Page 101 of Bitter Poetry

Inside, I’m a quaking mess, barely able to string two coherent thoughts together. The once innocuous vanity in my bathroom will never be innocuous again.

Christian puts the radio on in the car for the drive over to pick up my sister, and doesn’t say a word.

My sister is there waiting the moment I open the door.

“Morning, Jessica,” Christian says cheerfully, heading down the hall to the kitchen, where he will have a drink and annoy Nina while waiting for me.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” I say, watching Christian disappear from sight behind the kitchen door.

“How can you stand it?” Jessica demands.

I sigh. “I can’t. Next question.”

Her face falls. “He’s a pig.”

I get a strong impression that she’s talking about Dante, not Ettore, and she also knows about the wedding. “He’s not a pig,” I say softly.

Her lips tremble, and her eyes pool with tears. “He was supposed to save you. Doesn’t he know that? Doesn’t he understand?” Her glare cuts in the direction Christian just went. “And his brother is no better.”

Her distress acts like an amplifier of my own. I feel the sting at the back of my eyes. The necklace presents a weight against my throat. Over the last year, I have tossed it in the trash and taken it back out a dozen times or more. “This is the real world, Jessica. It doesn’t play out the way we wish it to very often, at least not for the likes of me. In this world, powerful men make all the rules, and the rest of us obey.”

“Helena is going to be queen bitch now. You know she had a fling with someone in the Russian mob? That woman has more baggage than an airport carousel during summer vacation. Please tell me there isn’t going to be a big wedding we’re forced to attend?”

“No big wedding,” I say, too exhausted to even question the mob nugget she casually slipped into the conversation. “I went to lunch with her two days ago, at Ettore’s insistence. I had to suffer through her telling me how Dante was desperate to marry her quickly. Overcome with passion.”

Jessica makes a gagging motion.

I snort a laugh.

“What did Christian say about it?”

Her question wipes the smile off my face. She hasn’t said anything outright but has dropped the odd hints regarding Christian and me—that keeps secrets from the man who should be his boss.

“Nothing.”He fucked me on my bathroom vanity while my jealous, vengeful husband was speaking to me on my cell.As distraction techniques go, it was a winner. “But he said Dante wanted to speak to me.”

Her eyes widen. “You know he came here? Did Papa mention it to you?”

An almost electric jolt goes through me. “Dante visited? When? And no, Papa didn’t say anything to me about it.”

“Two days ago. It was probably while you were having lunch with bitch face. I knew something had happened when I spoke to Nina later in the day. When I questioned Papa about it, he said Dante had come to tell him about his wedding.” She rolls her eyes. “As if! I know they’re planning something.”

“They? Dante and my father?” My heart jumps a beat. My sister’s propensity for snooping will get her into trouble one day. “If you weren’t at home, how could you possibly know what they may or may not be planning?”

“I don’t know exactly.” Her eyes turn shifty. “Papa had a private investigator working for him for a while. He kept some reports in his bureau. Pictures. It looked like they were from the accident… when Mama died. It didn’t make much sense, but I knew they were important. After Dante came, Papa burned them. I found the corner of one of the pictures in the grate in the drawing room. A fire at this time of year? I only looked because I was confused when I saw the ashes.”

My eyes go toward the kitchen where Christian just went.

Can I do this to myself? Can I revive my hope and survive if it comes to nothing?

Maybe my father is going to apologize to me, tell me to move on, and that he is doing so.

“Put his necklace back on, yeah?”

“I guess I’ll have an answer soon.”

“Maybe you should ask Papa?” her eyes search mine. “Maybe he will tell you what he won’t tell me.”

“No, not unless he speaks about it first. But if what Christian said is true, and Dante wants to see me, then I will ask him… Now, let’s go out. I just want to forget this wedding.”