I stopped at the bottom of the stairs and brought my eyes towards the top of them, which led to the hallway that in turn led to Lucia’s room. I wanted to barge in and steal Chiara away, if only for a few minutes. I wanted to hold her close and feel her lips against mine. I’d never felt the need to see someone like that before.
The need was overwhelming. I was being ridiculous. I couldn’t just force myself in, and I might just have to wait to see her again. I was like a drug addict, and it was juvenile of me to be acting the way I was. Even the intrusive thoughts of her were getting old.
I bit my lip and walked away from the stairs, knowing that the impulse to run up them and see Chiara was just too strong. I’d just work out again—it was one of the few things that helped, if only for a little while.
Just needed to get my blood pumping. It would ease the aggression. Damn. I was ready to take off someone’s head. The feeling of frustration was building inside of me, I wanted to touch her, to feel her against me.
I realized then just how much I needed her. It wasn’t just that I wanted her, but I needed her, too. Being apart from her was like losing a piece of myself. I shook my head as the thought passed through my mind. I really was growing soft.
I nearly ran into an older lady who rounded the corner. I couldn’t remember her name, but I knew that she was the wedding planner. She spent most of her days running around with a tablet in her hand, driving away and returning with different choices for Lucia, since she wasn’t allowed to leave the house.
“Sorry about that,” the woman said, keeping her eyes lowered. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
I shrugged and started to walk away until I realized that she could tell me how Chiara was doing. Asking anyone else would cause uninvited interest in why I wanted to know.
“How’s everything going up there?”
The woman brought the tablet to her chest and sighed, clearly exhausted. “It’s going well.”
“And the twins?”
“They’re helping out as much as they can. It’s been nice to get their opinions on what we’ll have at the wedding.”
“Great. Thanks.”
She waited for me to turn around before she began her ascent up the stairs. So, Lucia was making sure that her sisters had a say in the decor. I was glad that they were together and able to enjoy each other’s company. I also couldn’t wait to see Chiara in the bridesmaid dress. I was sure that she would look even more gorgeous than the bride.
My heart twisted at the thought that I was fully attached to her. It was dawning on me that I didn’t just like her. I didn’t just want her sexually. I was falling in love with her.
19
Chiara
I’d only run into him once since we started the preparations for the wedding. In that time, he’d been pacing and acting strangely. Alessandra had seen him more often and reported that Marcello was uneasy. I’d been uneasy too. We’d never gone more than a few days without seeing each other.
There was just no time in the day with Lucia planning her wedding. She wasn’t a bridezilla, which was nice, but she was incredibly particular about everything she wanted. We all had a part to play, and Lucia was doing the best with what she had. She was being forced by Angelo to be the perfect bride for his son. He needed heirs that held not only the Cavetti name but also the Bonifacio name so that a legacy could be made.
I wished we’d been dealt different cards.
I stood there, trying on the third pink dress of the day. The fabric was itchy against my skin and I was suffering from it being too hot in the room. Trying on thick bridesmaids dresses definitely didn’t help. Even though my feet were swollen from standing in one place for so long, and the wedding planner had brought in an entire rack of dresses, Lucia was still scowling.
“It’s too short, and I don’t like that shade of pink,” she said finally, and let out a deep breath. “Can’t we find something, I don’t know, a little more classy?”
I pressed down the silky fabric of the dress and peered down towards my knees. The dress came halfway up my thighs, which didn’t seem terrible, since the dress itself didn’t show a lot of cleavage, and wasn’t so tight to my body that I couldn’t breathe. The first dress had been even less like a bridesmaids dress than it was a club outfit.
Rosetta pushed back her short red hair and examined the dress more closely, making me feel as though I was a mannequin. She began pulling at the fabric, as though she could simply lower the dress further down my legs without it impacting the rest of the dress. In doing so, she nearly exposed my breasts to everyone in the room. I stopped the dress from falling down completely and took a step back from her, looking to Alessandra, who was chuckling lightly to herself.
Rosetta faced Lucia and pointed to the dress. “Once you bring it down a bit, it’s not so bad.”
“You almost took her boobs out by doing that,” Lucia said flatly. “It doesn’t work. I thought I said I wanted a pastel pink. That pink is more of a salmon.”
I rolled my eyes. I knew the difference between the two and the color I was wearing wasn’t salmon. It was amaranth. I pulled up the neckline, which was still threatening to fall after Rosetta’s intervention.
Lucia pushed herself from the bed and sauntered over to the rack, which was chock full of dresses ranging from pink to bright red. Each one had a different length, style, color, and fabric. Most of them had a sheen, which was something she’d wanted. It shouldn’t have been that difficult to dress Alessandra and I. We were, after all, identical twins.
“I want something classy and that looks good with the twins’ complexions. I don’t think that it’s that difficult, but none of these look right to me,” she said and brought her eyes to Alessandra. “What do you think?”
Alessandra was lounging on a small gray chair in the corner of the room. I knew she was glad she wasn’t the one on her feet for the day trying on dresses. I had to do that for the two of us, and my legs were beginning to shake. I hadn’t realized how out of shape I was until I’d been given a little more freedom by Angelo. Even so much as going up a flight of stairs left me winded, and all because I was trapped in a small ten-foot room for the last few months.
