“You didn’t want us to follow in your footsteps,” Lidia supplies the words I couldn’t find.She’s always been the brightest of us all.
I shrug and nod.“You two are my little sisters.I have to protect you.”
Chiara scoffs and Lidia sighs, but at least she looks like she sort of understands where I’m coming from.
“We’re like a year younger than you,” Chiara says.“And I swear, I’m so much more mature than you in so many ways.For example, I’ve kissed a guy before.”
Now it’s my turn to gasp.
“What?When?”Lidia asks, taking the words right out of my mouth.At least it wasn’t just me in the dark about this.
Chiara shakes her head.“It just happened.Doesn’t matter when or with who.We’re talking about Gianna now.”
A part of me thinks she might be lying, a part of me is happy for her that she got to experience the magic of a kiss, which I’ve been drowning in the last few days, and a part of me just wishes I was doing more kissing now instead of having this awkward conversation.
“There’s not much else to tell,” I say.“I like him, I like how he makes me feel and seeing as I’m probably never getting married, I think I’m due some love, don’t you?”
As always, when anyone so much as hints at the curse hanging over me, the room turns icy quiet.
“You better get to it fast, before the curse gets him,” Chiara says and I have no idea why she’s being so belligerent about all this.
“Don’t be mean,” Lidia says quietly and earns herself a dark look from our sister.
But then tears start flowing down Chiara’s face.She does nothing to stop them or wipe them away.
“I’m sorry,” she says, looking at me with very wet eyes.“I don’t know what’s with me today.Sometimes it just gets to be too much.The way we’ll never have love the way we want it.The way we’re just at the mercy of our father and this stupid curse that I don’t even think is real.It’s bad enough that we can’t choose our own husbands, but to have this gossip that we’re murder to anyone who gets engaged to us…”
She pauses to finally wipe away her tears, leaving black streaks of mascara under her bright green eyes.Even though she’s crying, it makes her look fierce.
“I’m happy for you,” she says to me.“Happy that you found love.Make sure he takes you far away from here and enjoy it all for the three of us.Should I help you pack now?”
“We’re not that far yet,” I say and laugh.They both laugh with me and I’m glad the tension has lessened.I’m also glad that I got the blessing I needed from my sisters.The blessing for the promise I made to follow my heart wherever it leads, even if that path lies away from family, duty, and honor.Even if it leads away from my sisters.
“We’ll find love for you guys too,” I say.“Maybe the curse isn’t such a bad thing.I’m actually thinking it might be protecting us from marrying someone we don’t love.And eventually, even Dad will have to concede that he can’t wed us off.Then you’ll be free to do what you want.”
Lidia blushes and Chiara just smiles, wiping the last of her tears away.“I hope you’re right and it happens that way, I really do.Now tell us everything about Matteo.Leave nothing out.”
And I do, talking so long and in such details that hours pass like minutes.He might be waiting outside so he can come and visit me.But this is more important.Because after I let him whisk me away, who knows how many chats with my sisters I’ll be able to have.Definitely not many since we’ll be in hiding.
And despite the whole conversation we’ve just had, family means a lot to me.
Chapter34
MATTEO
She was soready in that restaurant restroom.All I had to do was tell her what I want and she’d have given it to me.No questions asked.I’d never had a woman so innocent and naive before.Not since I was like that too.Which is so long ago now I don’t even remember that guy.
Death and grieving will do that to you.
Caused by men like her father, who don’t care how many bodies they step over to get to the top.
I’ve been telling myself that to stop thinking about her soft lips and how sweet they taste.How that deep look of devotion—mixed with just a little surprise and fear—in her eyes whenever she looks at me makes my heart beat in ways I didn’t know it still could.How soft her skin and her hair are, how soft and willing her body, how much she wants me.I don’t remember a woman ever wanting me this much.And she’s not even lost in some fantasy of her own.She wants me.
But all that’s not something I should be focusing on.
When all is said and done, she’ll hate me worse than the devil.And all that devotion and softness will be replaced by hate and hardness.
Better to let it all go now.
