by Sam Mariano
I’m not completely sure what I’m walking into today. Francesca and Sal were originally supposed to come over for family dinner the night we had tacos, but Mateo decided (since he definitely didn’t warn her when Joey died) to give her a heads-up regarding Vince. Unsurprisingly, she did not take it well, and she hasn’t come to dinner since.
Even though I love Francesca, I’m dreading this lunch. My cruel, vengeful mind keeps dredging up the last time I saw Francesca, when I was at her wedding and Vince was right there at the table with me. It torments me with memories of him telling her we could go out to the diner again with her and Sal when they got back from their honeymoon. My asshole mind conjures images of that today. Of an alternate reality where I made different choices, where I told Adrian I wanted to go home with Vince the night he was so pissy at dinner, and somehow I realized I needed to stop being such an asshole.
Maybe Vince should’ve been meaner. Maybe he should’ve threatened me. I realized that night, mid-fight, I would’ve stayed with Vince. I wanted Mateo, but not at this cost. I could’ve been mostly satisfied with Vince; I just would’ve had to give up Mateo. At the time, after those three perfect nights with him, that seemed like the greatest sacrifice I could’ve possibly made. But that’s because I didn’t know Vince’s life was on the table. I knew I was pushing them both in different ways, but I didn’t think it would end up there. I didn’t think it would go that far.
There were worse fates than the one where I would’ve woken up in our duplex this morning and had breakfast with Vince, then gone with him to have lunch with Francesca and look through honeymoon pictures.
Like the one where I woke up in Mateo’s mansion next to him, and now I’m going alone to meet Francesca in a world where Vince is dead and it’s entirely my fault. That’s a worse fate.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure she’d even want to have lunch with me. I know she liked me before, but I carry so much guilt, it’s hard for me to imagine she won’t blame me. There’s no one else to blame. Well, Mateo, but it doesn’t do any good to blame him. Judgment rolls right off his back. He doesn’t care.
When we get to the restaurant, I just sit in the car. Adrian comes around and opens the door for me, but I remain seated.
“Will you go in for me?” I ask.
“Sure, give me your dress; I’m sure she won’t even notice the difference.”
“You think you can pull off a halter dress?” I question.
As if surprised, he glances from his left shoulder to his right. “What, you don’t think I have the shoulders for it?”
I look them over, not for the first time. “You have really good shoulders, actually. All those hours you and Mateo log at the gym are not in vain. You guys should establish a good shoulders club.”
His humor dries up and he gets all gruff and bashful on me. I want to poke at him a little more, but I’m still miffed at him for not helping Vince that night, so I refrain.
As he escorts me into the restaurant, I remember that Adrian grew up in Mateo’s house. “Hey, can I ask you a question?”
“Not if it involves my shoulders,” he states.
I roll my eyes. “It’s about cookies.”
“Oatmeal raisin.”
“What?”
“I assumed you were asking about my favorite kind. There’s no story. I just like them.”
Biting back a smile, I shake my head. “No, I wondered if you ever made Christmas cookies. Like, as a kid.”
His eyebrows rise and he glances at me like I’m a weirdo. “Sure, I made Christmas cookies with my mom. I was an expert dough roller.”
“How come Mateo didn’t help? You guys were friends, right?”
“It wasn’t like it is now; we didn’t live at the mansion. I didn’t move in until after they died, I only visited before that. We made Christmas cookies at our own house.”
“Mateo didn’t visit you there?”
“None of the Morellis visited there until Matt came to burn the place down,” he states, casually.
My eyes widen in horror but he only pulls open the door of the café and gestures for me to head inside.
Chapter Twenty Eight
Mia
Francesca is seated with her back to me. I’m kind of glad, because it means she doesn’t see me hesitate as I approach the table. She doesn’t see me stop, and she doesn’t know how desperately I want to turn and flee.
The feeling I got when Mateo tried to make me leave, the feeling of having disappointed someone? I feel it now. I feel that way about Francesca. She was so sure I was perfect for him; she had me convinced I was some magical Beth reissue, and then all this happened.
