Chapter 2

Isabella caught his wrist.

“Dante, wait.”

Her voice was hesitant.

“She’s still mad. What if she makes you mad at me? You know she won’t let this go until someone takes her side.”

His thumb hovered over the screen.

Mom sighed.

“She’s right. Sienna always has to win. Call her now, and she’ll think throwing a fit gets her whatever she wants.”

Dad settled into an armchair and lifted his whiskey.

“Leave her out there a little longer. Maybe she’ll learn to laugh at herself.”

He looked at Dante.

“She’s about to become the Moretti Donna. She can’t expect you to drop everything whenever her feelings get hurt.”

I hovered between the sofa and the fireplace, staring at my parents.

Maybe she’ll learn.

There was always something I needed to learn.

How to wait. How to give things up. How to make myself smaller so Isabella never had to feel bad.

I’d been offered a place in a prestigious design fellowship in Milan.

They’d chosen six graduates from hundreds of applicants. I’d submitted my portfolio without mentioning my father’s name.

For once, I knew I’d earned something myself.

I printed the acceptance email and brought it home.

Isabella was crying in the living room.

Her final collection had failed its review. She wouldn’t be graduating with me.

Mom read the first few lines of my letter, then shoved it into a drawer.

“Your sister’s devastated, and you come in here showing off?”

“I wasn’t—”

Dad cut me off.

“You’ve always found school easier than she has. That doesn’t make you better than her.”

I stood there with my graduation dress still in its shopping bag, ashamed of something I’d been proud of ten minutes earlier.

I never went to Milan. My family wouldn't let me.

Whenever Isabella was unhappy, anything good that happened to me became something cruel I’d done to her.

So I stopped telling them.

I stopped sharing my good news. Stopped trying to explain when they hurt me. Learned to keep my feelings to myself.

Then they called me cold.

So I stopped sharing my good news. Stopped trying to explain when they hurt me. Learned to keep my feelings to myself.

Then they called me cold.

Dante lowered his phone.

I knew that look all too well. He’d chosen Isabella again.

He went to the window and looked out across the harbor.

“The countdown’s about to start.”

He checked his watch.

“I’ll get her as soon as the fireworks are over.”

Isabella pushed the blanket off her lap.

“I’ll come.”

She looked up at him, all earnest eyes.

“It was my idea. I should apologize in person. Maybe then she’ll stop taking it out on you.”

Some of the tension left his face.

He must have thought she was being so considerate. Always thinking of everyone else.

Unlike me. Cold, just as my family always said.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

“The medication helped.”

She smiled.

“Besides, your wedding’s tomorrow. I’d hate for her to call it off because of me.”

She paused just long enough before call it off.

Dante’s jaw tightened.

“We’ve spent a year planning this wedding. The invitations went out months ago.”

Our fathers had invited every family that mattered. The seating chart had taken three meetings to settle.

To Dante, that seemed to make the wedding inevitable.

“Sienna’s not going to cancel over a prank.”

He sounded so certain.

He always was.

Certain that whatever happened, I would still be there. That all he had to do was reach for me, and I’d take his hand.

Last spring, we’d driven upstate for the anniversary of my grandfather’s death.

The Bellinis had a family mausoleum in an old hillside cemetery. Dad insisted we all attend.

Isabella complained before we reached the upper path.

Her heels hurt. It was cold. There was a café in town she wanted to try.

I stayed behind to replace the flowers at my grandparents’ crypt.

When I returned to the parking area, the SUV was gone.

At first, I thought they’d moved it closer to the gate.

Then I checked my phone.

No service.

The caretaker had already left. By the time I started down the winding cemetery road, it was getting dark.

Rain came hard and sudden. Then I slipped.

For hours, I huddled beneath the stone overhang of an old crypt, my ankle swelling inside my shoe.

Dante found me close to midnight.

His flashlight swept over my muddy legs.

“Bella said you wanted to stay and sketch. What are you doing all the way out here?”

I was shaking too hard to answer.

He carried me back to the SUV.

At hotel, he helped me into a hot shower, brought me soup, and sat beside me until I stopped shivering.

Then he held me.

“I’m sorry, Sienna. I thought you wanted us to leave.”

His lips brushed my wet hair.

“Next time, I’ll ask you myself.”

But there wouldn’t be a next time, Dante.

A sharp boom rattled the clubhouse windows.

“It’s starting!”

Isabella sprang off the sofa.

She was halfway to the door before Mom could remind her to take her coat.

“Come on, Dante!”

He slipped his phone into his pocket and followed.

Gold sparks opened above the harbor. Then blue. Then a burst of white so bright it lit every face along the dock.

Everyone looked up.

I looked down.

With each flash, I could see the place where they’d left me.

The tide had risen. The rocks were gone.

I searched for the narrow ledge where I’d stood, the jagged edge I’d gripped until my fingers gave out.

Water covered all of it.

There was no one struggling.

No diamond-studded gown catching the light.

Not even a bubble.

Behind me, Isabella laughed as another firework burst overhead.

The crowd along the waterfront began to cheer.

A new year had arrived.

I would never live to see it.

Dante watched the fireworks, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“That’s the color of the diamonds on Sienna’s dress.”