“You look…” she paused delicately. “You look very fine in that shade of blue. It compliments your eyes.”
I beamed at her. Since my mother’s death, I hadn’t had much female influence in my life and I’d almost forgotten how much fun it could be to just be girly with another woman.
I twirled, the skirt flaring out around me as I laughed. “It’s just beautiful. But truly, Caroline, I have clothes at Lion Court that Tiernan has to give back sometime. I can just wait for those.”
“Absolutely not,” she’d sniffed as if the idea was insulting. “I will not be seen with a woman dressed in anything less than the best.” Turning to the poor woman helping us, she waved at the pile of discarded clothes I’d accumulated in the dressing room. “Pack everything up and send it to Bishop’s Landing. She will wear this one with the Chanel jacket right now.”
Which was how I ended up dining in one of the most exclusive restaurants in the city wearing an outfit that cost more than my entire wardrobe back in Texas. Even the gentle noises filling the ornate interior were somehow expensive: the clink of real silverware, the chime of crystal glasses undercut by the low murmur of cultured voices and barely discernable classical music. I felt like an imposter sitting there with Caroline, who was greeted by almost every diner as if she owned not only the restaurant but the very chairs they sat on and cars they had arrived in.
“It was a nice day, Caroline,” I said as we were served heaping salads topped with fresh seafood that made my mouth water. “Thank you so much for this. For everything really.”
Unlike the polite smile she had given to everyone else that day, Caroline gave me a small, genuine grin that curled her pale pink painted lips. She had been quiet for most of our lunch, contemplative, her gaze pinned to memories cast over my shoulder.
“I am glad you enjoyed yourself. I was hoping you would, because, you see, I have grown quite fond of you over the last week. My lawyer dropped these off last night and I really believe this is the right choice. Not just for you, but for myself. I’ve been lonely since my husband past away and my kids are older now, fair too busy to spend time with their mother.” Her expression was wistful, but her eyes were still a sharp, pale blue, cutting as the edge of an icicle. “It will be nice to have you as a true companion.”
I watched silently as she reached into her Hermes bag and produced a collection of papers that she placed beside my plate.
A guardianship agreement.
I looked up at her with wide eyes, hope and misgiving lodged in my throat.
“You’re old enough to make the decision for yourself, so if you no longer want to be the ward of Tiernan Morelli, all you have to do is sign the papers, and you’ll be mine,” she assured me, her manicured fingers curled around a Mont Blanc pen. “Here, Bianca. Take your life back.”
The pen was cold and absurdly heavy in my hand as I grasped it. My vision swam as I tried to make sense of the legal jargon presented to me. It was hard to reconcile the terror I felt staring at those pages that represented a lifelong dream when I’d always believed this was exactly what I wanted. But my heart pounded hard enough to crack a rib and cold sweat crusted my brow.
“It’s very standard,” she guaranteed with that plastic smile she was so practiced at.
Still, I tried to read more of the document. I couldn’t shake my father’s voice, telling me more snakes lay hidden in silks and furs than in the long Texas grasslands.
“Here,” she pressed, leaning forward to pick up the papers and flip to the second page where my signature was needed. “Sign just here, here, and here so we can wrap this matter up for good.”
I bent to read again when her cool fingers gently grasped my chin and raised it until my eyes were level with her own. Her expression was soft in a bid to express her sincerity, but there was a tension in the fingers that held me, a vibrating kind of energy that made it obvious she was coiled tightly around something.
Some secret she was trying to keep hidden from me.
“One day,” she murmured, her voice as cool and smooth as silk. “If you’re with us long enough, we might even see what we can do about giving you the Constantine name.”
Each word shot through me like bullet to the chest. A twisted cocktail of hope, longing, and suspicion threatened to drown my lungs, overloading my system until I couldn’t breathe.
How was it possible that a name could mean so much?
It was a short collection of consonants and vowels. Pleasant enough to speak, but hollow without the meaning attributed to it by others.
Constantine was almost a brand, one synonymous with wealth, prestige and glory.
If I asked anyone in the restaurant today if they wanted to be a Constantine, most of them wouldn’t think twice about saying yes.
Of course, the name meant even more to me.
My dad had been a Constantine. He had been the one to take that name and reputation and forge it into steel, something unconquerable and eternal.
For all his flaws, I’d loved him and admired him. Brando had his superhero obsession, but I’d only had one my whole life. Lane.
So the idea of finally sharing his last name after so many years of having to hide it, of feeling ashamed because I didn’t have my dad’s surname or permanent residency…it elated me.
The word ‘yes’ sat on my tongue pre-formed, ready to spring from my lips.
But I swallowed, thickly, painfully, dragging it back down my throat into my belly.
Tiernan might have broken my heart by lying to me, but he’d also taught me a valuable lesson.
To blindly trust kindness was as dangerous as trusting bold-faced lies.
I looked into Caroline’s perfectly symmetrical face at the diamonds and pearls in her ears, the Dior lipstick and Botox-smooth skin and I knew I couldn’t trust anything I found in her features. They were a mask she had spent years painting into the masterpiece it was today.
I had to look deeper than that, the way I did with paintings. Beyond the surface into the detailed depths.
And there was that palpable tension in the way she held her mouth, a tightness beside her eyes that spoke of need.
She needed me to sign these papers.
I just didn’t know why.
Carefully, I moved my head back out of her grasp and let a sheaf of hair partially veil my face as I looked down at the papers once more.
Caroline waited in a mushroom cloud of toxic silence.
It only took me two minutes to realize the problem.
“There isn’t anything about Brandon in here,” I said, sickness blooming in my belly, curdling the expensive food there. “Why isn’t there anything about my brother?”
She sighed, a long, dramatic expression that was more eloquent than words. “Tiernan Morelli isn’t willing to give him up. We can fight him on it, but it will take time, Bianca. The least we can do is get custodianship of you away from that monster.”
“Monster?” I echoed, catching the flash of true disgust on her face.
A stillness settled over her and when she spoke next, her words were slow and perfectly articulated as if she measured them first. “Well, you don’t know anything about this world, Bianca but the Morellis are unprincipled heathens. The lowest of low. Any association with them is absolutely forbidden, is that understood?”