by Lacey Dailey
This book is for my younger brother. He doesn't read my books, so he'll never see this.
Contents
1. Gigi
2. Gigi
3. Gigi
4. Max
5. Max
6. Gigi
7. Gigi
8. Max
9. Max
10. Gigi
11. Gigi
12. Max
13. Gigi
14. Max
15. Gigi
16. Gigi
17. Max
18. Aiden
19. Gigi
20. Gigi
21. Aiden
22. Gigi
23. Gigi
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Lacey Dailey
1
Gigi
No rest for the wicked.
Five simple words. The mantra for my life. I don’t sleep because I’m not tired. Yet at the same time, I’m utterly exhausted. I’d argue I’ve been exhausted since the moment I was born. I appeared exactly four minutes after my twin brother.
That’s when it all started.
You’ve gotta work harder, Gigi.
Move faster, Gigi.
Moretti is a success name. Do you want to be successful, Gigi?
Smile, honey, the world is watching.
I think that last one was always a bit of an exaggeration. The whole world wasn’t watching. Just my whole family. Although, it sure felt like they were the only ones that made up my world.
“You want me to top ya off, hon?” Wrapping my slim fingers around the handle of my mug, I thrust it at Willa’s protruding stomach. “Ya know, I’m gonna be having this baby soon, and you’re gonna have to find another waitress to kill you slowly with caffeine.”
“This is my third cup.” I defend, my eyes glued to the dark stream of liquid falling into the old mug, a faded logo stamped on its side.
“It’s only been twenty minutes.” She makes a noise and plops into my booth, making herself comfortable across from me. She’s still on the clock, but it doesn’t matter. I’m the only one in this diner.
I’m the only one ever in this diner between the early morning hours of one and four.
“Ya know, Gigi, normal people are asleep at this hour.”
I match her lipstick stained smirk. “Ya know, Willa, normal people don’t work in a diner in the middle of the night when their husband is a billionaire.”
Willa Kensington is married to Marshall Kensington, the man who created America’s favorite online dating app. He created it in college, sick of getting rejected every time he asked someone out. Oddly enough, he and Willa didn’t meet on the app. They met here, in this tiny diner on the outskirts of Raleigh, North Carolina where Willa was working midnight shifts to pay her way through community college.
“Girl, please, you know I ain't no trophy wife.” A loud pop sounds as she sucks her bubble gum back into her mouth.
“And you know I don’t sleep.” I counter. “So, why do we have this conversation every night?”
She looks at me like I have rocks for brains. “Uhm, because you're my friend and favorite customer, and I’m allowed to be worried about you.”
“Don’t you have something to clean?”
“Bitch, I am seven months pregnant. I’m not cleaning shit.”
I grin behind my coffee cup. Willa’s carefree attitude is uncanny to me. She has no quarrels using the word no or offering up her foot to shove in somebody’s ass.
I admire that about her. Telling people no is a talent I don’t possess. It’s half of the reason I spend my nights drinking cold coffee in Mo’s diner off of highway 57.
“So.” Willa pops another bubble, her eyebrow lifting as she scans the table between us. “No books today? No computer or late night study session?”
“I graduate next week.” My impending college gradation should bring me joy. It doesn’t.
It really, really doesn’t.
The ceremony will be nothing but a stark reminder of the pressure my parents nearly suffocated me with. All so I could graduate a year early. Three hundred and sixty-five days ahead of all my friends and the greatest family I’ve ever known.
In spite of the unsettling rumors that make teenagers believe they’ll never see their friends again once they begin college, I knew I was leaving high school with lifelong friends. They’re my family. My brothers and sisters. If weren’t for all of them, I would’ve died from exhaustion and too much caffeine years ago.
“Congratulations!” Willa’s excitement is enough for the both of us. “You have to do something to celebrate.”
I lift my mug. “Free coffee for a lifetime?”
“Girl, no. Hell no. You need to go on a trip or something. Get away from this town.”
“Ha!” My laugh is dry. “I’m stuck here.”
Her eyes roam me. “I do not see any chains keeping you connected to this booth.”
They may be invisible, but they are very real. On my wrists lie chains, shackled and locked with a key somebody else is in possession of. They keep me locked up, not to this booth, but to my family. My blood family. My namesake. The people I share DNA with.
The Morettis.
My well rehearsed reply is lost to the sound of the chimes above the door. The sound is so foreign to me, I startle, coffee spilling over the rim of my mug and dribbling down my hand. I quickly grab a napkin, dabbing at my mess while keeping one eye on the person who walks through the door.
The moment my eyes connect with his, he flashes me a familiar grin. “Hey! It’s my honorary sister.”
Maxwell Mitchell strides through the diner, confidence laced in each one of his steps. He grins from ear to ear, like it isn’t thoroughly bizarre he's here at almost three in the morning.
“Good morning.” Max makes himself comfortable beside me, the green in his eyes vivid and wide awake. “What are you up to?”
