I squinted at her. “It’s a star.”
She almost spat her water out after she just took a drink. “I know that!” she said, laughing. “I meant a rock, as in a huge diamond.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t heard it called that before. I turned back to the garden.
She moved beside me and wrapped her arm around my shoulder, pulling me in. “I’m so sorry, my bestie boo.” She sighed. “I’m so sorry for so much.”
She’d said that to mesomuch since we reconnected. She was sorry for so much, including times like these, when she referred to something I knew was called one thing as something else. It was because Régine had me locked away from civilization, and a dictionary didn’t give examples of metaphors. It gave the definition of it, an example of how to use it in a sentence, but that was it. Marciano was a wordsmith. I was going to ask him to give me some examples of sayings and things like that to get me up to speed.
Mom sighed again, hugging my shoulder harder and rubbing my arm. “That’s what I mean,” she whispered, shaking her head, like it was a damn shame. “You haven’t even experienced life yet.”
She wasn’t talking about Régine and what she’d done to me. I knew she was referring to Matteo and me getting married, me being accepted into the Fausti family.You haven’t even experienced life yet.She didn’t say it, but she didn’t have to. I knew she felt I’d gotten married too fast. I was trapped behind the walls the Fausti family controlled, and if I wanted to take a leisurely drive to the farmer’s market, or what was equivalent to it in Italy, the trip would be a big deal. To her, my marriage was an entrapment.
As if Matteo had clipped my wings, and his family had stuck me in a gilded cage.
I wasn’t sure if she was thinking clearly or not, but not being able to take a leisurely drive to the farmer’s market was because I was still in danger. Régine and her daughters were dead, but the long arm her family had was still very much alive, and so was Boris and his association. And if Lev and his men,Russian assassins, couldn’t take them out easily, what did she think I could do to protect myself from them? They blew uphercar!
Most importantly, though, was the intense connection Matteo and I shared. The love. She didn’t understand it, therefore she was ready for me to be free of it.
Turning to her, I took her hands in mine. “Mom. We need to talk.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
“The thing is…I might have been locked away, but when Matteo saved me, I knew before he did that he wasitfor me. He’d been in the underground club before, and as soon as my eyes met his…it was like nothing I’d ever felt before. There was like thisclickin my heart, and it was like a key I’d searched for all my life opened me up to loving him. And love is a lame term for what’s between us. It’s like…there’s something that pulls us together, and there’s no fighting it. It’s frightening, yeah, but so…delicious. Warm.”
“Cunning,” she said.
“What?” I whispered.
“Cunning. That’s what it is. Trickery.”
“No.” I shook my head. “Nothing like that. Matteo even gave me a year to think about us. He said we would spend time together and then I could decide.”
She laughed, but it was so sarcastic. “He saved you, baby. Of course you’re going to feel indebted to him, even if you didn’t realize it. You’d been locked away so long, thinking I was gone, and these men, the money, the places they own…What? This family counts for like forty percent of Italy’s riches orsomething? That’s a lot for a young girl who was manipulated and controlled to deny. Maybe right now it feels safe and like home, but trust me, years from now, you’re going to feel trapped by it. And then what? Look what happened to what’s her name? They won’t leave the poor girl alone. That guy is obsessed.”
She was referring to Massimo and Chloe.
“He’s so in love with her, mom, and it’s not his fault. It’s his mom’s fault.”
She shook her head. “That’s not love, sweetie. That’s obsession.”
“Do you think that’s what’s going on between me and Matteo? Obsession? To a certain degree, yeah, we are obsessed with each other. But it goes so much deeper than that. Can you feel it around Scarlett and Brando?”
“Scarlett is different.”
“Why?”
“Because she came from money.”
“So?” I felt my face scrunch up. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Money goes to money.” She lifted her hands. “Money understands money. We don’t come from that kind of background, Stella. My mom was a housewife, and my dad is a fisherman. And both of my parents sucked at being parents. When I left, I left with nothing but the clothes I could carry and a few dollars I’d saved up from a summer job. What I did to support us is not exactly at the top of the food chain, as far as respectable careers go.”
I stuck my chin up. “There’s nothing wrong with what you did to make a living, if you wanted to do it. It’s an honest day’s, or night’s, work.”
She smiled at me. “Thank you, baby, but we’re getting off track here.”
“We’re not.” I crossed my arms over my chest.
