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“I’ve always been more into brunettes,” I say, thinking of Sophia’s silky brunette locks.
“Don’t,” Damon says warningly.
“Don’t what?” I say innocently.
“Don’t do what I know you’re thinking of doing, she’s off limits.”
“Nothing is ever off limits to me,” I reply darkly.
“Sophia Falcone is, especially when you are about to be in-laws.”
“I can’t deny she is hot though,” Dominic interjects. “Complete waste on Pietro, but I guess she doesn’t have much choice.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning the way she has behaved is why she is marrying someone who is unlikely to become Don. No man in the five families will marry a woman who has dishonoured her family.”
“Allegedlydishonoured.”
“Whatever, someone else has already been there, and it ain’t the guy she’s going to marry.” Dominic quips.
“It’s a rumor,” I say, rolling my eyes.
“There is no smoke without fire.”
“Maybe I like playing with fire,” I say, flicking my lighter on and off and watching the flames.
I resolve to keep my thoughts away from Sophia Falcone. I ask Damon to organize a florist to send flowers to Angela and Carmela Rossi, an apology for the spat between Pietro and me. For appearance’s sake, I need to keep things amicable. I talked myself into this wedding, because I know what is at stake and I wasn’t going to ruin my business for any woman, no matter how much I want her. I keep myself busy looking for somewhere for Angela to live that is far enough not to disrupt my own night-time proclivities but near enough for me to drop by for the occasional sleepover.
My own house is located in Long Beach, because I have a thing for the ocean, the calmness that soothes my stormy mind. This is my sanctuary, and I don’t want anyone else staying here, especially not some broad whose middle name I don’t even know. Fiancée or not, she’s a virtual stranger to me.
“Listen to me very carefully. There are three ways of doing things around here: the right way, the wrong way, and the way that I do it. You understand?”
—Ace Rothstein
THE DOOR CLATTERS AS LUCIA WALKS IN. LUCIA, THE OUTCOME OF MY FATHER AND ONE OF HIS MAIDS.
She signed off any claim to his fortune for a hefty maintenance fee, Lucia liked the finer things in life.
However, she still came around often because we’re ‘family’ or likelier she needed more money.
“What’s eating you?” she asks, unwrapping a candy bar and frowning.
Lucia unmistakably looks like my father, which is probably one of the reasons for the deep-seated antipathy I constantly feel for her. I favor my mother’s dark features, whereas Lucia has my father’s light brown eyes, sandy blonde hair, and heart-shaped face. Although, now her hair is more a candy floss pink. Also, like my father, she is unmistakably self-centred with an utter sense of recklessness.
“I thought I changed the locks,” I say politely.
“I told Rosa you wanted me to have a key,” she says, smiling. “For emergencies,of course.”
“What emergency? You need a coke fix, or the UN needs an emergency party planner to solve world peace,” I say acerbically.
“Very funny, dear brother,” she says sarcastically.
“I’m not your brother,” I say, feeling more annoyed than I am usually with her.
“We share the same father.”
“Yet, you’re more like him than I will ever be.”
