Page 80 of Heartless

After lunch, Bianca, Camila, and I were lounging by the pool.Bianca and I had changed into swimsuits.Hers was a white, simple bikini, and the perfect ornament for her fantastic body.Mine was a navy blue halter neck with yellow spots.Camila had kept her black tank top and hot pink shorts on.

I was sharing the huge daybed under the cream parasol with Bianca while Camila had settled in the chaise lounge across from the coffee table.Lying on my stomach and propped on my bent elbow, I finished my white wine and set the hard plastic tumbler on the ground.Then, I turned my smile to Bianca who was on her back beside me.

She was one of those women one read about.Interesting, gorgeous, kind, and funny.She’d moved to Florence when she was eighteen to train as an opera singer.In her own words, she hadn’t been good enough.Now, she worked for a talent agency based in London in which she represented a pop singer I liked, and two painters I’d never heard of, but whose work I’d seen.She loved the pace of her job and the lifestyle it afforded her.She also had a sarcastic wit and used it mostly while talking about her love life.

After she’d told me the circumstances in which she’d met Jake and Silas, I’d stared at her, but Bianca had reassured me that the experience had left her with no scars.

I learned she’d married twice for love and divorced twice because of boredom.

The only time a shadow had passed through her radiant expression was when I asked her if she was Scary Edo’s daughter—I’d kept the scary part to myself.

She’d shaken her head and said, “No, Dario is my father, but I wasn’t the son he wished for, so Lenny’s the one who raised me.He’s my heart father.”

At just a few years older than me, she’d already lived three lifetimes.

As for Camila, since retiring from her accountant job, she’d been thinking about buying a catering business or a flower shop, hence the business management course.I’d voted for catering, which had made her laugh.She’d also started thinking about dating again, but she was taking things slow, not wanting to fall for another violent abuser, and focusing on her own happiness.

When it’d been my turn to tell my life story, I’d done it in three sentences, but Bianca had gently pushed and asked to know more about my tiny credentials as a writer.I’d winced when I’d disclosed the nonexistence of my sexual life, but she’d just listened.In fact, neither Camila, nor she, had commented, or judged.And it’d been nice to not feel like the freakish oldest virgin in the world.I was me, and it was good enough for the two awesome, accomplished women.

As I turned on my back and rested against the plump cushions, she aimed her ravishing smile at me.“And now you’re around two men with very strong male energy.How are you getting along with Silas and Jake?”

I was lightly buzzed and completely relaxed, so my reply was unguarded.

“I love Silas.He’s like a big brother, or what I imagine a big brother would be like.Jake scares the life out of me.But he’s nice to me now, and we’re okay.”

Bianca turned her shaded eyes to me.“Jake can be intense.”

Understatement of the century.I shuffled a little against the jitters that had made me restless at the mention of Jake Rhodes.

As I nodded, Camila leaned forward.“This is the second time I hear you say that Jake is nice to you,now, Sia.Wasn’t he nice while you were dating?”

Bianca rolled on her side.“You dated Jake?When?”

Heat flooded my face while I tried to smile.And failed.“Before...before I came here.But it wasn’t real, and now we’re...friends.”

Why couldn’t I pitch my voice higher than this strangled whisper?

“Tell us more, cara,” Bianca encouraged.

“We’ll just listen, Sia.You can tell us anything.”

I cleared my throat.“I just feel stupid to be attracted to him, knowing how repulsed he was by me in the beginning.”I breathed out to bury that pain a little deeper.“It’s going to take me forever to lose my virg—”

Bianca’s sudden jolt halted my semi-tipsy tirade.

She slid her sunglasses up to the top of her head.“What do you mean he was repulsed by you?”

Camila climbed onto the daybed, so we were in a kind of circle.She was frowning too.

My heartbeat bumped against my constricted chest.Those two women loved Jake and Silas.If I told them what had happened, they—

I shook my head and dropped my gaze to my lap.“It’s...nothing.I just...I was just—”

In perfect synchronicity, Bianca took my hand and Camila touched my cheek.

Their expressions were concerned.Worried even.Bianca tilted her head to the side.“Whatever you say, stays between us.”

Camila’s brows curved down.“What happened, sweet girl?”