“Fine by me,” I say. “Out of sight, out of mind. I could live my own life.”
“Not me,” Bianca says. “I want to be right in the middle of things, not shipped off to some old guy’s mansion in Montauk where nothing ever happens. I’d die of boredom.”
“Want to trade places?” I ask. “You can have my engagement.”
“No way,” she squeals. For all her big talk, she wouldn’t trade with me even if she could. Men may have brainwashed women into thinking marriage is something they want for the past few centuries, butoureyes are open. Marriage is the end for women. Not the end goal, but the end of any other goals.
*
“Are you ready?” Sylvia asks, peeking her head into my room.
“What, am I supposed to put on a ballgown and descend the stairs in slow motion so my future owner can get a look at the goods he’s getting in this transaction?” I ask, rolling my eyes.
Sylvia tuts and comes into the room, tugging at the hem of my sundress. It’s the same one I wore to church and then brunch. I’m not about to change even an outfit for this guy. It’s bad enough that I have to marry him. I don’t have to change who I am for him.
“Never hurts to make a first impression,” she says, standing back and looking me over.
“I’ll make a first impression either way,” I say. “I’m not looking to make a good one.”
She shakes her head and sighs. When Mom left, Dad tried hiring a nanny to watch out for me while he was gone, which was always. Too bad he couldn’t keep his hands off her—or any of the ones that followed. I spent more than half my life watching a parade of young women full of promise come into our home to teach and guide me, only to leave it a few months later with tear-stained faces and broken hearts.
After all that? I’d still rather be one of them than a wife. They left him cradling their wounded egos, with stories to tell their friends. Mom fled like a refugee in the night with stories of her former life she could never tell a soul.
“Look at you, all grown up and ready to start your new life,” Sylvia says, looking like she might actually cry. She’s toughed it out a lot longer than most of the others, lasting a few years now. She tries to be both my sister and my mother, which makes me a little sad for her. It also ensures I don’t confide in her like a sister or respect her like a mother, though I do like her. Dad stopped paying her when I turned eighteen, but she sticks around for the other benefits—the posh lifestyle and, I assume, the dick.
Yes, I know more about my dad’s sex life than the average girl wants to, but he’s never hidden things from me, which I appreciate. Bianca’s always grossed out at the thought of her parents getting busy, but it’s so obvious in my house that there’s no squeamishness around it. It’s an unspoken but well-known fact that my dad gets all the pussy he wants. I grew up sitting on his knee while he played poker, for fuck’s sake. I know way more about the Life and all it entails than I probably should.
“Can we just get this over with?” I ask, sighing as Sylvia rummages in my handbag. She produces a tiny bottle of breath spray and brandishes it at me.
“How much did you have to drink at lunch?” she asks in a scolding tone.
“Not nearly enough,” I mutter, but I open my mouth and let her make my breath minty-fresh nonetheless. She leads me out of the room and down the hall. And even though I got a good buzz going so I wouldn’t be nervous, I can suddenly hear every beat of my heart echoing like the thud of a drum leading soldiers into a doomed battle where they’re outnumbered three to one.
“Wait,” I say, grabbing Sylvia’s hand. My mind is skittering over the possibilities. Who did Al Valenti pick for me? Probably someone hideous inside and out, someone who will punish me for all the lives my family has taken. Suddenly, my mind flashes to the tattooed giant they call Il Diavolo, someone so brutal the devil himself would be terrified, and my knees go weak. “Did you meet him?”
Sylvia gives me a conspiratorial smile. “He’s a looker,” she whispers, squeezing my hand.
“Who is he?”
“I don’t know. Some new guy.”
“Asoldier?” I ask incredulously. They picked a nobody for the daughter of the legendary Anthony Pomponio?
I’m too offended to come up with a response. It’s not Sylvia’s fault. I know she thinks it’s an honor to get to be anyone’s wife, but asoldier?
Before I can ask more, I hear my father’s voice from the study below. I can’t make out what he’s saying, but I focus on trying while I wobble down the steps. I drank too much to cope with this situation, but oh god, it really wasn’t enough. The desire to stop by the wet bar grips me, and before I know what I’m going, I’m heading in to grab a shot or ten before I have to meet this asshole. I need something to calm the urge to tell the guy he’ll never marry the likes of me.
“Just to settle my nerves,” I assure Sylvia as I snag a bottle of Patron and pour myself a shot.
Ten minutes later, my father arrives in the doorway, a scowl on his face. “What are you doing in here?” he demands, his bushy brows lowered in a glower.
“Isn’t he supposed to come sweeping in here to court me?” I ask, throwing my arms wide. I stumble a bit, bumping into the leather sofa and collapsing back onto it.
“Get her some coffee,” he snaps at Sylvia. “I’ll bring him in here. But you’re not getting out of this, Liza. It’s already been decided. Nothing you do now will change that. And I won’t have you making a fool of our family.”
“Yes, Daddy,” I say sweetly.
A minute later, he’s back, a tall figure towering behind him like a shadow stretched out on pavement in the late afternoon, larger than life. But the man who steps in behind him isn’t boisterous like someone you’d use that term to describe. Instead, he’s stiff and formal, a frown knitting his fine brow. His sculpted jaw is clenched, and his angular features are set in angry lines. The moment my eyes meet his dark chocolate gaze, everything in my body reacts. I must have had too much to drink because suddenly my belly does a little flip like I might be sick, and my heart starts racing, and my blood seems to tremble in my veins.