Priceless (An Amato Brothers/Rixton Falls crossover)

by Winter Renshaw

  I was right. I was right all along.

  The woman with the violet eyes stares at me, her glare cold and incredulous. She looks at me like I don’t belong here, like she didn’t expect to see me and she wants me gone. I know women can get territorial sometimes, like yippy little harmless Chihuahuas, but this woman looks to me like she could be quite the opposite of harmless.

  She looks downright vicious.

  Beautiful and vicious, but vicious nonetheless.

  “Alessio,” she says, smoothing a manicured hand down a silk blouse; white with tiny black polka dots.

  Her nails are red; the color of broken hearts.

  “Why are you here?” I hear the grit in his voice, and if I looked at him right now, I’m sure I’d see a clench in his smooth jaw.

  My eyes are trained on Kerenza. She’s easily one of the most attractive women I’ve seen in my life, and that says a lot, because given my line of work, I’ve seen more of them than the average person.

  Tall and lithe, everything about her is refined, even the way she flicks her long black hair over one shoulder. Her delicate wrist holds a tiny gold watch encrusted in diamonds, and her waist is whittled to a narrow point before blossoming to femininely curved hips that would make Marilyn Monroe green with envy.

  “You’re not welcome here,” Ace says, his voice resonating in the small foyer we share. “You need to leave. Now.”

  “I was hoping we could talk.” Kerenza tries to smile, her eyes searching his. I’ve suddenly become an afterthought to her. “I . . . I saw you on TV. I read your interview in the Times. I’m glad to see you’re doing better. I thought maybe it would be important if we . . .”

  “What, just because you chose him and he left you, you want to come crawling back?” Ace spits his words at her, and when I glance up at him, I see his expression is hard and his blue-green gaze flashes intense.

  Kerenza’s crimson lips form a fleeting smile. “I’m not crawling back, Alessio. We had something. Something real. And the way things ended . . . there were a lot of loose ends that need to be tied up.”

  Ace scoffs, and then he looks down at me, expression softening when our eyes meet.

  “You had your chance. You made your choice,” he says to her, his hand moving to the small of my back and his fingers hooking around my hip.

  “Wait,” she says, holding a dainty hand in the air as he slams the door in her face.

  “Fuck.” Ace’s voice is a deep roar that echoes off the walls in the small landing and sends a tremor through my body. I jump back, startled. His jaw is clenched, and there’s a bulging vein in his forehead I’ve never seen on him before. He takes a balled fist, driving it toward the wall in front of him, stopping before he smashes through. And then he turns to me, breathless, eyes pleading for forgiveness. “I’m sorry, Aidy.”

  “It was her, wasn’t it?” I ask. “She’s the one who did this to you. It wasn’t the accident or losing your career. It was her all along.”

  “It was a little bit of everything.” His words are careful, yet his tone is defeated, doing nothing to keep my heart from shattering into a million pieces.

  We were having a lovely evening, and he wasn’t expecting to see her. I can be sympathetic to that.

  But I want the truth from him once and for all, so I’m going to ask the hard questions.

  And I’m going to demand answers.

  “The journal was yours. You knew it all along. Admit it,” I say, arms folded. My mind flicks through memorized excerpts from the journal. Everything fits. Everything matches up perfectly. “I don’t care that it was, I just don’t want to be lied to.”

  “No,” he says, turning to me, his eyes dark. “I told you. It wasn’t mine. I’d never seen it before in my life.”

  “You’re a liar.” My accusation shocks us both, and I take a step back, covering my lips with my trembling fingertips.

  Ace’s head angles to the side, his brows furrowed enough to cause a deep line between them.

  “Why would I lie?” he asks, voice low. He’s seething, his shoulders rising and falling like some surly animal’s.

  “I don’t know?” I shrug. “Because there are some really personal things in that journal. The kinds of things people don’t tell other people. You’re a private person, Ace. I’ve known that about you since day one. You don’t let anyone in. You don’t even let me in most of the time, and we’ve been hanging out almost every day for weeks and weeks. And now I see why you’ve been so walled off. It’s because of her.”

