This was supposed to be the happiest day of my life and she was turning it into one of the worst.

A few hours later, I was pushing my way into the penthouse. Exhausted as I thought about where Ilaria could be; she definitely wasn’t here.

Her dress was discarded on the bed, her things half unpacked as she gave up on the idea of moving in with me. There was chaos around my place and I hated chaos.

One more phone call.

“Hello?”

Someone giggled on the other end and it was most definitely not Ilaria answering her phone.

I blinked, thinking of her friends and reaching into the pocket of my jacket to pull out the list I had Enzo run on them. It had all their information for me to research them.

“I need to speak to Ilaria, please.”

I was trying to stay calm as the girl yelled for Ilaria. There was a brief pause and the whisper yelling girls did before there was a sigh, the sound of a door closing and finally I heard her speak.

“I had a business trip coming up. I’ll be gone until Wednesday morning. I already submitted the picture for the engagement announcement in the Globe. Boston magazine is running an article about Inferno and I spoke to a restaurant reviewer who is coming tomorrow night.”

The way she was talking about things, making it seem like I cared about the business more than anything else. The way she made it sound like she had done her duty to me and I was annoying her by calling.

Hated it.

How could her mind work like that?

“Come home, Ilaria.”

She breathed out on the other end. A sigh so deep I shivered, feeling it arrive down my spine. It was so many feelings and none of them good.

“It’s late. I have to go.”

And she hung up, no goodbye.

Throwing my phone, my head falling into my hands as I thought about the rollercoaster of emotions that I was going through. I couldn’t handle all these ups and downs, twists and turns that were becoming my life.

How was I supposed to make it the next few days without her? How was I going to get her to forgive me? How was I going to make sure she never ran again?

16ILARIA

Ineeded this.

Looking at my best friends, all the sand and salt water from the day we spent at the beach together drinking our weight in frozen drinks laced with liquor.

They were all in various forms of getting ready for our night out at the casino.

Being around them was giving me strength, letting me breathe when I was freaking the fuck out about everything.

Even now as we got ready to go out I thought about how in three weeks we would be getting ready for my wedding.

A fucking wedding.

When we got home it would be planning for a wedding or at least whatever details I would be allowed to plan.

I’d need to get a dress, book my hair and makeup, figure out all the details. We’d have to do cake testing and figure out colors for our friends to wear.

Did Dante even have friends or did he just have men who worked for him and owed him their loyalty?

Fuck.

I was going to have to quit my job.

I’d need to talk to my father about finding someone who would take over but since my father had planned this wedding I was sure he already had a replacement ready to take over to sign off on things at City Hall.

A made man wouldn’t have a woman who worked unless that job was owning something and a hobby job.

My city job, with its pension and benefits wasn’t something Dante would probably want to put up with. Plus it was a risk and neither of us needed the attention that risks brought up.

“I hate how my tits sweat. They smell like old pasta water.” Becca complained, cupping her breasts as she slipped past me into the bathroom to shower before our night out.

She was the last one to get in the shower because she was the best at doing makeup and had been helping everyone

But I smirked, glad her off handed comment dragged me out of all the mental adulting I had been doing.

“It’s because you have big tits. Use baby powder.” Tessa called out, head bent forward as she combed out her long black hair, not missing a beat.

My phone buzzed and I ignored the call from Dante without even having to look down and confirm who was calling me.

He had been relentless, calling and texting all day.

The girls all knew not to post about where we were for a few days or when I told them it was fine. I just wanted to be away without worrying about him showing up.

Because I knew him for a day and I could tell already he was the type of man who said mine and meant it as a claim.

My vanishing was driving him crazy and when I got back I was sure he would insist on inserting a microchip into the back of my neck so that we never had a repeat of this.

Dante had texted me about how he missed me, good morning, a copy of the article of our engagement, asking me about my day, asking if I wanted his mother to go dress shopping with me, and calling me so much that I had debated on blocking his number.

“That boy has it bad for you.” Sammie slid over in a checkerboard dress that hugged her curves. It was the type of thing I would have expected on the Nanny but she wore it looking amazing, as always.

But everyone was looking good tonight since we were headed out to the casino.

I was dressed in a simple emerald green silky dress that was too short and too low cut. My hair in a high ponytail and draped in diamonds, except for my engagement ring that was locked in the safe at my fathers office he had in the house.

The diamonds could all be replaced but the engagement ring getting stolen was something I didn’t want to deal with.

“I think we should take one picture to post. We all look way too hot to not post a picture remembering this.”