DANTE
Vivian did end up speaking to one of our therapists after the Lohman & Sons incident. She never discussed her sessions, but by the time we arrived in Bali, her sleep had improved and she was mostly back to her normal witty, sarcastic self.
I told myself my relief had nothing to do with her personally and that I was simply glad she was in the right headspace to meet my parents.
“Are you sure your parents live here?” Vivian stared at the villa in front of us.
Hand-hewn sculptures dotted the lawn in a riot of primary colors, and an overabundance of wind chimes tinkled by the front door. Giant sunflowers sprouted up the walls in splashes of yellow and green paint.
It looked like a cross between a luxury villa and a daycare center.
“Yes.” The place had Janis Russo written all over it. The front door flew open, revealing a mass of curly brown hair and a floor-length caftan.
“Prepare yourself.”
“Darling!” my mother cried. “Oh, it’s so wonderful to see you! My baby boy!” She rushed toward us and embraced me in a cloud of patchouli.
“Have you lost weight? Are you eating enough? Sleeping enough? Having sex enough?”
Vivian disguised her laugh with a delicate cough.
I grimaced as my mother pulled back and examined me with a critical eye. “Hello, Mother.”
“Stop. I told you to call me Janis. You’re always so formal. I blame Enzo,” she told Vivian. “His grandfather was a real stickler for the rules.
You know he kicked someone out of a dinner party once for using the wrong fork? Started a whole international incident because the guest was the son of a UN ambassador. Though to be fair, you’d expect the son of a UN ambassador to know which fork is used for salads and which is used for entrées. Isn’t that right?”
Vivian blinked, seemingly stunned by the whirlwind of energy before her.
“Now, let me take a look at you.” My mother released me and placed her hands on Vivian’s shoulders. “Oh, you’re beautiful. Isn’t she beautiful, Dante? Tell me, darling, what do you use for your skin? It’s positively glowing. Argan oil? Snail mucin? La Mer…”
Vivian caught my eye over my mother’s head. Help me, her gaze begged.
My mouth tugged up in a reluctant smile.
For all my mother’s over-the-top effusiveness, she was right. Vivian was beautiful. Even after a twelve-hour flight, she glowed in a way that had nothing to do with her physical appearance.
A strange sensation coasted through my chest.
“Yes,” I said. “She is.”
Vivian’s eyes widened a fraction while my mother beamed harder.
We held each other’s stares for a suspended moment until my father’s voice boomed across the lawn.
“Dante!” He strode through the front door, lean and tanned in a linen shirt and shorts. “Good to see you, son.” He clapped a hand on my back before engulfing Vivian in a bear hug. “And you, my daughter-in-law! I can’t believe it! Tell me, has Dante ever taken you scuba diving?”
“Uh, no—”
“No?” His voice boomed louder. “Why the hell not? I’ve been telling him to take you diving since you got engaged! You know, we conceived Luca after—”
I cut in before my parents could embarrass themselves, and me, further.
“Leave her alone, Father. As fascinating”— scarring—”as the story of Luca’s conception is, we’d like to freshen up. It’s been a long flight.”
“Of course.” My mother fluttered around us like a jeweled hummingbird. “Come, come. We have your room all ready for you. Luca doesn’t arrive until tonight, so you have the second floor to yourselves for now.”
“So that’s your family,” Vivian said as we followed my parents into the villa. “They’re…not what I expected.”
“Don’t let their hippie facade fool you,” I said. “My father is still a Russo, and my mother used to be a management consultant. Ask them to give up their credit cards and really rough it and see how mellow they are.”
The airy, two-story villa was filled with natural woods, cream crochet, and bright local art adorning the walls. The backyard boasted an infinity pool and open-air yoga studio, and the four bedrooms were split half and half between the ground floor, where my parents stayed, and the upper floor.
“This is your room.” My mother flung open the door with a flourish.
“We spruced it up just for you.”
Vivian’s mouth parted in shock while a migraine bloomed at the base of my skull. “Mother.”
“What?” she said innocently. “It’s not every day my son and future daughter-in-law visit for Thanksgiving! I figured you’d like a more romantic atmosphere for your stay.”
The migraine spread up my neck and behind my eyes with alarming speed.
My mother’s idea of romantic was my idea of a nightmare.
Red rose petals blanketed the floor. A bucket of chilled champagne sat on the nightstand next to two crystal flutes while a box of chocolates, condoms, and towels folded into the shape of swans rested at the base of the canopy bed. A fucking couple portrait of me and Vivian hung on the wall opposite the bed beneath a glittery banner that read, Congratulations on your engagement!
It looked like a goddamn honeymoon suite, except it was infinitely more horrifying because my own mother set it up.
“How the hell did you get the portrait?” I demanded.
“I used a photo from your engagement party as inspiration.” Pride gleamed in my mother’s eyes. “How do you like it? It’s not my best work, but I’m in a bit of a creative rut.”
I was going to murder someone before the end of the trip. There was no way around it.
Whether it was my mother, father, or brother, it was going to happen.