Clearly she was wrong about me.
I’m going to hate sitting here seeing that on her face, but it can’t be put off anymore.
I force myself forward, gently touching her shoulder in greeting as I walk past.
She looks so much dimmer now. Last time I saw her beautiful face, she was glowing from within, on cloud nine as she became Mrs. Salvatore Castellanos.
Instead of letting me sit, she stands and comes over to my side, grabbing me and giving me a hug.
Oh man. I swallow, trying to keep from letting my mind go to the sad place. I guess Mateo isn’t here, so I technically can, but I don’t really want to start crying in public.
“I’m so sorry, Mia,” she whispers, fiercely. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I know you loved Vince.” Just saying his name gets a lump lodged in my throat. The sting of tears threatens, but I manage to blink it away.
Pain flashes across her face as she looks away from me, easing back into her seat across from me. She doesn’t speak right away. I don’t either. I have no idea what to say.
After another minute of awkward silence, Francesca faintly shakes her head and says, “I don’t even… I don’t even know where to begin. What happened?”
I had hoped Mateo filled her in so I wouldn’t have to talk about this. “I don’t know what you know.”
“Literally nothing. Mateo told me Vince was gone, when I asked what happened… he said he threatened you?”
My stomach sinks with the weight of guilt. “He didn’t threaten me. Well…” I guess that’s not true, but Mateo has made that up in his mind; I’ve never, even now, confirmed that Vince threatened me. I guess it’s silly to keep covering his ass when he’s already dead, but I don’t want to risk Mateo feeling justified in what he did.
The server comes over and buys me a couple minutes, taking our drink order and telling us about today’s special. Once she’s gone, Francesca’s expectant brown eyes travel back to me, waiting for the rest of the story.
“Okay, so, I danced with Mateo at your wedding.” She nods, but there’s no shadow of eagerness this time. I’m mad at Mateo for ruining her excitement with his brutal reality. She was so excited about us, and now it’s impossible to feel joy over this union, knowing the cost. “He told me he wanted me. Didn’t explain, of course, just wanted to fuck with my head.”
Rolling her eyes, she says, “That sounds about right.”
“Yeah, so, he did. Vince was already mad, that didn’t help. Things got worse. Vince and I were fighting a lot, and I ended up staying at the mansion. Mateo…” I’m not altogether sure how to explain this part. “We…”
Since she’s not an idiot, she nods her understanding.
“Okay,” I say, slightly relieved. “Long story short, he asked if I could share.”
Frowning without comprehension, she asks, “Share what?”
“Share him.”
Her jaw drops open. “With the maid?”
“Not a maid anymore, but yes. With Meg. So that’s what we decided to do. And it was great. For three days. I wasn’t actually sharing, he spent each night with me, but, you know, honeymoon period. We got a three day honeymoon. Then I had to tell Vince we were over.”
Grimacing, she says, “That probably should’ve come up by then.”
“Righ
t, but I’m an atrocious person,” I explain. “And I didn’t want to deal with the confrontation because I knew it wouldn’t go well. I was right. It went terribly. Vince didn’t want me to go, said he wouldn’t let me be with Mateo… it was really rough and horrible. Another long story short, I knew I wouldn’t be able to peacefully extract myself and I didn’t want bloodshed, so I told Mateo I changed my mind.”
Her eyes widen slightly, then drop to the table. “Well, that was a bad idea.”
“I didn’t know what else to do! They’re both crazy. I thought Mateo was more level-headed, and I would remind you, he still had a fiancée at home. It’s not like I was leaving him miserable. I should’ve been more expendable to him than Vince. But apparently not, because he lost his fucking mind, he came to our house, he was horrible, and… you know the end result.”
Sighing heavily, she shakes her head. “This is all my fault.”
“It is not all your fault.”