  I want him to argue with me. I want him to tell me I’m wrong and that I’m being ridiculous and that I don’t know what I’m talking about.

  But he says nothing.

  My eyes burn hot, brimming quickly with salted tears.

  I’m not usually one of those girls – the kind that cry at the drop of a hat over every little hardship thrown their way. I’m not one of those girls who tend to make dramatic productions over everything. I’m not one of those girls who make a habit out of testing her boyfriend, pushing him away to see how hard he’ll pull her back.

  But I’m desperate here. I’m grasping for straws. The reality of the past several weeks is slipping through my fingers like sand, and everything I thought we had feels like it’s disintegrating before my very eyes.

  “Maybe,” he says, “but not in the way you think.”

  There we have it.

  The truth.

  He is holding back because of her.

  That’s all I need to hear. No explanation necessary. Before I say another word, I’m tromping up the stairs, grabbing my purse and my shoes.

  “Where are you going?” he follows.

  “Save it.”

  “What? Why?” Ace scoffs, throwing his hands in the air before running them through his still-damp hair, pulling fistfuls as he groans. “Aidy, don’t do this. It’s not what you think. I’m not in love with her anymore. And that fucking journal isn’t mine.”

  My jaw slacks as our eyes meet. He’s still lying. He’s lying to my face.

  “I can’t be with someone who can’t even be honest with himself.” I face him at the top of the stairs. My bottom lip quivers. “You know, every time I’ve tried to ask you about your past, you shut me down. And when I ask about your family? Your brothers? You don’t talk about them. It all makes sense now. You can’t talk about them, or your past, without thinking about her.”

  He doesn’t argue.

  The last several weeks flash before my eyes. My chest is so heavy I can’t breathe. I never meant to get attached to him. I never wanted to be this vested. We were only having fun, and then he had to look at me the way he does and kiss me the way he does and touch me and want me and need me like he does.

  Or so I thought.

  “Aidy.” His hands hook on his hips, and he blows an exhausted breath past his lips, tired stare locked on mine.

  I glance at him through watery eyes, all his lines and edges blurring together until I can no longer make out the full lips I used to kiss or the chiseled arms that used to scoop me up like I was weightless.

  “You want to know what happened? Fine. Another man and I were in love with the same woman,” he says. “Shit happened. She chose him. Life went on. The end.”

  Shaking my head and looking down, I bite my lip to keep from saying something I’m going to regret. All those ramblings, those journal entries declaring unwavering devotion to Kerenza flash through my mind.

  If he can just sum everything that happened with “life went on” because he thinks it’s what I want to hear?

  Because he thinks it’ll make me stay?

  Then he truly is heartless.

  I leave, dashing down the stairs like some embarrassingly dramatic Cinderella reenactment, but I don’t care. I don’t want him to see me fall apart. Grabbing my makeup case at the bottom of the landing, I fling the door open and carry myself, bruised ego, broken heart, and all, to the nearest subway stop.

  I’ve never been more gratef
ul to come home to a silent apartment than I am right now. Ever since Wren found out she’s pregnant, she’s been spending more time at Chauncey’s, and since their wedding is just around the corner, she’s already starting to gradually move her things in over there. Enzo’s too.

  The apartment is dark, save for the light under the microwave. I place my things by the door and shuffle toward my room. I spread myself across the bed, face down, and tuck a pillow beneath my chin, gaze pointed at that fucking journal.

  Exhaling hard, I reach for it, flipping through the pages as if I’m searching for some time-sensitive clue.

  “She showed up at my door last night, cheeks stained in mascara, lipstick smudged, jacket dusted in thick snowflakes. She was a beautiful mess of a woman, and I pulled her in from the street, carrying her to the fireplace, her fingers locked tight behind my neck, holding on for her life.

  She broke down, crying, going on about how he doesn’t understand her the way I do. He doesn’t listen to her. She’s never felt more alone than she does when she’s at home, with him. He loves her too hard, she says. He makes it impossible to leave because she’s terrified nobody will ever love her half as much as he does.

