Ache For You

18

I give him a shortened version of the story, concentrating the details on what Euro Hunk looked like and what he wore, the two things I know are required. Jenner gasps and exclaims in all the right places, then asks excitedly when I’ll be seeing him again.

“I didn’t give him my real number, dummy.”

“Why on earth not?”

“Because, hello, I was just dumped at the altar! I’m not exactly in a man-loving mood!”

“Who said anything about loving? Have revenge s*x with him, silly! Hell, have revenge s*x with every Italian stud you meet! What better way to get Brad out of your system? Seriously, you’re swimming in an ocean of testosterone over there, darling, dip your vadge in that beautiful sea!”

I say drily, “I think the saying is ‘Dip your toe.’”

He scoffs. “Toe, vadge, whatever. Get it in there! Swim in it! Drown in it! Good God, if it were me, I’d be running naked through the streets!”

“Yeah, I’ve seen the pictures.”

His tone turns snippy. “Don’t be judgey, darling. It was my first show in Paris. I was seventeen.”

“Really? What’s your excuse for what happened last year at the Issey Miyake show in Tokyo?”

Jenner says innocently, “It was my first time in Japan!”

“I see. Remind me not to go with you anywhere you haven’t been before.”

“It’s not like you haven’t seen me nude.”

“The amount of people who haven’t seen you nude is a very small number, my friend.”

“Well,” he says airily, “one does what one can to spread beauty into the lives of the less fortunate.”

I laugh at that because I know he means it. “Have I told you lately that I love you?”

“You tell me alarmingly often, darling. For such a sharp, ball-busting businesswoman, you’re awfully mushy.”

He’s trying to be condescending, but I know him too well. “Pfft. You adore it and you know it.”

His chuckle is low and warm. “I adore you, Poppins.”

I swallow, tears gathering in the corners of my eyes. My chest tight, I whisper, “You’re the only family I have left now.”

He sounds alarmed. “Oh God. Don’t cry. You’ll make me cry, and I’ve just applied a forty-dollar mascara.”

I start to laugh. He makes it impossible not to.

“That’s better. Now listen to me carefully, darling.” His voice turns firm. “You’re the baddest b***h I’ve ever known. You will get through this. All of it. And you’ll come out stronger on the other side. Do you hear me?”

My voice is small when I answer, “Yes.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that. Is there a mouse on the other end of the line?”

“I said yes!”

He sounds satisfied by my shout and chuckles again. “Good. Stiff upper lip, Poppins. Tears are undignified. And remember—revenge s*x is good for the complexion.”

He hangs up before I can tell him again that I love him, because there’s nothing Jenner hates more than having to admit there’s a real heart in his chest, instead of the shard of ice he pretends sits in its place.

When the attorney arrives a few hours later, the marchesa invites him into the library and asks Lorenzo to look after Cornelia. Beans, however, isn’t banished from the meeting, and sits glaring at me from the marchesa’s lap as the lawyer removes sheaves of papers from his briefcase and gets himself organized.

Muttering to himself, the attorney pats his coat pockets. He finds the pair of glasses he was looking for, settles them on his aquiline nose, then sits across from us on a leather sofa. Gesturing to the papers on the coffee table between us, he launches into a rapid-fire speech in Italian.

“Wait.” I hold up a hand. The attorney peers at me over his glasses. “In English, please.” When he squints at me, I get a bad feeling. “You do speak English?”

“Of course I speak English. But why would I, when Italian is so superior?”

Petting Beans as if the dog were a bag of diamonds, the marchesa smiles.

Heat crawls up my neck. Reminding myself murder is a capital crime, I say, “Because I don’t speak Italian.”

Now the attorney looks confused. He glances at the marchesa, then at me, as if he can’t believe his ears.

“But you were born in this country, no? And your parents were both Italian. Why would you not know your mother tongue?”

There’s a lead crystal paperweight on the table between us that would make a very nice dent in this i***t’s skull. “Yes, I was born here, but I grew up in the States. I moved there when I was three years old and only came back for summer breaks from school.”

When the attorney keeps right on gazing at me as if I’m making no sense whatsoever, I sigh heavily. “When I went to live with my aunt, my father wanted me to be a ‘real’ American, okay? He wanted me to fit in with all my friends, not be picked on for being a foreigner. He never spoke Italian to me.”

The attorney looks as if I’ve informed him I shot his mother point-blank in the face. “Never spoke Italian to you?” Scandalized, he stares at the marchesa. “But this is child abuse!”

“Oh, for God’s sake, just get on with it!”

Beans doesn’t like my aggravated tone and growls deep in her throat.

I cut her a withering look. “One more peep out of you, dog, and I’ll make you into a purse.”