This too shall pass, she repeated to herself, as if her life depended on it.
She’d wanted adventures and life, and that meant heartbreak too.
Apparently real life for her meant falling in love with the wrong brother in a matter of a few weeks and running away without even telling him how she truly felt because she was terrified of seeing his irrefutable rejection of her love.
But she’d get over him, as she did with all hard things in life, and be stronger for it. Just not yet. It would take her all of her twenties probably. Maybe some of her thirties.
By thirty-five, she’d be ready to throw herself into another red-hot affair. And maybe she would target a man from a different continent this time, just for variety.
That ridiculous plan for the next decade felt like control when nothing else was in her grasp.
Stepping around the wilting lettuce and sodden carrots, she walked into the house, only noticing then that it was too quiet for a Friday evening.
Her mom’s favorite Indian soap opera—hers too, now—should’ve been playing loud enough to drive Dad bonkers. The thought broke her dark mood. Even her dad’s old excuse that he didn’t understand Hindi didn’t stand anymore. In the vein of all soap operas across the universe, the show moved so slowly and so dramatically that even he could understand what was happening.
“Mom, what’s happening? Did Rishika discover the truth about her evil twin? Has she—”
Her breath emptied out of her in a loud, long exhale.
Alessandro was standing in their kitchen, a bottle of her dad’s favorite beer dripping condensation all over the granite counter next to him.
White dress shirt and black trousers. His hair needed a cut. His mouth was set in that tight, forbidding line she knew so well. And his eyes… God, his eyes. A rainbow of emotions flickered through them as they roved over her hungrily.
From her hair in two braids to the Band-Aid on her chin to her crop top and low-slung shorts to the large blue-green bruise showing on her hip and her foot in a cast.
His gaze lingered at several points, mainly her foot and the bruise, and then crawled up to her face. Tension thrummed around him, as if he were creating a strange force field around himself.
He should have looked so out of context here in their kitchen, in their house. At least that’s how she’d survived the last few weeks. By compartmentalizing him in her head, like a fantasy. A temporary illusion that had felt incredibly good.
In silence, she walked into the living room where her parents were on the couch, and Alessandro followed. On the big plasma screen on the wall, Rishika was running around the streets of Mumbai chasing after her amnesiac lover who was being stolen away by her evil twin.
Sam registered this on the periphery of her senses, as if they were a background track for her suddenly very vivid life. Someone muted the television.
Her mom finally broke the silence. “Why didn’t you tell us you were dating Matteo’s older brother?”
Sam’s eyes widened. He’d told them? What, exactly?
“For God’s sake, Sameera, he’s eighteen years older than you. I can’t decide if he’s worse than Matteo or not. Becauseheshould know better.” This she addressed to Alessandro with an almighty scowl.
Heat rushed into her cheeks, but Sam couldn’t break away from that gray gaze. Dad’sHush, Geeta, let them sort it outfell into the tense silence.
Alessandro raised an eyebrow.
Fluent in his facial language, Sam understood him instantly.
He was asking whether she wanted him to answer her mom’s inquiries.
The gesture was so familiar, had haunted her so much, that raw longing flooded her body. For a wild, crazy moment, she wanted to sayGo for it. She wanted to let him take on her mom and see the fireworks. She wanted to see what he’d say about them now that they were… Wait, why was he here at all?
“Sam?”
She turned to her mom, hearing the worry in it. “Whatever it was, it’s over now, Mom.” She heard the catch of pain in her voice but had no energy to fight it. “So let’s not argue about the irrefutable fact that I’m an adult, and while you’re allowed to express your opinion, you have no say in how I live my life, hmm?”
“Then, why is he here?” her mom continued. “He’s been here all afternoon and grilled us about you for hours.”
Her belly swooped. He’d been waiting all afternoon?
She turned to Alessandro. “Are you going to just stand there and look at me, or explain why you’re here?” she said, her stomach twisting. Did he have any idea how hard it was for her to see him here like this and not touch him? To fight being pulled back into his gravity? “If not, Mom will continue to talk about you as if you’re not standing there taking up all the space.” Sudden anxiety flooded her. “Wait, is Matteo okay? Angelina didn’t say anything about—”
