“She’s still a bit jetlagged and excited. She’s worn herself out already,” I answered, accepting a glass of wine.
“So, what happens now?” Coraline asked, leaning back in her seat after taking her glass.
“What do you mean?”
“Are we planning a wedding? Or are we just hosting a party? Our family church isn’t repaired yet—”
“We’ll just do a double wedding with Donatella. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind. I’ve heard she is very understanding.” I smiled, and they all looked at me as if I had two heads…before we all broke out into laughter. Even Mina grinned.
Win the house, control the house.
Win the women, control the family.
Win the city, control the world.
That was my goal. We’d got a little bit sidetracked yesterday but I wasn’t going to let anyone get in my way now.
11
“Is it better to be loved or feared?”
~ Niccolo Machiavelli
ETHAN
It was almost dinner by the time I’d gotten back home. I felt like I had aged years, not hours, and to make it worse, the home I returned to was already fucking changed. Everything was different. And when I said different, I meant every fucking thing.
The chandelier in the foyer had been changed to one with large crystals and looked as if it were raining diamonds from the sky. There were men I did not recognize changing the tiles underneath it. The initials EC—though the E was backward and the middle dash went through the C a bit. Not just that, two roman statues cast in marble now stood at the base of the double staircase. There were even house plants. It felt like the manor was becoming a palace.
But all of that was nothing in comparison to the sound of…laughter. Not soft giggles, or even whispers, but loud, almost hyena-like laughter coming from the living room. I walked toward it when all of a sudden, the dining room doors slid open.
“I wouldn’t.” My Uncle Declan came in, holding two glasses of brandy. He offered me one before nodding to the doors again.
The sliding doors were open just crack, allowing me to see my aunts, Helen, and Calliope, drinking, talking, and laughing—all of them on the floor next to the fireplace, their heels off and in a pile. Even Gigi sat in her mother’s lap with her own juice box, listening and grinning.
“They’ve been like that
for hours. Talking, eating and drinking. I have no idea how she managed it. If you go in there, you might not make it out alive.”
I took the glass but couldn’t help but look back at them. When I did, Calliope’s gray eyes met mine. She winked once before looking back at the women she had eating out of her palm.
“The whole staff has been praising her lately. Saying how kind and generous she is,” my uncle said before drinking. “She might be better than you at manipulating people.”
Is that so? Then again, was it a competition?
“What makes you think she’s manipulating anyone? She very well could just be a good person.”
He gave me a look. “Is that a joke?”
I did not reply.
“If she were just a good person, she wouldn’t be here.” He went on confidently when I didn’t reply. “Nor would you be interested in her.”
“I could want to corrupt her,” I muttered, lifting the glass to my lips.
“You do not have the time or the patience to do so. I say this as someone who did corrupt someone else. You are the type of person that gravitates toward your own kind.”
I muttered no real words at all as I watched her laugh again. She seemed completely at ease.