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All the men in my life have a weird obsession with cars that I don’t understand. Even Katherine likes them. She’s bought herself a few ‘muscle cars’ since the wedding. I’m smart enough to look past the nice sounds they make and understand that they’re terrible investments. All of them have expensive taste and not nearly enough time to appreciate the hunks of metal. I suppose since they have money to burn, they like burning it.
Luca Caruso is a pain in my ass. He drives me insane, but he’s picking me up right now, so I’ll play nice for today.
Both Gio and Luca know my parents aren’t aware that I’m doing this. Katherine threatened to cut their balls off and fry them up for dinner if they let my secret slip. One of her issues is being a bit dramatically psychotic, but I love her for it anyway.
Coming to stay at their house was her idea. She knows a bit about my feeling isolated in Milan, and she’s on this whole self care kick, so she’s demanding I take care of myself for once. She’s right, and that’s why I didn’t put up a fight. I jumped at the chance with a big fat smile on my face.
I just can’t stay on campus right now. It’s too much. Everyone looks at me strangely, and no one invites me to anything. I’m practically royalty back home and yet on campus I’m a social pariah. My professors were way too easily convinced to move my courses online for the rest of the semester, which only added insult to injury. There’s a month left, and it’s like even they didn’t want me here.
Luca doesn’t get out of the driver's seat and I don’t expect him to. I easily throw my suitcase into the back seat and climb in, sitting next to it.
“Thank you for coming to get me.” I rarely say nice things to him, but I have manners, especially when someone is doing me a favor. Our town is like three hours from my school, so flying seemed unnecessary; meaning I needed him. It would also be easier for my father to figure out I’m home if I get on a plane. Luca looks back at me like I’m crazy, probably because I haven’t made a snarky comment yet. “What, I can’t say thank you?” My voice rolls off my tongue like an insult as I glare at him slightly.
He returns my snarky look. “You can, you just normally don’t.”
“Don’t read too much into it. I’ll be rude when you’re done doing me a favor.”
“Good.” He turns back around, shaking his head with a weak laugh. He revs the engine before he speeds off like a race car driver. Completely unnecessary, but completely Luca.
Car rides are mind-numbing to me. I usually do whatever it takes to make time move by more quickly. It’s only natural to take out my laptop and flip on my hotspot. I have a few papers due at the end of the month that I’ve already started. I want to get them done sooner than later, so I throw in a pair of headphones and start typing; hoping the ride will be over quickly.
Luca and Gio aren’t the only ones keeping my secret. Marco knows I’m coming home, too. As much as he’s an ass nowadays, we actually get along most of the time. Even though we were really close as kids, things have become more complicated.
It’s difficult to be around him with how our parents treat him. I’m expected to keep him in the same tone as they do, but I don’t like it. Since they don’t know that I’m coming home, we might go out. His friends don’t seem to mind me being around, and it would be nice to not feel completely shunned again. I’ll have to sneak out, and that will either be extremely difficult or easy if Gio ignores me like he normally does. Caterina, Lorenzo’s chef and personal assistant, won’t be there to catch me since Katherine gave her paid vacation while they're gone. Though, I’m genuinely expecting her to come cook for the boys, despite her time off. She’s a mama bear like that, even though she’s young.
I don’t think my parents will find out I’ve left the campus. Mamma is completely occupied helping Sofia, Katherine’s mom, move into her new house. She decided to stay in Italy and bought a small mansion a few miles from our estate. Mamma and Sofia were fast friends. They are together all the time now. Papa is occupied with work often, so I think my chances of staying off their radar are good.
Chances are, they wouldn’t mind me being home, but they wouldn’t want me at Lorenzo’s, and that’s where I want to be. Papa would also give me an earful if I said that I left Uni because I felt lonely. He’s a big tough guy and even though I’m not, he expects me to be strong as an ox.
Vitales are warriors, Arianna, you are fierce.His words ring in my ears, itching to make me feel bad for making this decision. Surely he won’t act upset with me, but the possibility of insulting papa makes me sad. He’s my father and I want him to be proud of me.
Luca is driving like he’s in a race to win a priceless artifact or something, yet somehow he doesn’t get pulled over by the three cops we pass. My brother and his friends practically run our city with business interests and apparently have some of the best luck ever. Everyone acts like they are a big deal, but I just ignore them. It’s stupid to care how much money or power they have. Even girls on campus will whisper about them sometimes, like they are superstars.
It pisses me off, especially when they talk about Gio.
Gio isn’t for them.
He’s mine.
I finished a lot of research and I’m nearly finished with a 2,500 word paper just as we pull into Lorenzo’s property. The car comes to a stop outside of the front steps. Closing my laptop and throwing it into my purse, I take a quiet breath to prepare myself.
“Thanks again, loser,” I say, opening my door and jumping out with my suitcase and purse in hand.
“You’re welcome, brat,” he pokes back.
The car shuts off and Luca jumps out.
We’ve never gotten along, Luca and I. Some of it is jokes, some of it isn’t. He’s called me brat, short for spoiled brat, since I remember meeting him. He was sixteen, and I was ten, so in hindsight, I probably was a spoiled brat to him. Still, I don’t remember ever doing anything to genuinely upset him, other than being born into money. But Lorenzo is his best friend and my brother, so it seems like a poor reason to hate me. I, on the other hand, hate him because he started it.
Luca goes inside and I follow behind him slowly with no need or desire to rush, then make my path upstairs. I’m staying in Katherine’s room. She assured me someone thoroughly disinfected it, which is nice, but I wish she wouldn’t have said it out loud. I didn’t need a mental picture of what goes down in her bed, especially since I’ve already heard her screaming my brother's name in the next room before.
Gross.
I envy that she’s so comfortable talking about sex. I just wish it didn’t involve my brother. She’s given me advice before aboutgoodsex, and I had to admit that I had nothing to compare it to. Being a virgin as a sophomore in college is probably the most embarrassing thing to admit to someone. She didn’t shame me about it or anything, but I still felt sad talking about it. No guy has ever been willing to do more than kiss me or touch my boobs through my shirt. It’s like there’s a sign on my head that says ‘don’t touch me’. I’ve wanted to burn that damn sign more times than I can count. It’s frustrating and I despise it.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve felt touch, just exclusively my own touch. It’s pathetic, but I know how to please myself, so it’s not all bad. I just don’t understand why it hasn’t happened yet. I’ve wanted it before, many times. There was a brief period where I wanted it to happen just to make Gio jealous, but I haven’t even tried with anyone else since I turned eighteen.
The legal age of consent in Italy is fourteen, but Gio wouldn’t even flirt back at me when I was sixteen. Understandably, I think he didn’t want to feel like he was grooming me. So I backed off until I turned eighteen, that is. Still, he didn’t budge, and it got increasingly upsetting when he would reject me.
