Tangled In Strings

Chapter Eight

As much as I want to open myself up to Giovanni's family as if they were my own, I can't. I physically try to. I smile, I hug, I keep up with conversations as best as I can, considering their accents. But, that darkness I'm so accustomed to feeling hovers like a cloud over my emotions, making me nearly cry every time someone pulls me into an embrace.

I don't want to run either. I don't want to check out and find a place to nurse my wounds. I don't want to take this moment away from Giovanni, so I don't leave his side despite how much I want to. Not during their cocktail hour, not during dinner. Giovanni's aunt is supposedly famous for her Carbonara. She made bowls upon bowls of it to feed the crowd. There weren't enough seats. Some people stood, some sat on the stone ground, some scattered to other rooms, but never once did the laughter and chatter die down.

My eyes constantly moved from their faces, their body language with each other to the scattered cheese and olive plates, the empty wine glasses and bottles cluttering the long dining table to Giovanni, who sits beside me, one hand firmly on my lap, holding my hand. Hours later, my heart still hasn't relaxed.

He's handled them with a certain finesse, deterring their probing questions, their insistences. He clearly knows how to work a room. Normally, I do, too... when the people surrounding me are strangers I'll never deal with again. Work partners that get down to business, who don't care about who I really am or what I've been through in my life.

These people are very interested. And why wouldn't they be? In their eyes, I'm the woman from a shocking scandal, Giovanni's publicist and work partner, who he now has brought home to meet his closest family. I'm the woman he finally brought home. Who he is declaring as family.

It's only natural they want to know who he's with.

As the night progresses, my speech fades, which goes unnoticed for the most part because everyone is either tipsy or exhausted. We move to the sitting room, lounging on the couches with caffé, and as the conversations continue, there's a light buzz from the other rooms where family and friends are still catching up.

I lean into Giovanni, my adrenaline finally fading, which begins to weaken me. He squeezes my hand, and I tilt my head up to him. His eyes are gentle but aware, as they usually are. He has always been able to read me like a book.

"You alright?"

I nod against his arm. "Yeah, I'm good."

He removes his hand from mine, lifting his arm over my head, and I'm only too pleased to move into him, glad to be surrounded by his arm. He runs his hand down my back, pressing his cheek to my hair as they continue to ask him about his new work. With his calm heartbeat pressed to my ear, I find a way to relax to the sound.

...

Beady, bloodshot eyes are inches away from my own. My skin crawls as my father, bent before me, grabs the back of my neck with enough force to pull me up, despite the fact that my legs are shaking too hard to move.

"Look at her! Look at what you did!"

"I didn't!" I sob, trying not to look at my mother unconscious on the ground. "I didn't do anything!"

"You went out when I specifically told you not to!"

"It was for school," I breathe, flinching when his fingers tighten on the back of my throat.

"I work my damn ass off for this family. I don't expect to come home to an empty house, no food, no light, nothing in it. I don't deserve that, right?"

I taste blood in my mouth when I swallow. "D-Dad–"

"I asked you a damn question, Scarlett."