  She said he was her first love.

  I told her she was mine.

  That I loved her since we were kids.

  She collapsed in my arms, the top of her head tucked beneath my chin and her cheek pressed against my chest.

  And then she told me if she could do it all over again, she’d have picked me first.

  Not him.

  I told her it wasn’t too late. She could still choose me.

  She disagreed.

  She said the first time you give someone your heart, it’s theirs to keep.

  Forever.

  But I refuse to let that deter me.

  I won’t stop until she’s mine because I’m stubborn enough to believe that someday soon, she’ll be mine. Completely.

  She just hasn’t realized it yet.

  Chapter 31

  Ace

  Aidy hasn’t answered my texts.

  Or my calls.

  It’s been two days.

  I thought she needed time to cool off and that she’d be right back here, ringing my doorbell, jumping in my arms, laughing at how fucking ridiculous she looked storming out of here Sunday like some self-righteous prima donna.

  Maybe I should’ve chased after her.

  Maybe I should’ve explained everything . . .

  But it isn’t that easy. I’ve never talked to anyone about Kerenza. About what happened. Or how it changed me from the inside out.

  I’m seated in my favorite chair, sitting in a dark living room, listening to the faint symphony of city traffic outside my windows. The last two days have been gray scale and meaningless.

  I miss her.

  And I fucking need her.

  I should’ve opened up more. I should’ve told her everything. I shouldn’t have shut her down when she asked about my brothers. I shouldn’t have changed the subject when she asked if I’d ever been in love.

  So many nights, we’d lie awake in bed, staring at the ceiling, her hand on my chest and my hands tangled in her hair. She’d ramble on about anything and everything, and I’d just listen. I let her do all the opening up, hoping she wouldn’t notice.

  Massaging my temples, I exhale. I’m exhausted, mentally, from thinking too much. And I’m exhausted, physically, because I’ve barely slept these past two nights.

  All this time I was afraid. Afraid to open up to her and let her in because the last time I did that? The last time I bared my soul to a woman who held my heart in her teeth? It didn’t end well.

  I loved Kerenza too much. Too hard. I held onto her so tight it was literally and figuratively almost the death of me. And if losing Kerenza was nearly the death of me in the most literal sense? How would it feel losing Aidy?

  Like a coward, I let fear take command because I was so convinced that loving her too hard would send her packing.

  But this time? In the end? I lost her anyway.

  Rising from the creaking leather chair, I pull in a stale lungful of air and grab my sneakers. I’m not sure if she’s home. I’m not sure where she is or if she’ll even talk to me since she hasn’t returned my calls, but I’m sure as hell not going to sit around here feeling sorry for myself.

  It’s time to tell her everything.

  I’ll hold nothing back.

  I’ll tell her all about my regrets.

  How sorry I am.

  How much she’s changed me.

  How I’m not the man I used to be anymore: I’m better.

  It’s all because of her.

  And she needs to hear that.

  And while I have her – or if I have her – I’ll also tell her how I feel about her. I’ll tell her how Saturday morning, when she crawled out of bed and kissed me goodbye, I watched through squinted eyes as she changed into her clothes, trying hard to stay quiet so I could fall back asleep as she left for work. And I’ll tell her how it was then, in that moment, I realized I was falling in love with her.

  I’m not the kind of man who throws that word around lightly or who falls in and out of love at the drop of a hat. Kerenza’s the only other woman I’ve ever said those words to, and while they don’t ring true anymore as far as she’s concerned, I’ve realized it is possible to love again.

  And to love just as hard as before, if not more.

  Hitting the sidewalk, I jam my hands into my jeans pocket and rehearse all the things I’m going to say to Aidy when I see her.

  Chapter 32

  Aidy

  “Oh, Wren, it’s beautiful.” I lift my hands to my mouth as Wren steps out of the dressing room at Blush Bridal on Madison Avenue Friday morning. Two weeks ago she passed by this shop and stopped in to try on an off-the-rack gown she spotted on a mannequin in the window. It was entirely on a whim and it ended up being the perfect dress for her.

