Page 93 of Masked Hearts

Will do. Chat soon. I’m heading out with Pierre this morning.

“It won’t happen again. Thank you,” Antonio says before ending the call.

“Can we go now?” Pierre asks, looking between Antonio and me.

I asked if we could wait until after Antonio spoke to my dad. Not because I wanted to know what happened, but more because I just wanted to be here as support. After all, there is the constant reminder that he wouldn’t be in this situation if it wasn’t for my father.

“I’m coming. Head down, I’ll meet you downstairs,” I say as I grab my bag and walk towards the kitchen where Antonio has retreated to.

“Christmas is also coming. If you want to make our lunch reservation, you may want to consider making it quick,” Pierre says. He’s been waiting for me to get ready for the last hour, and then had to wait another fifteen minutes for this to wrap up.

After last night, all I want is to be lounging by the pool with a book. But of course, today is the last day Pierre can be here in Monaco before he has to head back to Marseille to work on something for my dad.

“Just give me five more minutes,” I plead. “You’d assume at this point it would be common sense that I’d need to check on my husband.”

“Fake husband,” Pierre points out, and I nearly stumble as his words crash into me.

“Same difference,” I offer, continuing to grab the last of my things.

“I’m okay, head out. We’ll catch up later,” Antonio’s voice rings as he steps back into the living room.

“Are you going to meet up with Mattia?” I ask as he pulls me into his side. He’s wearing his regular people clothing, just sweat pants and a t-shirt.

“He’s going to come over,” he says before his attention shifts to Pierre, who has been standing, watching this entire exchange. He offers my brother a simple head nod, but I assume I should just be grateful he acknowledged him at all. Especially with everything going on.

“Okay, let’s go,” I chirp, trying to break the growing tension surrounding us all.

“Have fun.” Antonio stiffens before kissing the top of my head. I’m not surprised that after last night, he’s a bit hesitant to display any major forms of affection in front of my brother.

Heat creeps up my neck, and soon enough, my entire face feels as if it’s on fire. I’m usually not one who’s easily embarrassed or shy in front of them since I grew up around Pierre and Kylian. But every move Antonio makes has me seconds away from giggling and kicking my feet like an innocent school girl.

“Great. Let’s go.” Pierre sighs, and I’m snapped out of my Antonio-induced trance.

I follow behind my brother until we’re in the elevator. I offer Antonio a little wave as the doors close, and I get a tight-lipped smile in response.

That’s odd.

“You look at him like you’re in love.”

I snort air through my nose in a very unladylike manner before quickly covering my mouth with my hand. “And how would you know what that looked like, Mr.the-only-romance-I-get-is-from-the-strangers-I-meet-on-Grindr?”

“You look at him the way Mom looked at Dad.”

I feel as if my world screeches to stop. Pierre being five years older than me means he was seventeen when Mom died. He was the only one of us that got to see what their relationship was really like before it all took a turn for the worse. Even I only have memories of them separately, but very few of them together.

Pierre never speaks about her. I could count on one hand the number of times he has, and most of them were to remind me that she would want better for us. So to hear him speak about her now, like this, practically knocks the wind out of me.

“The only difference is I won’t let you fall victim to him the way she did to Dad. I’ll save you.” And with that, he’s out of the elevator, walking towards the main lobby of the hotel connected to the apartments we live in.

The drive over to the marina is short, but tension-filled as we’ve both let the weight of our words and actions hang around us.

“You’ve never really spoken about what happened.” I try to break the silence as we pull up to where we’re boarding the yacht for lunch.

“Probably because I don’t want to remember it, let alone talk about it,” he says, and the tremble in his voice is enough to have me clamping my mouth shut until we take a seat on the boat.

It’s a calm day on the water. The sun beating down with zero breeze makes the temperature feel multiple degrees higher than it is. Only light noise from nearby boats and the faint sound of traffic can be heard.

“So whatreallyhappened last night?” Pierre breaks the silence as our entrees arrive.