AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I need to go deal with Matteo.” Eli didn’t look at me as he started towards the bar. “If my father catches him with a drink…”
He didn’t wait to hear what I had to say as he left me alone in the middle of the party. Tears sprung to my eyes, but I blinked them away. There was no reason to cry. Eli hadn’t done anything.
“Wow.” I turned to see Ingrid and Fiona standing behind me. Ingrid was dressed in an emerald green silk dress, and Fiona was in a deep burgundy. The two of them looked like they belonged in a fashion magazine. “You look incredible.”
“Thanks,” I said, trying to hide the hurt I felt. “Sophia helped me pick it out.”
“Oh?” Ingrid asked.
Fiona snorted. “I didn’t think that Sophia ever lifted her head out of a book long enough to think about fashion.”
My feathers ruffled. “She’s actually really into fashion.” I slid my hands down the front of the dress, smoothing out imaginary wrinkles. “She’s multi-facetious.”
It was the truth, and Fiona didn’t seem to take offense. “Who knew?”
Ingrid rolled her eyes, clearly picking up that I was offended on my friend’s behalf. “Maybe I should have her take me shopping,” Ingrid said kindly.
“Yea,” Fiona supplied. “Then, you won’t have to have your grandmother dress you.”
Ingrid chuckled, clearly not offended. “You aren’t wrong,” she said. She turned to me, a large smile on her pretty face. Unlike Fiona, whose beauty was highly curated, Ingrid had an effortless beauty that it was obvious she wasn’t aware of, which made her more beautiful.
Unlike her boyfriend, and his sister, her smile was easy and open. Knowing what I knew about her, it was hard to imagine her in a relationship with a mafia prince. Yet, Luca seemed to adore her.
“How are you enjoying the party?” she asked kindly.
“Are you bored out of your mind?” Fiona asked with a chuckle. “This must be horribly lame compared to L.A.”
I stiffened. Though I knew that no one here knew about my past, there was something about the way Fiona’s blue eyes bore into me that made me worried she knew all my secrets.
“It’s fine,” I said. “The L.A. scene is pretty much the same.” I smiled at Ingrid. “We just like to give money to celebrities instead of politicians.”
Ingrid laughed loudly, drawing the attention of several people around us. My cheeks turned red, but neither Fiona nor Ingrid seemed to care. “That’s amazing,” she said. “And kind of better.”
“Much better,” Fiona agreed. She sighed. “This thing would be much better if there was eye candy under the age of sixty-five.”
I smiled. “I suppose that it had its charms.”
“I’d like to go to L.A.,” Fiona said. “I’m over New York.”
“What about college?” I asked. “Are you leaving the city?”
Fiona released a heavy sigh, and I knew I’d stepped into something. I looked over at Ingrid, who was taking a small sip out of her cup. “My father put his foot down on that. He wants me where he can keep an eye on me, so I’ll be at Columbia.” She rolled her eyes once more. “Where I can’t get into any trouble.”
I felt for Fiona. I knew what it was like for your life to be under the control of someone else. Something told me that Fiona could cause trouble wherever she ends up, and the sparkle in her eyes told me that she intended to do just that.
“At least you’ll be with Eli,” Ingrid said. “You’ll have a friendly face at school.”
“Isn’t Eli going to Harvard?” Eli’s future confused me. His father wanted him to stay local, but just last weekend, we’d been at Harvard, and I’d seen the way his eyes lit up when he walked into campus.
Fiona and Ingrid both grew uncomfortable. “That remains to be seen,” Fiona said, her tone oddly diplomatic.
But I wasn’t content to just leave things alone. I wanted to know everything that I could about Eli, especially since it felt like he was going to pull away from me. “In what way?”
Immediately, Fiona and Ingrid looked at one another, and then looked away. “You and Eli seem to have grown close.” I noticed how Ingrid ignored my question, and I felt my hackles raise. What the hell was it about the Blanchi family and their friends that made them close ranks so quickly.
“We kind of don’t have a choice,” I muttered, not wanting to get into the complex relationship between myself and Eli. We’d agreed not to tell anyone that we were…whatever we were…and I didn’t know either Fiona or Ingrid enough to begin spilling my secrets.
“Be thankful that it’s Eli running after you and not Matteo.”
