Page 24 of Ache for You (Slow Burn 3)
He’s trying to be condescending, but I know him too well. “Pfft. You adore it and you know it.”
His chuckle is low and warm. “I adore you, Poppins.”
I swallow, tears gathering in the corners of my eyes. My chest tight, I whisper, “You’re the only family I have left now.”
He sounds alarmed. “Oh God. Don’t cry. You’ll make me cry, and I’ve just applied a forty-dollar mascara.”
I start to laugh. He makes it impossible not to.
“That’s better. Now listen to me carefully, darling.” His voice turns firm. “You’re the baddest bitch I’ve ever known. You will get through this. All of it. And you’ll come out stronger on the other side. Do you hear me?”
My voice is small when I answer, “Yes.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that. Is there a mouse on the other end of the line?”
“I said yes!”
He sounds satisfied by my shout and chuckles again. “Good. Stiff upper lip, Poppins. Tears are undignified. And remember—revenge sex is good for the complexion.”
He hangs up before I can tell him again that I love him, because there’s nothing Jenner hates more than having to admit there’s a real heart in his chest, instead of the shard of ice he pretends sits in its place.
When the attorney arrives a few hours later, the marchesa invites him into the library and asks Lorenzo to look after Cornelia. Beans, however, isn’t banished from the meeting, and sits glaring at me from the marchesa’s lap as the lawyer removes sheaves of papers from his briefcase and gets himself organized.
Muttering to himself, the attorney pats his coat pockets. He finds the pair of glasses he was looking for, settles them on his aquiline nose, then sits across from us on a leather sofa. Gesturing to the papers on the coffee table between us, he launches into a rapid-fire speech in Italian.
“Wait.” I hold up a hand. The attorney peers at me over his glasses. “In English, please.” When he squints at me, I get a bad feeling. “You do speak English?”
“Of course I speak English. But why would I, when Italian is so superior?”
Petting Beans as if the dog were a bag of diamonds, the marchesa smiles.
Heat crawls up my neck. Reminding myself murder is a capital crime, I say, “Because I don’t speak Italian.”
Now the attorney looks confused. He glances at the marchesa, then at me, as if he can’t believe his ears.
“But you were born in this country, no? And your parents were both Italian. Why would you not know your mother tongue?”
There’s a lead crystal paperweight on the table between us that would make a very nice dent in this idiot’s skull. “Yes, I was born here, but I grew up in the States. I moved there when I was three years old and only came back for summer breaks from school.”
When the attorney keeps right on gazing at me as if I’m making no sense whatsoever, I sigh heavily. “When I went to live with my aunt, my father wanted me to be a ‘real’ American, okay? He wanted me to fit in with all my friends, not be picked on for being a foreigner. He never spoke Italian to me.”
The attorney looks as if I’ve informed him I shot his mother point-blank in the face. “Never spoke Italian to you?” Scandalized, he stares at the marchesa. “But this is child abuse!”
“Oh, for God’s sake, just get on with it!”
Beans doesn’t like my aggravated tone and growls deep in her throat.
I cut her a withering look. “One more peep out of you, dog, and I’ll make you into a purse.”
“Per favore, Signor Rossi, continue in English,” says the marchesa, icy calm. She doesn’t glance at me, but Beans looks as if she’s about to explode with fury. I might not speak Italian, but apparently the dog understands English. If it weren’t for the marchesa’s hand on her back, I’d have a peach furball chewing off my nose.
I narrow my eyes at Beans, she bares her teeth at me, and Signor Rossi grunts in disbelief at my horrible shortcoming.
“Very well. In English, then,” he says, sounding aggrieved. “Let us begin.” He picks up a sheaf of stapled papers and launches into a long and terrifically boring outline of my father’s business holdings, bank accounts, and various other financial instruments and the value thereof, all of which amount to a pittance.
This isn’t news. Though he was an exceptional designer, Papa’s business acumen was for shit. He was constantly lending cash to people who’d never pay it back, forgetting to pay taxes on time so the fines would be astronomical, and generally failing at managing his money. All he wanted to do was sketch, sew, and design. And though his creations were truly beautiful, he didn’t price them correctly. He felt guilty for making a profit. He was an artist, not a businessman.
Then Signor Rossi says something that almost makes me fall out of my chair.
