And then suddenly, she found herself being maneuvered against the wall, and there he was, all six foot four inches of her outraged stepbrother, staring at her with fire emanating from his eyes.
He was so close she could feel the heat radiating from his body. So close she could smell his scent. Again.
She swallowed hard, and he lifted his hand and wrapped it around her neck, gently, but enough to let her know that he was dangerous. That he could do whatever he wanted right then. Whatever he wanted. Strangle her, kiss her, she wasn’t sure that she would stop him either way. And the realization was terrifying. It all crystallized. That first moment he had ever spoken to her, and it had been like being sliced into, the second time when it had felt that much more intimate, that much deeper. This time, she felt it between her legs. This time, it had formed perfectly into exactly what it had always promised to be. It was real, deep, adult desire mixed with resentment and rage cultivated over the course of years. She had no control. She had been wrong. She had played with this man, and she had only played herself. If he wanted to take her right there against the wall where anyone could walk by, she would let him. And that was the realization that finally made her move.
As soon as she did, he released his hold on her, proving that he had never held her so tightly as it felt like he had. “Don’t play with me,” he said.
She caught her breath. “Maybe we should call a truce.”
“You would like that. We are not in school anymore, and I have no investments in this game. But if you think that ignoring you means that I no longer hate you, I wish you to comfort yourself with the fact that I still do. Forever.”
“Same,” she said.
She didn’t stay for dinner. She made arrangements to change the flight plan for her father’s private plane and left an hour later. With the inescapable, lowering realization that Romeo might have actually won.
CHAPTER FIVE
Now
Heather was exhaustedfrom crying. It had been a devastating night. Losing Giuseppe had been inevitable, but she hadn’t really been prepared for it. How could you prepare to lose a parent? She had now done it in two very different ways. Sudden and expected. She couldn’t recommend either one.
The funeral had been planned and coordinated, and executed within a day. She and Romeo hadn’t had to do anything.
Nothing but try to figure out how to go on with the pain of losing their father.
Whatever Romeo thought of her, of her mother, it didn’t matter. Giuseppe was her father in every way that mattered. Losing him left a void she didn’t think could ever be filled.
Losing him was losing her last connection to the Accardi name. To the illusion she’d ever been part of the family. For her it wasn’t about assets.
She wasn’t even sure when the will reading was happening and the specter of it was filling her with anxiety every time she took a breath. Giuseppe had said she got half the estate. Romeo wouldn’t be happy. An understatement, and who knew what other surprises the will would have?
In the meantime, Heather had been fielding phone calls, managing things that she would have expected Romeo to do, but he was remote and even more unfriendly than ever.
She couldn’t wait to be rid of him.
Dealing with him was the bane of her existence. The scourge of her life.
Every embarrassing, humiliating, terrible thing that had happened to her had him tangled up in it. She just…despised him.
Complicating her grief and turning it into an endless tangle of anger on top of everything else.
Things had changed in the years since that last, explosive confrontation between the two of them. They had changed the way they dealt with each other. She had gone back to university after that failed, utterly ill-advised seduction attempt, and thrown herself into her studies. She had changed the sort of people she hung around with. Had switched her major from hospitality to English, and begun pushing toward a career in teaching, which had then shifted to publishing. And which was currently freelance, which gave her an ample amount of freedom, freedom that she knew had only come from the relative privilege she had started out with.
She was the daughter of a cleaner. And the world had opened up to her when her mother had married a wealthy man. She had gotten lost in private school games for a while. She liked to think that she had found a piece of herself from before, and done good work integrating it with the woman that she had become, discarding some parts, clinging to others. She liked to think that she had become a better person. Though whenever she was around Romeo she didn’t feel like a better person. And currently, she didn’t feel better at all.
The doorbell rang, and she went to answer it, not waiting for a member of staff.
She knew the man at the door. Gray haired and serious, it was Marcus Santos, Giuseppe’s attorney.
It was time. The clock was ticking. The will.
“Hello, Mr. Santos.”
“I’m very sorry to hear about your father.”
Heather nodded. “Me too.”
“I’ve come to read the will. He left me strict instructions to do it as quickly as possible because he was worried that things would become acrimonious between yourself and…” His sentence trailed off, his eyes traveling to a place behind Heather. And she knew why. She felt Romeo’s presence without having to turn around.