I gesture toward Willa. “Drinking coffee with my pregnant, billionaire, waitress friend.”
“Sounds fun. Can I join?”
I chuckle at his exuberant expression, and it’s the first real laugh that’s fell off my lips all night. Max Mitchell is, without a doubt, the most laidback person I’ve ever met. I often associate him with a cucumber.
Cool.
When I tell him this much, he matches my laugh with one of his own.
Max and I crossed paths a couple of summers ago when he moved in across the hall from two of my best friends. Knox and Beckett Stryker got married right after high school and attend Duke University together. Max’s friendship with the two of them was instant. Before I knew it, Knox and Beck were dragging Max to our annual Friday night dinners and introducing him to the rest of our friends. In no time, he’d infiltrated the little family we’d created back in high school.
Max’s official invitation into the family didn’t come until about a year ago when we learned Beck was being sexually harassed and stalked. After Beck was hit by car, we all spent weeks in Durham, watching a frantic Max pace outside Knox and Beck’s front door.
That was all it took.
I wouldn’t call our group pretentious, but we do tend to be pretty selective about letting strangers in our circle of trust. Our circle broke for Max after that, and he was let in with open arms.
Not that there was much doubt about him beforehand.
Max clears his throat, crossing his arms over his chest. “So, what are you ladies chatting about?”
Willa palms her belly. “We were just talking about how Gigi needs to leave this town and go somewhere exciting.”
“And I was just telling Willa that is never going to happen.”
The mole beneath Max’s lips dips with his frown. “W
hy not?”
“Apparently, she is chained to this booth.” Willa’s eyes roll and she heaves herself out of the booth. “What a drama queen. You try talking some sense into her. The baby’s sitting on my bladder.”
Willa waddles to the back, and Max uses her absence as a chance to steal her spot, making himself comfortable across from me. “So, what’s this about being chained to a booth?”
“Not the booth. The town.”
“You can’t be chained to a town.”
“You can, and I am.”
“Nah, you’re not.” He bats his hand like he just solved all my problems.
“Max, it’s a lot more complicated than you’d think. You don’t understand.”
“Well, that’s probably because every time I’m able to come to family dinner, you eat and then run your toosh right out of there. I don’t exactly have time to get to know you.”
I open my mouth and then quickly shut it again, wrapping my hands around my mug. He’s right, and I don’t have to say it for him to know it.
As much as I love Friday nights with my family, I’m only able to stay long enough to help make dinner and then eat it. After my plate’s clear, I’m out the door. I get two hours, maybe three, to feel like an actual twenty-one year old before the texts come in and the guilt fills me. I’m back to feeling like a burnt out thirty-five year old before I even get to my car.
“And I wouldn’t call Raleigh a small town.” Max slouches, propping his feet on the bench I’m sitting on, placing one foot on either side of me. He’s boxed me in, and I use my fist to pound the top of his boot. The effort is useless.
“When you talk numbers, you’re right. Raleigh has about a half a million people in it. It just feels so compact because my entire family lives here.
“Knox and Beck live in Durham.”
“Not them.” I stare into my mug, the coffee resembling sludge. “My blood family. The entire Moretti clan lives ten minutes from my apartment.”
“And?”
He doesn’t get it.
“They followed me here, Max. My entire family. They moved ninety minutes away from their home in Fayetteville because they like living up my butthole.”
“It’s probably warm in there.”
“I hate you.”
He laughs, stealing my mug from my loose grasp and putting the rim to his lips. He groans the minute the lukewarm liquid hits his tongue.
“That coffee is not that good.”
“All coffee is good.” Licking his upper lip, he sets the mug back down. “You completely avoided my question, by the way. Why are you stuck in this town?”
“Why do you care?” I counter.
“Why do you have a giant fence around your life?”
“I don’t.”
“Then tell me something personal about yourself.”
I take my mug back. “You first.”
“I’m adopted.”
I scoff. “Max, please. I know you’re adopted. Everybody knows you’re adopted.”
“I wasn’t sure if you knew or not. This is like the longest conversation I’ve ever had with you.” He points at the mug. “Can I have that back?”
I push it across the table. “I’m better at listening.”
“I’m willing to bet that’s probably because the people in your life don’t let you do a whole lot of talking.”
Damn.
“Do you always spend Saturday nights psychoanalyzing people?”
“Nope.” He speaks into the mug. “I usually spend them on the roof of my apartment, but I’m stuck here in Raleigh because my moms had some charity dinner they wanted me to attend. Didn’t you notice my fancy duds?”
Yes.
I noticed his suit and the pristine way it fit him the moment he walked through the door. I ignored it. The same way I ignore everything that makes me feel warm inside or elicits any sort of pleasure.
“Do I look like a stuffy asshole?” He yanks at his tie. “I wanted to wear jeans but I value my life, so I rented this.”
“You don’t look like an asshole. You look… nice.”
