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“There’s nobody like you, Luca Galante. I need you. This world needs you. You’re going to be better. It won’t hurt like this forever.” I clench my jaw, wondering what that bitch did to him. “As time passes, you’ll find someone you want, and she’ll make you happy.”
He wraps an arm around my waist and takes a few deep, heavy breaths.
“Did you get drunk?”
“I’m fucking drunk,” he says, low.
“Being drunk sucks.” I run my hand along his spine. He’s bulked up in the last year—a lot—so all I really feel is ridges of firm muscle.
“I know, I shouldn’t have done it.” He sits up, looking blank-faced as he stares at the branches in front of us.
I lean up and kiss his jaw, because I can’t help myself.
“Ragazzo carino.” I put my palm over his chest, like I used to do in those first weeks after he came to live at my house. During all that time, he wanted her and had to settle for me. Wouldn’t even let me hold him, but he liked the anchor of my hand on his chest.
He puts his hand over mine.
“You want to go home?” I whisper.
He shuts his eyes. “I’ll get a cab,” he says as he looks back up at me. He looks sleepy, my drunken teetotaler. “Gotta play some poker with your dad first.”
“Fuck my father.”
He gets to his feet, only swaying a little. “I don’t think so.”
“Fuck someone else then.”
He looks mysterious and sad and tragic, gorgeous Luca in his bespoke tux, standing in front of me, framed by the skyline. “Take your own advice,” he tells me with a small smile.
“I intend to.”
I take his big, warm hand in mine and stroke my fingers over his wrist. In the elevator, he looks at my face. His blue eyes are glazed.
“You okay to get home?”
He smirks. “More likely to get there than you.”
I sigh, aiming for sad and dramatic. “That’s because you won’t fuck me.”
“I thought I’m your brother, sorella.”
I give him a wicked grin, and he looks down, shaking his head. He’s shy. Nobody knows it or would guess it, but sorello is so shy. I love it.
“Take care of yourself,” I say as the elevator opens.
He gives me a calculated grin, sort of sarcastic, like he thinks I’m being stupid. “Always,” he says. And we both know that’s a damn lie.
I watch as he heads in the direction of the kitchens, where some of his friends are. I’m thinking of his friend Leo—buff and yummy with a pair of different-colored eyes—when I watch Luca disappear; looks like he stepped into a windowed alcove off the hallway.
I creep around so I can watch him from behind one of those big, fluffy green plants people set up on their own pedestals. He’s just standing, looking out the darkened window, breathing so hard that his shoulders rise and fall.
As I step further behind the plant, he turns around, looks up, and then back down for a long moment.
I catch a glimpse of his profile as he starts down the hall. He looks perfectly composed. Sorello hides his secrets well. And don’t I know about that.UntitledVolume Two“She who loves roses must be patient and not cry when she is pierced by thorns.”-Sappho4EliseFOURTEEN YEARS LATER“My mother always said a woman should wear red. That’s because she didn’t go to law school. If she had, she would have known the safest colors for women in a position of authority are the muted ones: charcoal, navy, gray, black, beige, maybe deep maroon if the occasion is sexier than average.” I arch my brows. “Although they rarely are. Tonight, I’m breaking with my own tradition. Tonight, I earned the right to be up on this stage. We earned it.
“You elected me—an ‘Elise’—not a James or Matthew or a John—to be Manhattan’s district attorney in a historic win for female prosecutors. You helped me win with eighty-six percent of the vote. And so…tonight is our night. We’re the victors, so we’re wearing red.” My throat goes dry, just for a second, as the crowd before me glitters in a teary prism. A quick swallow fixes that, and I steady my voice so it doesn’t warble in the mic.
“I want to thank my team—all fifty-six of you, and many volunteers who never signed a work roster or gave your time and energy in return for a paycheck. I want to thank the people of Manhattan for trusting me to serve you thoughtfully and fairly, as I pledge to do as long as I hold this office…and beyond. I can’t not shout out my three queens: Sheree Johnston, Vanessa Heron, and Bhavna Singh, who ran my campaign like a machine even as I was splitting my time between my current post and looking toward this new one. Vanessa kept me on schedule, Sheree orchestrated logistics that would make the mortal mind implode, and Bhavana handled media relations with tact and class and the kind of grace we all might aspire to—while momming a new baby.”
