He sauntered toward the front door, all loose-limbed elegance like he didn’t have a care in the world, and he didn’t give a shit that my dad had threatened him. Most men would curl into a ball and beg for forgiveness. Not him, and that fascinated me despite all of his obnoxious words.
His hand curled around the handle and halted mid-motion, turning his head to me. He closed the distance between us, his unearthly eyes never veering from mine. He towered over me in his expensive, tailored suit. I experienced a weird sensation of familiarity, like I knew him or should know him.
“You’re Emilia.”
I nodded, my throat too dry to summon a response.
His gaze sharpened on my thin white t-shirt and sleep shorts and I felt some unexplainable combination of excitement and discomfort. “You’re a little thing, aren’t you?”
I folded my arms across my chest. “Who are you?”
One side of his mouth hitched up, and he kissed my cheek. An irresistible impulse to be closer to him sparked through me, and I curled my hands around the sleeves of his smooth jacket, inhaling his masculine scent.
“Your future.”
Almost as if his words marked the moment my entire world shifted on its axis, the floor whirled beneath my bare feet, and I tightened my hold on him.
“I don’t even know you,” I whispered into his chest.
He chuckled, the sound bottomless and dancing with a hint of amusement, and his chest vibrated against me. He tipped up my chin, his eyes as blue as the darkest sapphire. “We know each other, Little Emilia.”
I shook my head in denial. “No.”
“Yes,” he answered, stepping out of my reach and striding out of the door.
I hadn’t seen him since.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Emilia?” Sal’s voice drew me out of the memory that had plagued me for years, especially because my mom killed herself less than a month later. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Sorry about that. I was thinking about that night.”
“Why do you believe it was Marcello?”
I swallowed. “The man said something about being my future.”
His arms tightened around me. “What else did he say?”
“I don’t remember, and it doesn’t matter because I won’t marry him. I want to marry someone I love. Someone far away from this life. That’s what my mom wanted. She fought my dad to leave and take me with her. She wanted me to have choices. He won.”
“What you mean? Didn’t she kill herself?” I flinched, and Sal gathered me onto his lap, his hands cupping my face, forcing me to look him in the eye. “Shit, Em, I’m sorry for saying that. It was stupid.”
“You don’t need to apologize.” I rested my forehead against his chest. “That’s the story, only I’m not sure it was that clear cut. They were fighting for months. She left for a week and when she came back, the friction between them was worse than ever. I could hear her yelling at him from upstairs. After an hour, everything was eerily silent. I assumed they finally worked everything out. I was wrong. An ambulance showed up an hour later, and my dad forbade me from leaving my room. I never saw her again. I never even got the chance to say goodbye except to the urn in my dad’s study. I’m pretty sure that doesn’t count.”
“I know it sounds stupid, but I don’t know what to believe. That’s part of the reason I want out of here. I can’t look at my dad without wondering if he pushed her t-to…” I closed eyes and rolled my lips into my mouth, pain spreading under my breastbone like wildfire. I wasn’t surprised. I couldn’t think about that night without wanting to crawl into a ball and cry for everything I lost in a matter of hours. My mom, my dad, my family. My life changed in the blink of an eye and everything I loved disappeared, even my dad. He was a different person after she died.
“I know, Em. You don’t need to say it. I get that saying things out loud makes them real.”
I changed the subject, attempting to reverse the melancholy direction of my reflections. “Anyway, the thing with Marcello, well, that was one of the reasons I asked you to kiss me on my birthday. I’d never kissed anyone before, and I didn’t want my first kiss to be with some stranger who could care less about me beyond my last name and what that gets him. You know, kind of like a rebellion against my dad and the curiosity of kissing someone all rolled into one.”
He studied me, desire carved into every line of his face, and I couldn’t look away. My heart fluttered like a million ants marching against my chest, and an unsolicited flare of heat licked at my nerve endings. I felt like a leaf caught in the wind, blowing from one emotion to the next.