“I love it,” Zo said. She turned to me. “Fabi? What do you— Oh.”
I set my empty glass down on the Potions & Co branded coaster and nudged it toward the bartender. “Another one, please.”
I didn’t care about how it tasted. Only that it was strong.
The bartender whisked the glass away without a word, while my friends exchanged concerned looks.
“Want to talk about it?” Mia asked gently, fiddling with the collar of her silk blouse.
I shook my head. Recently, I’d done little else besides whine to my friends about Cosimo, and it hadn’t really helped. We’d all met at Valais Academy in Switzerland, and though we’d scattered after graduation, one by one, we’d all ended up in New York again. Mia was a fashion stylist, Nina ran her own chocolate company, and Zo worked as a white-hat hacker at a cybersecurity firm. With me now back in the city too, we were all together again. I just wished our reunion didn’t happen to coincide with the slow unraveling of my sanity.
Cosimo had kept his distance from me for the rest of the engagement party after that photoshoot. I thought we’d broken some ground when he’d tried to calm me down for the photos, but things had gone downhill right after, and we hadn’t exactly left things on a good note. I couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d found something wrong with me. The fact that I hadn’t heard from him since the party didn’t help.
Okay, maybe Ididwant to talk about it. “Cosimo appears to dislike me for just existing, and I don’t know how to deal with that.”
“Vita said it wasn’t personal, right?” Nina asked. She was related to the Ferraros—Vita was her mother’s sister—but neither Nina nor her parents were involved in the family business.
“I’m not sure I believe that anymore.” Cosimo’s insults at the engagement party had felt personal enough. I still cringed when I remembered blurting out that I was a virgin. The way he’d frozen when I said it… Why the hell had I told him that? I’d been so annoyed by the way his touch made my body burn even while he was being rude that it had just slipped out.
It had left me feeling vulnerable. Exposed. And faced with the prospect of marrying him, it suddenly seemed absurd that I’d clung to that ancient tradition for so long.
I’d fooled around before. I’d had chances to take things further in Geneva. But something had always stopped me. I didn’t want the first man I slept with to know me as Fabi Castellano. I wanted him to know the real me.
Well, here I was, Fabiana Messero once again, and my fiancé had no interest in knowing me at all.
“Even if Vita was telling the truth, does it matter?” I asked. “The end result is the same. He didn’t want to get married, and he’s determined to do the bare minimum required of him—show up at the altar and say I do.”
What would happen once he was my husband? What would my life look like with him?
Yes, I took duty seriously. But could I really commit to marrying a man who would treat me like a nuisance for the rest of my existence? I was starting to grow weary at the prospect.
The bartender dropped off my second cocktail. “Made you a double this time.”
I gave him a tired smile. “You’re the best, Frank.”
“Do you think it might be my fault?” Mia asked, stirring a toothpick in her glass.
The fresh cocktail slid smoothly down my throat. “How could it be your fault?”
“Cosimo knows you’re friends with me. Maybe this is some weird way of punishing you for that.”
I bit on the inside of my cheek as I pondered that theory. Mia’s dad was Carlos Morales—the man currently running for mayor. He’d promised the voters that if he was elected, he was going to put the family I was marrying into behind bars. Whether or not he would actually be able to do that was a whole other question, and until he successfully made it into office, it was a problem I wasn’t going to think about.
“I doubt it’s that, Mia. If our friendship was a concern, I’m sure I would’ve heard about it by now.” I took another sip.
“Ugh. This really sucks,” Nina muttered. “I can’t believe you had to leave your dream job for this, only for it to go so badly.”
“My dream job? Not really.” I looked down at my drink. “Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it, but my dream job would’ve been something else.”
“Like what?” Mia asked.
“Something in the arts. I loved helping Rafe with the art acquisitions,” I said. “But you know I also love making pottery. I don’t know… I suppose I’ve never let myself imagine what mydream job would be. What’s the point when I’ve always known what my life will eventually end up being?”
“I guess that makes sense,” Mia said. “So you don’t miss being at the UN?”
I swallowed. For a moment, I considered telling my friends what had really happened with my job, but what would be the point? They already pitied me enough.
“I haven’t really thought much about it, to be honest.” If there was one upside to everything with Cosimo, it was that he’d become such an immediate, all-consuming problem that I’d barely had time to think about everything that had happened in Geneva.
