My Stepsister Ran From the Wedding, So My Stepmother Sold Me to the Man Who Hates Her Mother novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Hand on the Note

On the seawall steps Nina shows Marcello the note and says the S slants wrong; the first near-miss is broken by his mocking line, and Carmela arrives at dawn with the lease papers.

He did not take the plate away, and he did not take my arm.

He looked at the knife in my other hand and the roses on my calf, and then he opened the gate himself.

"Seawall," he said. "Not the road."

I went, because it was where I wanted to go.

The steps ran down from the bluff to the wall, wide and low and still warm from the day.

I sat on the third one with the plate on my knees.

Marcello sat two steps above me, with his forearms on his thighs.

Below us the Gulf came in slow and black, and a shrimp boat's lights crawled along the horizon.

"Eat," he said.

"You said I eat where you tell me," I said.

"I'm telling you."

I ate.

He watched the water, and I felt him not watching me.

When I held out the last piece of bread, he looked at it and then took it.

His fingers were cold.

"Who taught you to jump off a roof?" he said.

"The Mary Ignazia," I said. "Her wheelhouse is twelve feet up."

"That's your father's boat."

"It's his last one. He named her for his mother and then married a woman who sold the first four."

He said nothing.

"You know my father," I said.

"I know the dock," said Marcello.

"Then you know he doesn't talk, and you know whose idea this was. I didn't sign that contract, Mr. Bellanca. Neither did my sister. My stepmother did."

"Your sister," he said.

"Priscilla. She ran this afternoon. She left a note."

I put the plate down.

The note was in the pocket of my work dress, folded in four, soft already from my hand.

Carmela had dropped it on the vanity when she took out the contract, and I had picked it up before she saw.

I gave it to him.

He read it by the light from the bluff.

I could see his jaw working.

"I can't," he read aloud. "Tell Marcello I'm sorry."

"Look at the T in Tell," I said.

"What about it?"

"The crossbar slants backwards." I leaned up and put my finger on the paper. "Priscilla crosses hers level. I have nineteen birthday cards from the woman who raised us, and every capital in them slants the way that one does."

He looked up.

"You are telling me your stepmother wrote this."

"I'm telling you the T is wrong."

"Priscilla writes like that when she lies," he said slowly. "I've seen her sign for deliveries. Her capitals go the wrong way when she's frightened."

"Then she was frightened."

"Or she was told what to write."

We looked at each other.

That was the first time I saw it, the thing under his face.

It wasn't hatred.

It was the stillness of a man weighing something he could not afford to drop.

"What's that?" he said.

I had pushed my sleeve up without thinking, and he was looking at my wrist.

"My mother's bracelet."

He reached over and turned it with his thumb until the engraving caught the light.

R.N., Galveston, it said, and a date.

"She was a nurse," I said again.

"So you told me."

He did not let go of my wrist.

I did not pull it away.

His thumb moved up off the steel and onto the soft inside of my arm, slow, and I felt every nerve I had gather under it.

My mouth went dry.

He lifted my chin with the other hand.

He leaned down, close enough that I could smell the salt and the tobacco he must have smoked on the porch, and I held very still.

"You want me to," he said, almost to himself.

"I didn't say that."

"You'd have me ask twice."

He let go of my chin.

He stood up, and the cold came back all at once into the space where he had been.

"Go to bed, Scalise," he said. "Your door is unlocked. It will be from now on."

I sat on the step and watched him walk up the bluff with his hands in his pockets.

My face was burning, and I hated him a little for being right.

I did not sleep.

At first light I was on the porch with my coffee when the Lincoln came up the drive.

Carmela got out of it in a cream suit and her good pearls, with a folder under her arm and a smile on her face.

Behind her came a lawyer I had never seen.

Marcello came out of the front door with four of his men and met her on the steps.

"Mrs. Scalise," he said.

"Mr. Bellanca. I thought we should confirm the lease. Today, with the family in the room."

"Confirm it with my lawyer."

"I'd rather say it to your face." She turned and saw me by the rail, in the same black dress with a bare, scratched leg, and her smile widened.

"Darling. You look tired."

"I'm fine."

"Of course you are." She stepped up beside Marcello and laid her hand on his arm.

"Tell your husband what you told me last night, Nina," Carmela said, clear enough for every man on the steps to hear. "That you'd rather be in your father's house."

"I told you nothing."

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend