Rosalia

I've never felt so mortified in my entire life. I've never had a reason to feel this ashamed. More than that—I feel hurt, rejected, and incredibly foolish for even trying in the first place. He made it crystal clear that he wasn't interested in marrying you. He wasn't interested in being with you. And yet, you threw yourself at him anyway.


Nothing and no one can be more unkind to me than my own mind. These thoughts echo relentlessly as I wait for Angelo to disappear indoors, wrapping my arms around myself as I shiver in the water despite the day's warmth. The spiked lemonade had given me a fleeting warmth in my veins and a bit of extra courage earlier, but now my head pounds, tears burning in my eyes.

I wish desperately that I could undo the last hour entirely.

I had planned every detail meticulously, despite my lack of experience. I "accidentally" bumped into him in my bikini, lured him outside—although the slip of the tongue that made him feel guilty enough to agree was entirely unplanned. I suggested lunch and the spiked lemonade to make the occasion seem more festive. I did everything in my power to orchestrate the afternoon just as I had envisioned. I intended to tease him, put him in a playful mood with his guard down, and then—


I close my eyes, feeling humiliated all over again. My first kiss. That's always going to be my first kiss. I want to tell myself that he rejected me because I was so bad at it, but I know that's not true. I know, because even as innocent as I am, I know what I was feeling for that brief moment when he was pressed up against me while I kissed him. He was turned on—so hard from touching me, kissing me, and there had been that one brief second where he kissed me in return.

He rejected me because he thinks it's wrong for us to be together. That I shouldn't want him, as if I'm not capable of deciding who and what it is that I want. That some stupid piece of paper making us legally step-siblings means more than the fact that I only ever saw him a few times before this. That his age means anything at all, that I'm not capable of knowing how old he is and still wanting him—in some ways because of it.


I don't want to marry some spoiled mafia son my own age. I don't want to marry someone so enamored with my wealth and the title he'll get that he's willing to sacrifice his own family's name to take mine. I don't want someone who I don't know.

I want Angelo. Handsome, old enough to guide me and still young enough to keep up with me, intelligent and capable, and most importantly—the person that my father trusted with his empire, with his legacy, with me. Even with all his explanations, I still don't understand how Angelo can want to throw that away, how he doesn't see the immensity of what my father entrusted him with.

It takes a while for me to pry myself out of the pool, but I finally do, wrapping a towel around myself and retreating back into the mansion with my things. I know it's cowardly of me and a little childish, but I don't come down again for the rest of the day, staying up in my room. I ring for the staff to bring dinner up, unable to face sitting across from Angelo at the dinner table, the incident in the pool still fresh in my mind—and I'm sure in his, too.

All of it—the confusion and emotions and rejection—leaves me feeling drained and exhausted, and I pick at my dinner, leaving most of it untouched, and going to take a long, hot bath. Afterward, I slip on the t-shirt I stole from him, knowing it's not going to make me feel better, but it's hard not to wallow in the emotions. The shirt might not smell of him any longer, but being swathed in the oversized material makes me feel oddly comforted, clinging on to the last bit of hope that I didn't even really know I had until it was already being taken away from me.

The nightmare that swallows me up almost as soon as I fall asleep isn't the first one I've had since my father's death, but it is the worst. I'm in his study again, looking down at the body, but this time, he's facing up instead of down on the floor, his throat opened wide in the bloody gash that the murderer left—and in this nightmare, he's still alive. Still choking on his blood, gushing and bubbling out of the wound, choking out my name as he pleads for my help, but I can'tmove. I can't do anything, and when the dream wavers, I'm in my own bathroom, dousing my bloodied hands under the stream of water from the faucet, but it won't wash off. It clings to my hands like glue, and I'm sobbing, scrubbing them again and again until the skin reddens and peels and starts to slough off, my own blood mixing with what's left of my father's, and then—

Something is shaking me in the dream, and I jolt awake, feeling tears hot on my cheeks—and a hand on my shoulder. I gasp, jerking upwards in the bed, and through the fog of grief and confusion, I hear Angelo's low, deep voice.

'Easy. You were just having a nightmare. Just a bad dream." His voice is soothing, and I feel his hand still resting on my arm. It takes me a moment to realize that he must have been trying to wake me up—that the gentle shaking in my dream was from him. 'Rosalia, I'm right here. You're okay. Do you want me to turn on a light?"

I shake my head wordlessly, hoping he can see it. The idea of light feels like too much right now—too bright, too overwhelming—and I don't want him to see what a mess I must look like right now either, tear-stained with swollen eyes and an exhausted expression on my face. He's seen me like that before, but it feels worse somehow right now, with him here in my bed—

In my bed.A flush of heat tangles up with the awful emotions churning through me, more confusion to add to what I'm already feeling. It's not desire, not exactly—I'm too upset for that—but there's something intimate about his presence here that makes my stomach churn and my heart flip in my chest. It feels new, uncertain—and I don't want him to leave.

