Page 3

IN THE BEGINNING

DANI

“ D aniella, what on earth are you doing?”

Sticking her tongue in the corner of her mouth and gripping it with her teeth, Dani carefully pressed the tiny building brick into place. She was almost done. The pictures meant she could follow the instructions, even if she couldn’t understand all the words.

“ Cugino Luca let me borrow some of his Lego,” she replied, scanning the final few pieces and missing the look of horror and disdain on her mother’s face. It didn’t matter. She’d grow used to those expressions over the coming years.

“Mamma Mia!”

Dani jumped as her mother’s hand came down on the table, shattering the model she’d worked so hard on, and scattering the bricks everywhere.

“Esme?” Concetta’s voice was a harsh screech as she yelled for Dani’s nanny before she turned her disapproving glare back on Dani.

“Go to your room and play with your dolls, Daniella. They are far more suitable for a five-year-old girl.”

“Sì, madre,” Dani held back the tears of sadness and anger that threatened to explode from inside her as she turned towards the pink, frilly room filled with all the boring dolls, and the itchy dresses she already hated.

Even at such a young age, she instinctively knew she shouldn’t let her mother see just how much this upset her.

Closing the door to her bedroom behind her, Dani sat on the floor against the oppressive dark wood and listened as her mother shrieked orders at her nanny.

“Get this mess picked up immediately and return this abomination to Master Luca. Make sure the boy understands it is not suitable for Daniella to play with this kind of thing.”

“Yes, mistress Concetta, of course,” came Esme’s subdued response.

Dani looked around the large candy pink room.

She hated pink. There was every kind of doll imaginable.

Baby dolls with bottles and feeding bowls, that pooped in their diaper, so it had to be changed.

Eww! They came with all kinds of accessories.

Prams and highchairs, rocking cribs and their own tiny bathtubs.

Boring! Why would anyone want to play with those?

Her cousin Luca didn’t have any of them. He had fun stuff like Lego.

Then there were the Barbies with their fancy outfits and matching shoes. She’d seen some that were dressed as doctors and even an astronaut, but her mother had refused to give her any of those more interesting dolls, saying they were ‘unseemly’.

Dani didn’t know what unseemly was, she only knew she’d prefer those dolls to the ones she had.

Her gaze moved to the shelf on the far wall. On it were the porcelain dolls. They were creepy and stared at her with their perfect hair and perfect faces, wearing their perfect clothes, and they didn’t do anything but stand there with their soulless eyes, looking far too perfect.

Sometimes Dani had nightmares that her mother tried to make her into one of those porcelain dolls. That her voice was gone and all she could do was exist and look pretty.

But Dani wanted to be an explorer. She wanted to go out and see the world and all the exciting things in it. That was so much more fun than dolls!

“Daniella! Why aren't you dressed? You need to leave for your Cotillion class in thirty minutes.”

Dani looked down at her dirty hands and sneakers. The horrified look was on her mother’s face again. It seemed to be there more and more, lately.

“I don’t want to go,” Dani replied, her own expression mutinous. “They’re so boring! Luca doesn’t have to go, so why should I?”

“Well, that’s where you’re wrong. Zio Lorenzo has agreed that Cotillion classes would be a good thing for your cousin too, so you’re going together from now on, Daniella.”

“Dani,” she mumbled, correcting how her mother addressed her.

Concetta shook her head. “You’re a young lady, and your name is Daniella. That’s how you will be addressed.” The words brooked no argument, and Dani knew better than to try.

Instead, she spun around and scrunched up her face so her mother couldn’t see it and lecture her on getting wrinkles. Like that was even a thing. She was only twelve. Wrinkles were for the oldies.

A heavy hand digging into her shoulder halted her progress as Concetta guided Dani towards her dressing table and pushed her to sit.

“And that contrary attitude of yours is all the more reason for you to attend these cotillion classes and learn to behave like a proper young lady. No man wants an opinionated wife.”

The words brought Dani up short. What the heck?

Wives weren’t allowed to think for themselves?

That was it. She was never having a husband!

