He keeps glaring at my brother, animosity swirls in the air and it feels like they are seconds off having a full-on world war.
“Jules.” I tap him on the leg to try to snap him out of it. “Please?”
He lifts his chin in defiance as he stares at Matteo, and I know that if I wasn’t here he would have knocked him clean out by now.
“Giuliano,” I snap. “Go to the bar.” I hit his leg once more. “Now.”
Giuliano’s cold eyes hold Matteo’s. “Stay out of my way,” he sneers.
“Or what?” Matteo replies.
Giuliano smiles darkly. “You’ll see.”
“Is that a threat?” Matteo spits.
“That’s a fucking promise.” He stands and walks to the bar.
My heart hammers in my chest, fuck.
I admit it, he can be scary when he wants to be.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Matteo whispers. “He’s fucked up. Did you hear that? Stay out of his way or he’s going to kill me.”
“He never said he was going to kill you,” I snap. “I might. If you don’t be nice to him.”
“You know, I tolerated him for a long time. But if he thinks you and he are going to be besties, I’m drawing the line. Do you really expect Mother to sit here and play happy families after the way he’s treated her? No way in hell are you hanging around with him, he’s fucking bad news, Francesca. Why the fuck would you even think that bringing him here was a good idea?”
Oh God, this is a disaster.
“She has treated him just as bad,” I fire back.
“How? For not accepting her husband’s affair and his love child with a mistress?”
I blink, surprised.
“When you get married, Francesca, tell me how you’ll feel when your husband gets another woman pregnant, and then that child grows up and throws you out of your own house after he steals the company from your own two sons after your eldest son dies.”
“He stole nothing, the company was left to him, Dad wanted him in charge,” I snap. “I’m not even….” I cut myself off. I can’t tell him about my paternity, this isn’t the time or place. “You know what.” I hold my hands up. “This was a bad idea.”
“Yeah, it was.”
“If you just got to know him.”
“I don’t want to fucking know him.”
“He’s a good guy.”
“For a drug dealer,” he huffs.
“Oh please, where do you think all your money comes from. Don’t sit there and pretend to be all high and mighty, he has signed millions of dollars of property over to you. How dare you treat him with such disrespect.”
“I don’t want you hanging around with him.”
Something snaps deep inside. Something wrong and sinister and spiteful.
“I’m doing more than hanging around with him, Matteo, I’m sleeping with him.”
“What?” he explodes.
“We’re not even genetically related,” I whisper angrily. “So next time you defend your angelic mother, ask her who fathered her daughter, because it wasn’t her fucking husband.” I grab my purse, stand and march over to Giuliano at the bar. “We’re leaving.”
“Hallelujah.”
The car ride home is long, and silent. Giuliano stares out the window, he too is lost in his own thoughts.
For some stupid reason, I thought that being sat at a table with my family for the night would force an outcome, we would talk about what happened in a safe place where nobody could run, shout or scream. Lorenzo and my mother would own up and my brothers could get their heads around it. We would come up with a solution and Giuliano and I could move forward…together.
But no.
That would be too easy, and if I’ve learned anything over the last ten years it’s that Giuliano and I never get the easy road.
The scenery flies past and I let out a deep exhale, Giuliano glances over at me and then his eyes go back to the front, emotionless and cold, his jaw ticking as he clenches it.
He’s angry, like a silent bomb ticking away about to explode at any moment.
And I can’t say that I blame him, my mother didn’t even have the decency to sit with him for more than two minutes.
Not even for me.
Damn it…. I should have told Giuliano that my family were going to be at the ball tonight.
What on earth was I thinking? This plan was perfect on paper.
The car turns into the underground parking lot and the heavy garage doors slowly go up, we drive through and the two black cars following us do the same.
Always the convoy, and now…the secrets.
We can’t even have a fight in public because nobody can even know that we are together. To the whole world we are still brother and sister and if my mother won’t admit the truth, how do we get around this?
How do we move forward?
She showed tonight just how anti-Giuliano she really is. She hates him with such a passion and she doesn’t even know him. She will never give us her blessing, no matter who my father is. She will give me an ultimatum, him or her, I know she will.
I get a lump in my throat just thinking about it.
Davidoff opens the car door and Giuliano climbs out and then turns and takes my hand and helps me out. “Thank you.”
Without a word he turns and walks into the waiting elevator and I follow him in.
He hits the button and the doors close, we travel to the top floor in silence.
The mood is somber and sad…angry from his side.
Reality’s a bitch…and then some.
The doors open at my floor and we both step out, I unlock the door and we walk in. Giuliano empties his wallet and keys from his pockets, puts them on the side table and walks toward the bedroom.
“Are you alright?” I ask.
“Yep.” He keeps walking up the hall and disappears out of sight, I hear the shower turn on and my heart drops. Not the first date I was hoping for, I throw my purse onto the table in disgust.
I walk into the bathroom to find Giuliano soaping himself up, he glances up and then turns his back on me.
My eyes roam up over his broad back and his bare behind.
Such a beautiful man.
“Are you angry with me?” I ask.
“Why would I be angry at you?” He keeps washing himself.
“You’re acting angry with me.”
His eyes flick up and I see a glimmer of his temper. “If you think this is angry, you’re fucking kidding yourself, Francesca,” he snaps.
I throw my hands up in surrender. “And there it is.”
“Just leave it,” he barks.
I roll my lips as I try to think of the right thing to say. “I’ll talk to her tomorrow.”
“Don’t bother.” He turns the shower off and brushes past me, he grabs a towel, wraps it around his waist and marches out of the bathroom.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I call after him.
Silence.
Fuck’s sake, I walk into the bedroom to see him drying himself with vigor, he’s rubbing his skin so hard it’s a wonder he’s not drawing blood. “I don’t need her approval,” he snaps.
But you want it.
“I know.” I slink down to sit on the bed, he brushes his teeth and then turns the light off. “Good night.” He flicks the blankets over himself angrily and turns his back to me.
I sit in the darkness and look at him lying there, he’s hurt.
And suddenly I’m angry.
Furious.
Nobody gets to hurt him, he’s a good man.
Fuck them.