  “Can you tell?” Wren smooths her hand over her tiny bump.

  This is her final fitting, and we’re here so she can try it on before she carries it out of the boutique. We’re all just praying it fits because it’s already been altered twice, and her big day is tomorrow.

  Well, it’s not exactly a big day, per se. Wren and Chauncey will get hitched City Hall-style with me as their witness, and then we’ll all reconvene at Luciana’s on Fifth with a small group of friends and family.

  “It honestly just looks like you ate a bunch of tacos before you came,” Topaz says, glancing up from her phone.

  Wren laughs. “Why tacos?”

  “Um, why not tacos?” she fires back, like the answer should be obvious.

  “You can’t really tell,” I say.

  “I’m showing so much earlier than I did with Enzo.” Wren tilts her head, examining her reflection from every angle in front of a trifold mirror. “I’ll be fourteen weeks tomorrow.”

  “How’s Chauncey’s mom taking everything?” I ask.

  “In stride,” Wren says. “Her excitement is overriding everything else right now, so she hasn’t freaked out about us throwing tradition out the window and doing everything out of sequence.”

  “Good,” Topaz says. “Tradition is for the weak.”

  Wren’s dress has a slight empire waist and tiny lace cap sleeves. She’s wearing a small veil attached to a Jackie O-style hat, and it’ll cover half of her face, stopping just beneath her nose.

  “You’re going to look so chic and classic,” I sigh. “You need a red lip and a chignon and you’re golden.”

  Wren gives me a thumbs up as the attendant pulls and gathers fabric in her hands, checking measurements and tugging select areas into place.

  “What kind of flowers are you going to have?” Topaz asks.

  “Roses,” Wren says. “Classic red.”

  “Love.” Topaz grins at her phone, firing off a text.

  “Who are you texting?” I ask her.

  “Oh.” Topaz looks up, her gaz
e flicking between Wren and me. “Just this guy I met last week.”

  My left brow inches upward. “Why haven’t you told me about him yet? What’s his name? How’d you meet?”

  She rests her phone in her lap, sighing. “I met him at a photo shoot and his name is Gianluca. And I hadn’t told you yet because I thought it was a one-time thing, but he’s been blowing up my phone all week wanting to see me again.”

  “Let me guess, you’re freaked out and he’s pushing you away because he’s too available,” I say.

  Topaz nods, mouth forming a straight line. “Pretty much.”

  “Do you have a picture?” Wren asks.

  “Just Google ‘Gianluca.’ He’s this world-class fashion photographer,” Topaz says. “He’s a real Renaissance man. He plays guitar. Writes poetry. Even makes these little grainy eight-millimeter films in his spare time. The man travels all over the world and he knows Western Europe like the back of his hand.”

  “Are you bringing him to the reception on Saturday?” Wren asks.

  Topaz freezes for a moment. “I wasn’t planning on bringing a plus one.”

  “You can,” Wren says. “And you should. He sounds interesting.”

  “I feel bad.” Topaz looks directly at me. “Aidy’s not bringing anyone. We were going to be each other’s dates.”

  “It’s fine,” I say. “Really. You should bring him if you want to bring him.”

  I haven’t seen Ace in five days now, and I know it isn’t a lot of time, but it feels like an eternity. He blew up my phone Sunday into Monday, and on Tuesday I took a last minute red-eye to L.A. All it took was a single phone call, and a friend of a friend lined up some work for me out there. Some Netflix show is filming beginning next month and lasting six weeks, and their makeup artist dropped out at the last minute. My friend raved about me and the producers wanted to see my work in person, so I hopped on the next flight out there and came back the next day, job offer in hand.

  As I unpacked my things that night, I realized my phone had been radio silent since Monday. Either Ace was giving me space or he was letting me go. Either way, there was something heavy and final in the silence, and if I listened heard enough, I was pretty sure I could hear the sound of not one but two hearts breaking.