Nice isn’t the first word that came to mind but it’s the only one I feel comfortable voicing. Maxwell Mitchell is terribly handsome—in a navy blue suit over top a midnight black dress shirt. It’s untucked, and there’s a slight wrinkle to it. Instead of appearing unfinished, his look comes across purposeful, like he couldn’t be bothered to right his crooked tie or comb his thick hair with anything but his fingers.
I suspect he is one of those people who can roll out of bed looking like he walked straight out of GQ. Lord knows he has the face for it. Not a blemish, or a scratch, or a scar mares his bronze skin.
Max looks cucumber cool. Like every bit of the carefree musician he aspires to be.
“Nice, huh? I miss my jeans.” His boots fall to the floor and he leans across the table, his elbows pressed against the linoleum. “You’re turn.”
“My turn?”
“To share something about yourself. It doesn’t have to be overly personal,” he adds, reading my very visible apprehensive expression. “Something simple. We’ll make friendship bracelets after.”
“Damn. I didn’t bring my beads.”
The corners of his mouth lift. “I did.”
I laugh. Again. And I surprise myself when I open my mouth to speak. Up until five seconds ago, I wasn’t going to share anything. I was simply going to shove him behind the fence I denied having, and lock it shut—similar to what I do every Friday night.
But simple? Simple I can do. “My full name is Giovanna. Giovanna Maria Moretti.”
“Giovanna Maria Moretti.” He blows out a breath. “Sounds better coming from your lips.”
I don’t voice my disagreement. My name has never sounded so good coming from my own lips.
“My mother nicknamed me Gigi. She liked how feminine it sounded. I can’t say I blame her. I have four brothers. She probably needed a little less testosterone in her life.”
“Four brothers, huh?” Max lets out whistle before taking another sip of coffee. “Older or younger?”
“Older. I’m the baby of the family. Sergio is the oldest. Then Paolo. Then Dante. Renzo is my twin, and he beat me by four minutes.”
“Wait a minute.” The mug hits the table with a clank. “You have a twin?”
“Yes. You wouldn’t be able to tell if we were standing next to each other though. We’re fraternal.”
“I’ll put good money on a bet that says you’re the better looking one.”
“If you bet against my family, you would lose. I’m the odd duck.”
“You look nothing like a duck.”
I chuckle at his literalness. “No, I just meant I look different than everybody else in the Moretti clan. My parents are both one hundred percent Italian. The two of them and all four of my brothers look like they are supposed to.”
He makes a noise. “How exactly is someone supposed to look?”
“I just feel strange, I guess. Everybody has dark features with chocolate truffle eyes and rich brown hair. I’m the only one at the dinner table with fair skin, blue eyes, and hair so blonde it’s almost white.”
“So, you look different. Who cares? You’re gorgeous, and since when was standing out a bad thing?”
“In the Moretti family? It’s better to blend in. My parents put all of their focus on me. It’s bad enough I’m the only girl and the youngest.” I tuck my hair behind my ears. "I have no idea why I'm telling you this."
I rarely spilled my beans.
“It’s because of the friendship bracelet, isn’t it?” He smiles. “And I’m sorry you’ve felt like an outcast. Were they good to you?”
“My parents? Yes. They provided me with everything I needed but they are incredibly pushy.” I take back the mug and frown seeing it empty. “My parents chose my path the minute I was born. I’ve been following it ever since. I can’t tell you how much stuff I missed out on in high school because it didn’t fit into the plan t
hey’d already mapped out for me. I had to make a PowerPoint presentation to convince my dad to let me join the dance team. Even then, I was only allowed to do that because the extracurricular activity looked good on a college application.”
I stare into the bottom of my coffee cup, breathing through the familiar pressure that’s taken up residence in my chest.
“Hey.” In a blink, Max has abandoned his spot and is now beside me, shoulder to shoulder. “What’s with the face, Gia Maria? Those big sad eyes are killing me.” He throws his hand over his heart and whimpers dramatically.
“Does that little whimper work for all the girls?” I tease him.
“I would never whimper for another girl. This heart is all for you and you just killed it!”
“You are quite the character, Max.” I smile at his antics, and the way he throws himself on top the table like I just pierced his heart. It’s a big smile, and holy shit, it feels good. “A total goof.”
“Baby, if you smile like that again, I’ll spend my life in the looney bin.”
Cue stomach explosion.
Max Mitchell has got some game, and I have no idea how to play.
I don’t have a lot of experience with guys. I’ve had one boyfriend in my twenty-one years. The whole thing was set up by my parents and one wedding short of an arranged marriage.
“I’m sure you say that to all the girls.”
His eyebrows dip. “Is that what you think?”
I shrug. How was I supposed to know? All I know about Maxwell Mitchell is what I listed earlier. I don’t know a lot about him but calling him a stranger doesn’t seem right. Especially when I consider how comfortable I feel sitting beside him, pondering whether or not I trust him enough to let him behind the fence.
“Gia, despite my super cool demeanor, incredible good looks, and heavenly singing voice, I do not associate with girls very often.”
