Page 1 of Secrets of the Brother
CHAPTER1
BIANCA
Enzo Cavalieri’s glare was like a hand wrapped around my throat.
His strong fingers slowly forcing the air from my lungs.
I tilted my chin to the side, hiding my face behind the wide brim of my hat.
It didn’t help.
I hadn’t seen Enzo in close to seven months…not since that awful night.
The night that changed—everything.
He was still as handsome as the devil himself, and if the rumors were to be believed about my sister, just as evil.
I clawed at the sheer black veil draped over the black pearl wheel hat brim and secured around my neck, obscuring my face. Loosening the folds, I inhaled a shaky breath, grateful no one could see the hot flush on my cheeks.
As a uniformed server passed, I plucked at his sleeve, halting him.
His tray carried a small crystal plate of amaretti cookies surrounded by delicate bone china cups of espresso.
I lifted one of the espressos by the saucer.
Raising my veil as high as my nose, I tried to take a sip, but my stomach turned at its bitterness.
The cup clattered against the saucer as my hand trembled putting it back in place. Several heads turned in my direction. I pulled the veil down over my face again and set the cup and saucer on the nearest table.
Risking another glance under the brim, the blood in my veins crystallized into tiny sharp icicles which pierced every nerve ending as I froze in place under Enzo's continued intense, icy scrutiny.
What had I been thinking?
Slapping him like that in front of all those people… and in church, no less.
Everyone knew the Cavalieris were practically a force of nature in Italy.
Their name was synonymous with power and wealth.
It was no coincidence their name meantknight.
Their family legacy stretched back to the time of feudal lords, probably even further. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were ancient papyrus scrolls buried in the caves of the nearby Apennine mountains with the Cavalieri name attached to some Roman general or forgotten emperor.
They owned half of western Italy, including the village I grew up in which was named after them.
There wasn’t a family I knew that didn’t somehow owe their livelihoods to the beneficence of the Cavalieris, including my own.
So to freaking slap Enzo, the eldest son, the heir to the Cavalieri throne? In church?
In the middle of my sister’s funeral?
Never mind he was my brother-in-law.
Never mind that half the village believed he murdered my sister.
Never mind he had been the man I desperately loved before my sister stole him from me.
Never mind he was the reason why I fled to America.