'Why are you here?" I whisper as his hand rubs along my arm, still trying to soothe. There's distance between us—he's keeping me quite literally at arm's length, sitting further down the bed, his fingers against my arm the only contact. It is soothing; I can feel the tears slowing, my breathing a little more even.

'I heard you crying," Angelo says gently. 'I wasn't sure if you were awake or not, but I wanted to make sure you were alright. That it wasn't—"

He hesitates, but I think I know what he's not saying—that he wanted to make sure that it wasn't because of him, that I wasn't up here crying myself to sleep because of what happened in the pool today. I feel my face flush with embarrassment that he would think that at all—and that I'm wearing his shirt, but I tell myself that he won't be able to see in the dark, and anyway, after so many years, he's not likely to even recognize that it's his.

'You didn't have to," I whisper. 'I'm sorry I bothered you—"

'It's not a bother, Rosalia." Angelo lets out a slow breath. 'I care about you, you know. I wouldn't be here if I didn't. I don't want to be don. I've worked under the New York don for years now, in varying capacities, and I see the weight of it, the responsibility—the toll that it takes. It's not something I've ever wanted for myself. But what I do want is to make sure you're safe. Which means not continuing on down the hall when I hear you crying in the night." He says the last wryly, as if it ought to be obvious, and I feel a small hesitant smile at the edges of my lips that I know he can't see."

His hand rubs along my arm again. 'Do you want to talk about it? The nightmare?"

I shake my head. 'No," I whisper. 'I really don't." I know I'm probably supposed to, that talking about it would supposedly exorcise it all somehow, but to me, it just feels as if saying it aloud will make it all more real somehow, bring it out of the shadowy world of terrible dreams and turn it into something tangible.

'Then you don't have to." Angelo's voice is still gentle, soothing. 'What do you need, Rosalia? What can I do to help?"

I hesitate, unsure if I want to say the first thing that comes to my mind. 'I want you to stay," I whisper softly, before I can think better of it, and I feel the way he stiffens momentarily, as if his first instinct is to turn me down. 'Just for a little while," I add, my teeth sinking into my lower lip. 'Just until I can fall asleep again."

I can still feel him hesitating. I know he's thinking of the kiss this afternoon, of the conversation we had, and wondering if giving in will make it all so much worse. I can feel, too, the moment that he relents.

'Until you fall asleep," he says gently, and I feel the bed shift under his weight, the shadowy shape of him moving across the bed to lie down next to me as I slide back down under the covers. He's still keeping me at arm's length, his hand resting on my forearm as I lie on my side, facing away from him.

His fingers slowly slide up and down my arm, still soothing. 'Just try to sleep," he says quietly. 'I'll stay long enough to try to make sure that the nightmares don't come back."

I nod, closing my eyes. I know that sleep isn't going to come easily, even with Angelo there, but I breathe in the scent of his soap and cologne, that piney, spicy aroma, and I try to feel as if things are going to be alright. That having him here will be enough.

It's harder not to wish he could stay. To not lean into the feeling of the soothing hand on my arm and wish it would drop lower, rest against my hip, my waist, pull me close so I could feel the comforting weight of his body behind mine, holding me, keeping me in the circle of his arms so that nothing else could ever get to me.

He says he's here to keep me safe. That's what I want, too—but in all the ways he says he can't, all the ways that he feels he shouldn't. I want him to be the one who keeps me safe forever.

I try to push the thoughts out of my head, to breathe slow and even, to fall back into sleep. To relax into the feeling of having someone here with me, something I've never felt before, just for tonight.

It's not dreamless sleep when I finally do sink back into it. But this time, I dream of Angelo. I dream of his arms around me, of him underneath the covers with me instead of atop them, his arm over my waist and his lips against my shoulder. I dream of him holding me all through the night, his warmth sinking into my skin, that feeling of safety that I fell asleep with lasting so much longer than just one night.

In the dream, the hand over my waist has a gold ring on the finger, one to match the one I'm wearing. In the dream, Angelo is mine, my husband, a man who wants to keep me safe forever, and not only for a little while. A man who isn't running from everything he was offered—and everything I want to give.

When I wake up in the early morning, eyes sticky and aching from crying and my entire body sore from the tension of the nightmare, Angelo is gone. I hadn't expected anything else—but I still feel a pang when I roll over and see that the only evidence he was ever there is the wrinkled duvet and the scent of his soap and cologne on my pillow. I bury my face in the pillow, breathing it in, fighting back another wave of lonely, aching tears.

Nightmares don't last forever, thankfully. But neither do dreams.