging.

  “Are you going to stand there gawking all night or are you going to get in?”

  I bristled at the amusement in his voice but didn’t stop gawking.

  “I’m not wearing a suit,” I admitted. Why hadn’t I thought about changing before coming over? Clearly, my visit wasn’t a well-thought out plan.

  Austin pulled his arm away from his face and scanned me from head to toe, analyzing my fitted gray pants and white button-down blouse. I didn’t own much in the way of business attire, but I thought I’d pulled off the semi-professional look rather well. Although truth be told, I probably could have shown up in race gear and been completely fine. The only thing the marketing team of Under Armour seemed to care about was getting my signature on the contract they’d presented me with.

  “That never stopped you before,” Austin said, with a lift of his eyebrow.

  Damn him. He knew that I never backed down from a challenge and this most certainly was a challenge.

  Fine. I was going to prove to both of us that I didn’t always run away.

  I unzipped my pants and then peeled them down the length of my legs, careful to hang them over the seat of a lounge chair before unbuttoning my shirt and tossing it down as well. Austin’s gaze turned from challenging to greedy as he looked at my new attire.

  I told myself that standing there in my bra and underwear was no different than wearing a swim suit. But it probably didn’t matter what I thought because it was obvious by the way Austin’s eyes caught on the lace and ribbons that he knew he was looking at my lingerie.

  Ignoring the fact that Austin was the only man who’d ever seen me this undressed, I donned my confidence, feigned nonchalance, and picked up a float that was sitting on the edge of the pool. I carried it over to the steps, the weight of Austin’s gaze on my back making me ultra-aware of my every move. Once I was knee deep in the pool, I set the raft down on top of the water and then flung myself across it so that I was floating on my stomach. I paddled closer to Austin until we were almost side by side.

  He didn’t even try to hide the way he was checking me out. His gaze was like a candle flame, slowly licking across my body, leaving me warm and tingly in its wake. When he finally managed to get his eyes back to my face, he asked, “How did the meeting go?”

  My smile was immediate and almost painful as it stretched across my face. “I signed a contract.”

  His mouth opened in surprise, and then his logical side took over and his eyes narrowed a bit, just as I expected. “That was quick,” he stated cautiously.

  I was spontaneous, and he knew that. I didn’t agonize over decisions too long. Whenever I was faced with a difficult ch
oice, I listened to reason or facts, I gave it a few minutes consideration, and then I went with my gut and made a decision.

  My gut wasn’t foolproof. My long-standing situation with Austin was confirmation of that. But I was proud that I could make up my mind quickly, and whatever consequences arose from that decision, I made the best of it. I didn’t always make the perfect choice, but I made the best of every path I’d chosen. And I wasn’t too proud to double back and find another way.

  “They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse,” I told Austin in my best impression of the Godfather. “Besides,” my heart swelled with the joy of my news, “I might not have to sell Nana’s house now.”

  Austin’s gaze, which had started another wanton trip across my body, snapped up to meet mine again.

  “You won’t?” The hope I saw in his eyes made my heart swell even more.

  I shook my head. “This endorsement is HUGE,” I said, making a big motion with both hands. “Not only will I be able to pay off all of the debt my brothers and I have accrued for Nana’s care, but there should be plenty left to pay for her therapy in the future.” I tapped the edge of the raft, my excitement almost too much to contain.

  And then I realized that I never told Austin about the debt. I’d never admitted to him why we were selling the house. I wasn’t sure why I’d kept that secret. Maybe because I was keeping so many secrets letting even one out just paved the way for the others to sneak past as well. Or maybe it was guilt…guilt that I wasn’t enough to take care of Nana. After all she’d done for us, I was ashamed that we were letting her down. And I hadn’t wanted Austin to know.

  He must have seen the realization on my face because he said, “Pauly told me what you did for Nana. How you helped her with the house.”

  Dread was quick and fierce as it fell heavy in my stomach, but I knew that even if Pauly had told Austin about Nana and the house, he wouldn’t have told him everything. Pauly had a big mouth, but he was as loyal as the day was long. He never would have told Austin where the money came from, what I’d done to get it, or what I’d done after leaving Vegas.