“It’s lovely,” Vivian said with a gracious smile. “You captured the moment perfectly.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose while my mother blushed. “Oh, you’re too sweet. I knew I liked you.” She patted Vivian’s arm. “Anyway, I’ll leave you two to get settled in. If you need more condoms, let me know.” She winked at us before darting out the door. My father followed, too busy on his phone to pay attention to what was happening.
Silence descended, thick and heavy.
Vivian’s smile disappeared after my mother left.
We stared at the portrait, then at each other, then at the bed.
It suddenly hit me that this would be our first time sharing a room.
Six days and five nights of sleeping next to her. Of seeing her in those ridiculously tiny outfits she called pajamas and listening to the water run while she bathed.
Six days and five nights of fucking torture.
I rubbed a hand over my face.
It was going to be a long week.
VIVIAN
Dante’s parents were the opposite of their son—free-spirited, effervescent, and gregarious, with quick smiles and somewhat inappropriate senses of humor.
After Dante and I settled in, they insisted on taking us to lunch at their favorite restaurant, where they peppered us with more questions.
“I want to know everything. How you met, how he proposed.” Janis rested her chin in her hands. Despite her bohemian clothing and attitude, she possessed the sheen of a New England socialite—high cheekbones, perfect skin, and the type of rich, glossy hair that took copious amounts of time and money to maintain. “Don’t skimp on any details.”
“I know her father,” Dante said before I could answer. “We met at a dinner party at her parents’ house in Boston and hit it off. We dated, and I proposed a few months later.”
Technically true.
“Ah.” Janis frowned, looking disappointed by Dante’s unromantic summary of our courtship before she brightened again. “And the proposal?”
I was tempted to tell her he left the ring on my bedside table just to see how she’d react, but I didn’t have the heart to crush her hopes.
Time to brush off my acting skills. I hadn’t played Eliza Doolittle in my high school’s production of Pygmalion for nothing.
“It happened in Central Park,” I said smoothly. “It was a gorgeous morning, and I thought we were simply going for a walk…”
Janis and Gianni listened, their expressions enraptured, as I spun a dramatic story featuring flowers, tears, and swans.
Dante appeared less charmed. His frown deepened with each word out of my mouth, and when I reached the part about him wrestling the swan who’d tried to run off with my brand-new engagement ring, he gave me a look so dark it could’ve snuffed out the sun.
“Swan wrestling, eh?” Gianni, as he insisted on being called, laughed.
“Dante, non manchi mai di sorprendermi.”
“Anche io non finisco mai di sorprendermi, ” Dante muttered.
I stifled a smile.
“What a unique proposal! I can see why you went to the trouble to get the ring back. It’s stunning.” Janis lifted my hand and examined the obscenely large diamond. It was so heavy that lifting my arm qualified as a workout. “Dante’s always had a good eye, though I’d expected…”
Dante tensed.
Janis cleared her throat and dropped my hand. “Anyway, like I said, it’s a beautiful ring.”
Curiosity kindled in my chest when she and Gianni exchanged glances.
What had she been about to say?
“We’re sorry we couldn’t make it to the engagement party,” Gianni added, cutting through the sudden tension. “We would’ve loved to be there, but there was a festival featuring a local artist who hadn’t attended a public event in ten years that same weekend.”
“He’s so talented,” Janis piped up. “We simply couldn’t miss the opportunity to see him.”
I paused, waiting for the punchline. It never came.
Horror crawled through me. That was why they’d missed their son’s engagement party? To meet some artist they didn’t even know?
Next to me, Dante sipped his drink, his expression like granite. He appeared neither surprised nor perturbed by the revelation.
An unexpected pang hit my chest.
How many times had his parents chosen their selfish desires over him for him to be so blasé about them missing his engagement? I knew they weren’t close, considering Gianni and Janis left him with his grandfather, but still. They could’ve at least made up a decent excuse for why they weren’t there.
I brought a salt-cured prawn to my mouth, but the formerly delicious seafood suddenly tasted like cardboard.
After lunch, Gianni and Janis encouraged us to “take a nice stroll” along the beach behind the restaurant while they finished their “post-lunch meditation,” whatever that meant.
“Your parents seem nice,” I ventured as we walked along the shore.
“As people, maybe. As parents? Not so much.”
I slid a sideways glance at him, surprised by his candor.
Dante’s linen shirt and pants lent him a more casual air than usual, but his features remained strikingly bold, his body powerful and his jaw hard, as he walked beside me. He looked invincible, but that was the thing about humans. No one was invincible. They were all vulnerable to the same hurts and insecurities as everyone else.
Some people just hid it better.
Another pang rippled through my chest when I remembered how cavalier his parents had been about missing the engagement party.
“Your grandfather raised you and Luca, right?” I knew this, but I couldn’t think of a better way to ease into the subject.
Dante responded with a curt nod. “My parents took off around the world soon after Luca was born. They couldn’t bring two children on their travels, given how much they moved around, so they left us in our grandfather’s care. They said it was for the best.”
