Page 41 of Sins of the Orchid

“Good riddance,” Bennetti muttered behind us.

She leaned over and pressed a kiss on Amore’s cheek, ignoring Savio. “I had DeAngelo put your gift in your room earlier. Happy birthday, my love.”

“Thanks, Grandma.”

She strode off like a queen, and our fathers left us to go join the guests. Savio glanced over his shoulder one more time to ensure his daughter was good, and she offered a weak wave.

Once out of earshot, I shuffled her slowly into the house and up the stairs.

“I hate tequila,” she whined.

“Oh, crap. And I got you a bottle of it for your birthday,” I teased her. She turned slightly greener. “Don’t you dare throw up in here. I don’t want to clean that shit up.”

“Jerk,” she muttered.

I opened the door to her room. With light golden walls, white crown molding, and white accents everywhere, Amore’s room still looked like a perfect, principessa bedroom. Meticulous except for the corner she had dedicated to designing her clothes, full of drawings and a mannequin with fabric over it.

She kicked off her pink designer heels, not even bothering to put them away and crawled under her blankets.

“Want to open your gift?”

“If you want,” she muttered, her voice barely audible.

“You sound so enthusiastic about it,” I countered.

“I feel so sick, Santi,” she murmured, her eyes drooping, like she couldn’t keep them up. And like a light, she was out.

Santi!

She called meSanti.Something in my chest squeezed, and if I was honest, I didn’t like it. She had never bothered with my brother or even brought him up to me. She was my friend, not Santi’s. Why did she call out to him?

She was mine.

CHAPTER12

Amore

THREE MONTHS LATER

“Are you sure this is wise?” I asked Adriano for the hundredth time. I was leaving for Italy tomorrow, and it would be bad to get into trouble on my last night home. That drunken night before my eighteenth birthday was enough adventure to last me a long while. I spent the night throwing up into Santi’s toilet while he held my hair. I cried, actually cried from misery, begging him to give me something to make it better. There was no chance he’d ever see me as a woman after that incident.

I was sick as a dog for the next three days. Just the thought of tequila made me queasy. I never wanted to get a whiff of it again.That drink is poison!I hadn’t vomited that much in my entire life. The first night I was sure I’d die. Even when my stomach was empty, I couldn’t stop retching. I was pissed off at Adriano for coming up with such a stupid idea, but I was furious at myself even more because I let it happen.

Adriano and I had a tiny fallout afterwards. I was childishly mad that he wasn’t feeling any symptoms while it felt like I was dying. We didn’t speak for a week. Then just as I was about to leave the house with Lorenzo to go find my best friend, Adriano pulled up at our front door in his Mustang.

A heartbeat of silence before we both muttered at the same time,I’m sorry.

And all was forgiven and forgotten. One week without talking to him was hard. We might not have seen each other every day, but we talkedeverysingle day. About everything and nothing, and I never realized how much I relied on our little talks.

‘I missed talking to you’.Those were Adriano’s exact words, and it was exactly how I felt. So, I hugged him and made us both promise that we would always talk. Even when we were mad at each other.

So, we moved on from that whole event and agreed I’d never have tequila again. We spent our summer hanging by the pool when he wasn’t working for his big brother, and I wasn’t working for Grandma. I hadn’t seen Santi since that night he kept my hair out of my face as I puked into his fancy Kohler toilet.

I wasn’t sure how I’d ever be able to look Santi in his eyes. Those whiskey brown eyes that made me weak at my knees and had my heart rattling in my chest.

Maybe the next few years in Italy would cure me of my crush on Santino Russo. I convinced Dad to let me go earlier than anticipated so I could get settled in. So, this was Adriano’s goodbye date with me until he came to visit. We had dinner at Per Se, a fancy restaurant at Columbus Circle. He reserved us a window table, so we had a spectacular view of Central Park and Columbus Circle. People knew him there; he was a frequent customer, but it was a first for me.

So far, the evening was going very well. We laughed as we dined and sampled every dessert. Then at the end, he surprised me with gelato. A lemon poppy seed ice cream. He said it was all the rave in Europe, and he’d had it shipped over. It wasn’t my favorite flavor, but we still ate it all.