“It’s at least 60 percent my fault. I encouraged Mateo to go after you and I know he’s merciless. You may not have known he would go this far, but I should have. I thought he would do this logically, not by force. He’s been holding back all this time, and then…”
“Well, it’s because I changed my mind on him. I made him all these promises and we started making plans for the future during those three days, and then when I went to break up with Vince… I told him I wanted to stay instead.”
“My brother doesn’t take rejection well. I probably should’ve given you a heads-up. I thought his dead ex was a big enough clue, but…”
“I was just very wrong about literally everything,” I tell her. “And we were both wrong about me. I tried to stop him, I begged him, I tried to… to calm him down, and I completely failed. I couldn’t stop him.”
With a look that verges on sympathetic, she says, “Oh, Mia. I never thought you could stop him. My brother isn’t… I never expected that. I would’ve been shocked if you could stop him. I liked you for him because even when he’s a monster and he does unforgivable shit like this, you still find it in your heart to love him. Do you still love him?”
I nod, but it is not a proud nod.
Nodding once, a bit solemn, she says, “Well, there you go. Then you’ve met my expectations.”
I shake my head in denial. I don’t know if I can explain why she’s wrong. If there’s anyone I can talk to about how I’m struggling with Mateo, it’s probably her. She probably gets it. Meg doesn’t, because apparently she gets sunshine-and-rainbows Mateo most of the time. Don’t know how she lucked into that.
“It’s not like I thought it would be,” I tell her, looking at the table instead of her. It makes my stomach hurt to even say that. Not just because of the price Vince paid for me to have Mateo, not just because with so many months of build-up, there was a lot riding on this, but because it was perfect—for three days. And it hasn’t been since. Not once. No matter how he gets to me, no matter how much physical pleasure he brings me, no matter how accustomed I am to his arms around me, no matter how much I miss him the nights he doesn’t spend with me, nothing feels the way it did before it was broken. Even now that I’m no longer withholding, now that I’m trying to hide my pain from him and shoulder it on my own… it’s just not the same. It doesn’t fill me up. It doesn’t make me proud. It doesn’t make me happy like it did before. Loving Mateo made me feel incredible for those three days. It was like a non-stop thrill ride, even though things were calm. I wanted to bathe him in my love. If every day of my life could’ve been like those three, life would have been a fairytale.
But he ruined it. He spilled blood all over the pages before we could even fill them with our story, and now it just feels wrong.
Grimacing with a faint trace of dread, she says, “I hope I didn’t oversell him.”
“If anyone oversold him, it was Meg,” I say, almost lightly. “But no, it’s not that. It was good before he did what he did to Vince. It was perfect. It was even better than I expected. But I’m afraid we can never get back to that. I just don’t feel the same way about him now as I did before—it’s not that I don’t love him, I still love him, but I feel… horrible for it. I feel terrible about myself for loving him, and I didn’t before. Not like this. I felt bad for hurting Vince, I felt bad for potentially hurting Meg, but I didn’t feel bad for loving Mateo. It’s hard now. I wouldn’t have wanted it this way. If I’d known before I acted that this was the only way I could have Mateo, I would’ve just stayed with Vince and tried harder to make things work with him.” I miss a beat, tears stinging my eyes as I admit, “I miss him.”
Admitting it is a bad idea, because then the sting of tears melts into actual tears, leaking out of my eyes. I avert my gaze, swiftly wiping them away, but more follow.
“I can’t stand knowing this is all because of me. I feel like a monster,” I tell her. “And he told me that night, he told me before it happened… he told me I deserved this. Because he knew what would happen. I believed Mateo would stop if I asked him to, but Vince knew he wouldn’t. He wasn’t a fucking moron. He’s the only person who’s never been fooled by any of Mateo’s bullshit. Me, I buy it every goddamn time, but not Vince. He knew better. If I hadn’t been so faithless, if I would’ve just waited to be with Mateo until after I left Vince, all of this could’ve been avoided. I should’ve never made promises to Mateo when I wasn’t free to make them. That was reckless. I didn’t realize he would take them quite so seriously quite so quickly, but… I should’ve been more careful. I handled it poorly, I handled it like a coward, and now because of me, because of that, Vince is gone.”