Her mother was bad enough, but at least Dani could dream of the day she’d be able to leave home.

No way was she swapping Concetta for a man who basically expected the same things all the time!

Not that her father was around much, but Dani was aware of the way her mother behaved when he was.

“Since you’re not ready, I’ll see to you myself,” she said, decisively. “Esme, fetch my makeup bag please.”

Her nanny nodded and scurried out of the room, but Dani caught the sympathetic expression on her face. Fortunately, her mother didn’t.

Gah! Makeup. She’d managed to avoid it so far, but twenty minutes later she’d been forced to shower, and was dressed in a horrendously frilly pink frock. Now she had gunk spread all over her face and her eyelashes felt sticky.

“Ouch, Mamma, that hurts,” Dani complained as Concetta dragged a hairbrush through her damp, tangled locks.

“Well, this is what happens when you run around digging in the garden all day. I’m going to have words with Horatio. It’s simply not acceptable. If you want to mess around with plants, you can take some flower arranging classes. I’ll look into it.”

Her mother pulled and teased and blow dried. Then pulled some more and stabbed her with pins as she twisted Dani’s hair into the kind of style she normally saw on old ladies. More gunk was plastered into her hair, making it feel stiff and uncomfortable.

Dani stared at herself in the mirror, all curled and coiffed, the foundation and eye products her mother had applied making her look weirdly unnatural.

In the reflection, her eyes were drawn to the porcelain dolls that still sat on the shelf on the opposite wall.

Looking back at herself, she shuddered at how much she resembled them right now.

It was terrifying!

Her father was a married man, and her mother was his mistress .

How had she never known this?

Sure, he was never around that much, but Dani just thought he worked away. Zio Lorenzo was away a lot too. Luca had told her as much.

Things began to fall into place… like why her surname was Moreno, the same as her cousin, even though Zio Lorenzo was her mother’s brother.

And all that cotillion crap? Being taught how to speak and how to behave so she could be presented to society as a debutante to find an appropriately wealthy husband? Well, fuck that shit!

That’s where she was now, at a freaking debutante ball, having just been ‘introduced’ to society…

along with two sisters she never knew she had.

One older, one younger. Or half-sisters, she supposed.

It didn’t matter, they weren’t her family.

That much had been made painfully clear during the introductions her mother had made, presenting Dani to her father and his wife and daughters like he was a stranger, all while digging warning fingers into Dani’s arm hard enough to leave bruises, in order to keep her quiet.

Concetta didn’t need to worry on that score. While Dani was often opinionated, and deliberately so, much to her mother’s distress, she was so shocked right now that words failed her.

As for her father, well, he might as well be a stranger. She obviously didn’t know him at all since he clearly lived this whole other life.

He’d never been overly affectionate. Dani had accepted that as being his innate character, but now, as he stared right through her while pandering to his other daughters, she felt the worst kind of betrayal tearing apart her soul.

Close on the heels of that almost overwhelming emotion, disgust shuddered through her body.

Her mother had turned into the simpering, apathetic doll she was always encouraging Dani to be, as she spoke to her padre while his wife stood right next to them!

And his wife, his real wife, Adrianna. Didn’t she know?

Was she completely clueless? Or did she, too, accept this as the status quo?

Since she wore the same poise and demeanor as Concetta, it was hard to say.

Was this really how women were supposed to behave?

Well, fuck that, too! No man would ever make a fool of her the way her father was doing to both her mother and his wife.

She was eighteen, but right now she had no saleable skills and the trust fund from her nonno wouldn’t come into her possession until she was twenty-one.

And while it was a decent amount, Dani was going to make sure that money worked so hard for her that she never had to rely on some stronzo man for her livelihood.

Until then, she’d have to play her cards close to her chest. Play the long game.

And as for her sexuality? She was claiming that back too.

No more of this ‘gotta be a virgin on your wedding night’, crap her mother kept forcing down her throat.

If she was going to choke on something, she’d rather it be a cock of her own choosing.

She was going to trade in her V card, be her own woman, and embrace a life of complete independence.

Her lying, conniving parents could go to hell.