Page 33 of Secrets of the Brother
That was the last time I spoke to her before Renata’s death.
I couldn’t abide the bitter vitriol she was spitting out.
I hadn’t been close friends with Amara in school, but we had been friends and I liked her. She didn’t deserve my mother’s scathing remarks, especially since my own sister was guilty of the same thing… and worse, where Enzo was concerned.
I walked further into the room. I ran my fingers over the back of the sofa. “They’re getting married?”
I could feel Enzo’s gaze on me as he followed me.
The tension in the room was a looming presence, like creeping smoke. As if the swirls of dust in the beams of sunlight would suddenly coalesce into a dark, twisting storm that would rise up and close around our bodies… choking us.
“Not yet. She refuses to allow my father to propose.”
“Good for her.” I faced him and crossed my arms over my chest, inhaling a shaking breath. “You wanted to talk. Talk. Say what you have to say and then let me leave.”
His bright green eyes stared at me, studying my face. His eyes were his most striking feature. So different from the usual dark brown of most Italian men and women. They gave his already intense gaze an unsettling quality.
I shifted under his scrutiny.
“Who was that man you were talking to? In the piazza just now.”
“That’s what you want to talk about?”
“Who was he, Bianca? I know he’s not your boyfriend because you don’t have one, so who the hell is he and why did he think it was acceptable totouch you?”
I sighed. “He’s not anyone— Wait. How do you know he’s not my boyfriend? Maybe he is. Maybe he came with me from New York to offer support.”
Enzo stalked toward me. “You really think it’s smart to play that game with me, babygirl?”
I backed up, circling around the sofa.
My suspicion rose faster than my sense of caution. “How do you know I don’t have a boyfriend, Enzo?”
His eyes narrowed as his lips thinned.
Realization dawned.
I covered my mouth with my hand as I slowly shook my head.
I lowered my hand and hugged my arms around my middle. “No. No. You couldn’t… you wouldn’t…no one is that…cruel.”
Enzo stood there staring at me, saying nothing.
The truth set in.
The class projects where my male partner would suddenly be switched out for a female.
The cute guy who would ask for my number, but then never call.
The way a black sedan always seemed to be parked either outside my apartment or my school.
I bit the inside of my cheek, hoping the pain would cut through the dizzying darkness that had me swaying on my feet.
“The clients? The Italian businesses which contacted me claiming to have seen my work from the school classwork exhibits?”
Enzo remained stoic.
How could I have been so stupid? How could I have fallen for such a scheme and believed that not one, but several Italian companies had somehow viewed the work of a lowly graphic design student and sought me out?