Francesca shakes her head sadly. “That’s probably not true, Mia. If my brother came right out and told you he wanted you, it was as good as done. You know him. You know he doesn’t take no for an answer. If you wouldn’t have made any promises, if you wouldn’t have spent those nights with him, that doesn’t mean he would’ve spared Vince. If Vince refused to let you go—”
“He wouldn’t have known,” I interrupt, shaking my head. “The problem is he didn’t believe I was being honest when I told him I changed my mind. He knew Vince had to have interfered. I went there to leave him. He knew that. So when I went back on my word, he didn’t believe me. If I would’ve tried to leave Vince on my own and he rejected my break-up and said all the shit he said to me that night, I would’ve just stayed and Mateo never would’ve known I ever intended otherwise.”
“Yes, he would’ve.”
“No. He wasn’t there, he wouldn’t have known. I could’ve just stayed with Vince and forgot the whole idea. Mateo may have hated me for it, but Vince would still be here. Maybe if Mateo hated me I could’ve let go. Maybe then I would’ve given my all to Vince and things would’ve been okay. That’s what I should have been doing all along.”
She grimaces sympathetically, but it’s not like she can disagree. She can’t argue that being faithful inside my own relationship would have been a bad idea. “My brother spins a strong web. You’re young; it’s not shocking you got tangled up in it. You also had me in your ear telling you what a nice, fitting web it was for you, so… I guess I owe you a massive apology. I’m so sorry. I really thought you could be happy with him.”
“Yeah, well, I could’ve if he hadn’t made me a murderer,” I state.
More of Vince’s words come back to me, older words, not words about Mateo. I recall how when I first moved to the mansion he told me how horrible he felt about having taken lives, how he didn’t know how Adrian could do this kind of stuff without feeling it. I had no way of relating to him then. I had no idea how heavy that guilt would be. I never wanted to know. Now I have to carry it, too.
I know a lot of murderers. Maybe I should ask them how they deal with it. Maybe I could get some pro-tips. They all seem to manage. There has to be a way.
Brightening slightly, I look at Francesca, my gaze dropping to her purse. “Do you have your phone?”
“Yes,” she says, but it’s more of
a confused question.
“Do you have Mark’s number?”
Now she hesitates. “I do.”
“Can I send him a text real quick? Mateo sort of wigged out about him. He tried to replace my phone for a while. He gave mine back, but apparently while he had it he took the liberty of removing some contact numbers he didn’t approve of. Mark was one of them, and I don’t know his phone number to add it back. He hasn’t texted me either, so I think Mateo may have blocked his number.”
Her cheeks flush and she glances down at her purse, but doesn’t draw out the phone. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“I just want to explain why I’ve been ignoring him.”
“You want to explain to Mark that my dangerous, controlling brother with whom you are now in a relationship has taken Vince’s behavior, injected steroids into it, and oh, by the way, he might murder him if he becomes a problem? That’s what you want to do? Really?”
“Well, I wasn’t going to put it that way, no.”
“Why don’t we just let Mark think you’re swept up in Mateo and you’ve lost interest,” she suggests. “Let’s leave Mark alone. I know he was your friend and you liked him, but we all know he liked you as more than that, and now that you’re with Mateo, there’s no way out, so… let’s not give Mark a reason to try to be your hero. It won’t end well for any of us.”
“So much for me not being a prisoner, huh?” I remark lightly, glancing beyond Francesca to where Adrian is posted. My bodyguard. My prison guard. There’s little difference here.
Francesca buries her face in her hands and shakes her head. “God, I hate when Sal’s right.”
---
I’m pleasantly surprised to see Cherie at the foot of the stairs when I go down for dinner this evening. I haven’t seen her in over a month. After what Maria told me I’ve really wanted to check in on her, I just haven’t run into her. Both times I went to the servants’ quarters looking for her, she was out.
Now she hoists a bag on her shoulder, not seeing me. I smile, picking up the pace as I head down the stairs.
