AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I grit my teeth, hoping Tommas hasn’t slipped her off to a corner somewhere in hopes of getting his hand up her skirt. I break away from the dance floor, scouting the outer hallways of the room before heading up the stairs. I hear her voice, low and soft, just before I come around the corner, and I stop dead when I see his fingers on her chin, gently tipping her lips up to his so that he can kiss her.
My vision swims red for a moment. In one hot, angry second, I vividly remember the feeling of Gianna’s mouth on mine in the pool, that moment when I felt her against me. It was a clumsy, inexpert kiss, but it had been searing against my lips all the same, because it washer. And now Tommas is feeling those same lips against his, pressing Gianna up against the wall, and it’s all I can do not to go and drag him off of her.
Instead, I clear my throat, and he jumps back guiltily, his face flushing red.A boy, not a man.
“I’m sorry, Don Moretti, I—”
“Never mind that. Both of you, back downstairs.” I motion to the stairs for them to go first, and I don’t miss the mutinous look in Gianna’s eyes as she obeys, following Tommas down.
She doesn’t speak to me again until we’re back in the car on the way home. “I’ve made my decision,” she says from where she’s sitting across from me, her hands folded on the dark purple skirt of her dress. “I’m going to choose Tommas.”
I wish she’d waited to tell me. The jealousy is still too close to the surface, and I grit my teeth against the first thing that comes to mind. It slips out anyway.
“So the kiss made up your mind, then?”
Gianna gives me a piercing look that tells me that she sees right through this. “No,” she says coolly. “The fact that he seems amenable enough to my going to college, doesn’t expect me to have a child within the first year that we’re married, and hasn’t tried to do more than kiss me makes me think he’s the right choice. He does seem to like me, too,” she admits. “So maybe it won’t be all bad.”
“He would have tried to do more than kiss you tonight.”
“Maybe.” She shrugs. “But he hasn’t so far. And he will be in a few weeks anyway, right?”
There’s no heat, no desire in the way she says it, but it stokes the fuel of my jealousy anyway, thinking of him in bed with her. The car falls silent for several long minutes, and I look pensively out of the window, trying to turn my mind to other things instead. The conversation I’ll have with Fontana, for instance, letting him know that Gianna has made her choice and that plans can be put in motion for a wedding. The conversation I’ll have with Luca, telling him I’m coming back to New York and what place there still might be for me there, in the Romano mafia.
Or you could take a fucking break,I think wryly, watching the lights of the city dim as we drive away from it and back to the mansion.You could go on vacation. Put an ocean between you and all of this.
“You know, it’s not fair for you to be jealous of me now.” Gianna’s voice drifts towards me, quiet and so sad that the retort I nearly make dies on my tongue as I hear her. “You could have had me. I know all the reasons you gave. But at the end of the day, if you don’t like the idea of Tommas and I together, you only have yourself to blame.”
I want to be angry with her. I want to tell her to watch her mouth, that she’ll earn another punishment, that she’s breaking her promise. But she isn’t, not really. She isn’t asking me to change my mind. She isn’t trying to convince me of anything. And as much as I don’t want to hear what she’s saying, it’s the truth.
Whatever I’m feeling, it’s because of the decisions I’ve made. But I still think that decision was the right one.
“I’ll tell Fontana in the morning that you’ve made your choice,” I tell her evenly. “I expect things will probably move fairly quickly after that.”
Gianna says nothing. She doesn’t need to, not really. I know what she’s thinking—that this is the choice that will make her the least miserable, but it won’t make her happy. None of this will make her happy.
But I don’t believe that I could, either. And in the end, that makes the difference.
—
I call Fontana the next morning and give him the news. Some hours later, while I’m wondering what to say when I call Luca, there’s a knock at my office door.
“Come in.” I turn away from the computer just in time to see one of the staff opening the door and stepping inside.
“Mr. Fontana is here to see you, sir.”
My stomach drops. As far as I’d been aware, the conversation was finished this morning, when we’d agreed that arrangements needed to be made for the official betrothal paperwork to be signed. The fact that Fontana has shown up here unannounced, isn’t a good sign.
“Show him in,” I tell her, feeling my gut twist into knots. My apprehension doesn’t lessen when Fontana walks in, and takes a seat without so much as a greeting.
“I didn’t expect to see you here.” I try to keep my expression as neutral as I can, wondering if Fontana looks so calm because he enjoys the feeling of keeping me in the dark. “Is there something more than what we discussed this morning on the phone?”
“Yes.” He leans back in his chair, frowning. “I had a call from the Leone family after you and I spoke. I had to, of course, inform them that Gianna had chosen otherwise. It was an—extensive discussion.”
The knot in my belly tightens with apprehension. “And? Is there a reason I should know about this conversation?”
“There will be a different choice,” Fontana says without preamble. “Gianna will marry Andre Leone. Before you say anything,” he adds, “I know that’s not what we agreed upon. But on further reflection, itisthe best choice for the Family. The Lombardi family does not have enough to offer as they are, and they may be unable to maintain or even grow the current status of the Mancini family. But with the wealth and connections that Gianna brings added to what the Leone family has already built, it can only benefit all of us.”
“Except for Gianna. Who, on the heels of her father’s death, waspromiseda choice.” I glare at Fontana. “You can’t seriously be planning on insisting on this.”
