Livia raised her hand as if we were in grade school. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. “Yes, Livia?”
“Are we talking about boy Bly or girl Bly?”
“Girl Bly. Bec,” Bella supplied, “Boy Bly is married.”
From my back pocket, I pulled out the tabloid that I had gotten earlier, and threw it onto the table. It was like watching rabid dogs go after a chicken leg, when watching my sisters go after the paper. Livia, as predicted, was victorious.
She flipped through the pages, smiling at the various pictures of me and Bec over the last few months. “Theseare pretty damning.”
Bee peered over her shoulder, taking a look at the pictures, “He’s just being a gentleman. Why do these journalists think that means they’re dating?”
Luna stifled a chuckle, “Rome? A gentleman?”
“Your brother has always been a gentleman.” My mom’s intrusion caused a flustered Aria to steal the paper and stuff it under her legs on the chair.
The rest of my sisters and I, all stifling laughs now.
“Thanks, Mom,” I answered.
She pinched my cheek as she smiled at me fondly. I took her hand in my own. This woman was the most significant presence in my life. Between my father, Mateo, my commanding officers, and various team leaders, I had no shortage of role models in my life. But my mom… she was the greatest of them all.
“When I was dating your father, your brother here ensured that he only treated me with the utmost respect. He was born a gentleman, just like his father.”
I was only eight years old when Mateo and my mom had started dating, but I had known even then that my mom deserved only the best. I hadn’t been the gentleman she was remembering. I had spent the better part of a year trying to convince Mateo to leave my mom via various… pranks. Mateo had kept it to himself all these years, a part of him still trying to win me over.
Conversations turned towards my sisters and their various lives. Bella was in the countdown of taking over the restaurant, Aria was beyond ready to quit her job as a teacher, Livia and Luna were chatting about the latter’s boyfriend, and Bee was fawning over the photos of me in the paper that she’s stolen from Aria. Despite the conversation happening around me, I couldn’t keep my thoughts from turning to Bec.
She barely tolerated me as it was. I wasn’t sure how she could pretend to have any positive feelings for me. It wouldn’t be hard for me to pretend to have feelings for her. Bec was beyond beautiful. Her eyes were a steel blue that felt piercing each time she looked at me, her hair always perfect as it fell in waves down her back. She was stunning, anddamn, was she brilliant.
There were many times I followed her to her meetings, and the clients and business partners assumed they would be working with me. I would drive the business into the ground if I were in charge for even a day. Bec commanded every meeting with the utmost class and power. She ran those boardrooms with expert precision.
I was drawn back to reality by a pasta noodle bouncing off of my forehead.
“What?” I asked, looking around the table.
Livia rolled her eyes, “You seriously weren’t listening to anything we just said?”
I shrugged, neither confirming nor denying.
Bella laughed softly, “How often do you tune us out?”
“To be honest, the majority of the time.”
I was met with a table full of complaints and more pasta noodles being thrown at me. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry,” I said through laughs… my hands raised in surrender. “What were you saying?”
It was Bee who spoke this time, her smile going from ear to ear. “Operation: Turn Rome Cipriani into the best fake boyfriend.”
I barked a laugh, “I know how to be a boyfriend. Do you think I’m an idiot or something?”
No one answered. Silence for just a moment before all of the girls looked at each other and burst out into laughter. I guess that was an answer in and of itself.
Chapter Eight
BEC
“He’s going to need a suit, shirt, shoes, tie…” I trailed off and tapped my fingers on my desk, in thought.
Would it be weird to get Rome new underwear? Yeah, that would be weird.
