Page 54 of Bitter Poetry
“And I don’t appreciate your daughter.” I should probably have added a qualifier, like tearing my sister’s dress off her. But why lie?
The demon releases the dress, and her head appears to turn one-eighty degrees as she fixes her dark gaze on me.
I hold my ground, turning to meet Helena’s gaze unflinchingly. I’ve let too much slide already with this woman.
She smiles slowly and with calculation. I will pay for my outburst later. But if the gloves are about to come off between us, so be it. Her brother will be defiling me in a matter of hours. I need to claim all my victories, however small, wherever I can.
“Lillete, please take Peony downstairs,” Helena says.
Lillete takes Peony’s hand and escorts her out, the door clicking softly shut behind her.
A stylist rushes over with a hand steamer to remove the creases from Jessica’s gown.
Meanwhile, Helena’s sharp gaze lowers my throat. “The necklace is a little understated, don’t you think?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“It was a gift from our mother,” Jessica says with a note of challenge that makes me quietly smile.
“Of course,” Helena says. “I will go on ahead. The car and your father are waiting.” Her smile turns fake sweet. “Did you know Dante is going to be Ettore’s groomsman. We would make a good match. I told my brother as much.” She steps in close to me. “My brother will become your husband today. Remember it’s your duty to keep him satisfied.”
She sweeps out of the room before I can formulate a reply.
“What a bitch,” Jessica says with an exaggerated eye roll. “As if Dante would marry her. He’s probably cringing at the thought of being lumbered with her hanging off his arms for the photos.”
A sob catches in my throat, and for a long second, I can’t breathe.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” she says, her face instantly softening as she takes my hand. “Don’t cry. You will ruin the stylists’ amazing work.”
“I’m okay.” I’m not.
“Papa’s waiting,” she says softly. “Come on, big sister. You’ve got this.”
I pull myself back from the brink of a meltdown and let the stylists do their last-minute tweaks.
Then I’m alone with my sister, aware that I have probably taken this beyond being fashionably late.
She smiles at me and carefully kisses my cheek. “Show Dante what he’s missing. Make him crazy. There’s still time for him to shoot Ettore and carry you off.”
The thought puts a smile on my face. A girl can only dream. With Jessica’s hand in mine, we head down the stairs to where my father is waiting. The tears of joy in his eyes ease some of the terrible feelings inside me. I have always thought him invincible, a protective figure shielding me from the rest of the world and keeping me safe.
Today, he looks frail and a shadow of his former self.
Do I hate him for his role in this?
I want to. And perhaps a small part of me does. He believes this is best for me and that Ettore is the better choice. I want so hard to trust in him, and that my marriage—to the man who will be announced today as the don—is necessary.
If my mother were still alive, I believe she would be weeping.
If my mother were still alive, I believe my father would still be the don.
CHAPTER 18
DANTE
“He must be pissed you still have two functioning hands. Being groomsman is going to be a blast,” Leon says, his lips curved in a humorless smile as he waits beside me in the vestibule of the church.
I can’t bring myself to stand next to Ettore until I absolutely have to. I spoke to him briefly on arrival and shook his hand. He didn’t ask about the bruises on my face. I didn’t volunteer the information.