“Once a year at most. They sent postcards on Christmas and our birthdays.” He spoke in a dry, detached tone. “Luca kept his in a special box. I threw mine out.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, my throat tight. “You must’ve missed them very much.”
Dante had been a kid at the time, barely old enough to comprehend why his parents were suddenly there one day and gone the next.
Mine weren’t perfect, but I couldn’t imagine them dumping me at a relative’s house so they could jet-set around the world.
“Don’t be. My parents were right. It was for the best.” We stopped at the edge of the beach. “Don’t be fooled by their hospitality, Vivian. They fuss over me whenever they see me because they don’t see me often, and it makes them feel like they’re doing their job as parents. They’ll take us out to eat, buy us nice things and ask about our lives, but if you ask them to stick around during the hard times, they’re gone.”
“What about your brother? What’s his relationship with them?”
“Luca was an accident. I was planned because they needed an heir. My grandfather demanded it. But when my brother came along…taking care of two children was too much for my parents, and they bailed.”
“So your grandfather took over instead.”
“He was thrilled.” Dante’s dry tone returned. “My father disappointed him on the business front, but he could mold me into his perfect successor from a young age.”
And he had.
Dante was one of the most successful CEOs in the Fortune 500. He’d tripled the company’s profits since taking over, but at what cost?
“Let me guess. He took you to boardroom play dates and gave you cartoon explainers on the stock market?” I quipped, hoping to ease the tension lining his shoulders.
The empathetic part of me wanted to shift to a lighter topic; the selfish part wanted to dig deeper. This was the most insight I’d gotten into Dante’s background, and I worried one wrong word would cause him to shut down again.
Faint amusement ghosted through his eyes.
“Close. My grandfather ran his household the way he ran his business.
He was the first, last, and only word on any subject. Everything operated by a strict set of rules, from our playtime hours to what hobbies Luca and I were allowed to pursue. I was seven when I took my first factory tour, ten when I started learning about contracts and negotiations.”
In other words, he’d lost his childhood to his grandfather’s ambitions.
A deep ache unfurled behind my ribs.
“Don’t feel sorry for me,” Dante said, correctly assessing my expression. “The Russo Group wouldn’t be where it is now if it weren’t for him and what he taught me.”
“There’s more to life than money and business,” I said softly.
“Not in our world.” A gentle breeze swept by, ruffling his hair. “People can join as many charities as they want, donate as much money as they want, but at the end of the day, it’s about the bottom line. Look at Tim and Arabella Creighton. They were once superstars in Manhattan society. Now Tim’s facing trial, and no one will touch Arabella with a ten-foot pole. All her supposed friends dropped her.”
Dante’s mouth twisted. “If you think any of the people who kiss my ass now will stick around if the company folded tomorrow, you’re sorely mistaken. The only languages they understand are money, power, and strength. Those that have it will do anything to keep it. Those who don’t will do anything to get it.”
“That’s a terrible way to go through life,” I said, even though I’d witnessed those scenarios play out enough times to know he was right.
“Some things make it better.”
My heart faltered, then picked up speed again.
Dante and I stood on a secluded stretch of beach, close enough to see the restaurant but far enough that its sounds and crowds didn’t touch us.
A fissure cleaved his stony mask, revealing a trace of weariness that tugged at my soul.
CEO Dante was all stern frowns and hard commands.
This Dante was more vulnerable. More human. I’d spotted glimpses of him before, but this was the first time I’d been in his presence for so long.
It felt like sinking into a warm bath after a long day in the rain.
“This wasn’t how I’d planned to spend our first day in Bali,” he said. “I promise family history lessons aren’t the norm here.”
“There’s nothing wrong with a history lesson. But…” I switched to a more playful tone. “I want to learn more about this diving your father was talking about. I’ve never been to Bali before. What else is there to do?”
Dante’s shoulders relaxed. “Don’t bring up diving in front of my father, or he’ll talk your ear off,” he said as we started our walk back to the restaurant. We’d been gone for almost an hour; his parents must be wondering what happened to us. “To be fair, the island is one of the top diving destinations in the world. There are also some beautiful temples and a great art scene in Ubud…”
I half listened as he ran through the top activities in Bali. I was too distracted by his voice to pay attention to his words—deep and velvety, with a faint Italian accent that did unspeakable things to my insides.
I’d teased him about loving Kai’s British accent at Valhalla, but it was his I couldn’t get enough of.
Not just the voice, but the intelligence, loyalty, vulnerability and humor that lurked deep, deep beneath his grumpy surface.
Somewhere along the way, Dante Russo had morphed from a caricature of a rich, arrogant CEO into an actual human. One I liked, for the most part.
It was awful.
No matter what happened at Valhalla, or how much Dante shared about himself, I couldn’t delude myself into thinking our relationship was anything more than what it was. That was a surefire way to a broken heart, and I already had enough broken things in my life.
Dante stepped closer to me to let another couple pass. Our fingers brushed, and my traitorous heart leaped into my throat.
This is just business, I reminded myself.
If I said it enough times, maybe I’d believe it.
