“What about in Italy? No family here?”
“Not that I know of. This is actually the first time I’ve set foot here. But from what I’ve been told, my mom was born in Italy and lived near Rome until she was seven.”
“What did your grandfather do?”
“She said he was a farmer.”
I inhaled slowly, my eyes searching her face. She wasn’t lying.
Time to shift the subject. “How’d you know what I looked like with hair?”
“Tony showed me your picture. In the library. Honestly, your eyes looked familiar.”
Well, now we were getting somewhere. I let my gaze linger on her, on that innocent, pretty face. The heart-shaped curve of her cheeks. That delicate nose, every angle designed to drive a man insane. And those lips, made for kissing, for sighing, for being owned.
Her hair looked like it was begging to be wrapped around my fist. And her eyes, hazy, unfocused from the alcohol, watched me like she was drifting somewhere between sleep and surrender.
Was she even aware of the storm she was stirring inside me? No. Not a chance. She was too far gone to see it.
“How old are you, Emily?” I asked before she completely drifted off.
“Nineteen. I’ll be twenty in a few months.”
“College student?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you want to be?”
“I haven’t figured it out yet. Honestly, I can’t stick to one thing. Jill says it’s because I don’t have a boyfriend. Apparently, when a woman doesn’t have a man in her life, she channels all her energy into finding one.”
My tone turned bitter.“Millions of men live in Chicago, and you picked Tony?”
“Why not him?” she said with a bitter smile, her voice laced with something close to regret. “He was handsome. Rich. Polite. Always smelled good. What more could a girl want? If any girl says otherwise, she’s lying through her teeth.”
“But he’s nearly ten years older than you.”
She took a deep, trembling breath and wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand, sweat I would’ve gladly licked off her skin. It probably tasted salty.
But then she spoke again, pulling me out of it. “Jill says I’ve got daddy issues. I lost my dad when I was sixteen. Car crash. It took both my parents. She says I’ve been looking for a father figure, not a boyfriend. But Jill can kiss my ass. I really tried. I swear I did. I put in the effort, tried to find someone decent. But every single one of them just wanted one thing, a hole to enjoy and forget.”
She looked down, shaking her head. “Maybe it doesn’t bother Jill that her guy doesn’t give a shit about her. But it mattered to me.”
She blinked a few times, then without warning, slumped sideways and dropped her head onto my lap. Her long hair spilled over my thighs like silk.
“I can’t sit anymore,” she whispered, eyes half-lidded. “Everything’s spinning. Please don’t punish me. I really can’t help it.”
I grabbed a fistful of her hair and leaned in, dragging her scent deep into my lungs. She smelled like spring flowers.
“Who’s Jill?” I murmured against it then I let go, straightened up, and fixed my gaze on her again.
“She’s my best friend. We grew up together. But we’re nothing alike. Jill’s smart, no guy can bullshit her. She told me more than once that Tony was bad news, but I didn’t listen.”
She paused, her eyes drifting. “I wanted so badly to believe he was the one. The one who’d break the curse. The one I’d travel with, laugh with, make memories with. I thought we’d see the world and live like royalty. Greed never ends well, but I swear it, I wasn’t with him for the money.”
“Where did you want to go with him? What did you want to do?”
She closed her eyes, her voice barely above a whisper. “A private island somewhere warm. One of Jill’s boyfriends once took her to an island in Greece. She said it was the most beautiful place on earth. But honestly, she’s only seen Chicago and Greece, so what does she know?”
