Chapter One

GABRIELLA

“I can’t believe you won’t be attending your own birthday party.”

A frustrated sigh leaves my lips at Nicole’s statement. It’s my twentieth birthday today, and for the past two weeks, they’ve been planning what would be the party of the year, my first party ever, only for all my plans to be ruined by my father.

“She never said she won’t be attending,” Lisa tells Nicole, but her eyes, expectant and hopeful, are on me. “You just have to meet up with your dad for dinner and you’ll join the party later, right?”

“Hopefully I’m able to—"

“Yay!” She interrupts me with an excited squeal. “Now, that’s more like it.”

I shake my head at her with a small smile playing on my lips. “It’s not that simple.”

“It could be if you’d just come up with an excuse to skip dinner with him,” Nicole says with an eye roll. “You’re twenty, not twelve.”

I chuckle at her words. “I can’t. My father will flip. Hell, he could send me back to Italy just because of that.”

“Okay, that’s a bit overboard,” Lisa muses.

It isn’t. Not in the slightest. My papa would look for any excuse to take me back home, lock me up in his mansion again, and never let me leave until he marries me off to one of his friends’ sons. He never had a problem doing that for the past nineteen years of my life. Locking me up, that is.

Of course, I can’t tell my new friends that. They’d look at me like I’m crazy, feel sorry for me for having a crazy father, and suggest I do something just as crazy to get rid of him.

“Let’s just say he’s a bit protective.”

“A bit?” Nicole gapes at me. “He barely let you breathe during orientation week. He calls you all the time, he makes his drivers take you everywhere, he got you an apartment off campus because he doesn’t think the dorms are safe—”

“Okay, okay,” I huff, an uncomfortable prickle rising in my chest. “He’s overprotective. But it’s not his fault. I’m his only child, and it’s my first time being in a new city.”

Nicole doesn’t seem convinced, and my defenses are beginning to rise. My papa might be everything she thinks he is—overbearing, too protective, paranoid, a little extra—but he’s my father still.

This is exactly the last thing I wanted when coming here. I wanted to live a normal life, make normal friends and have normal experiences. I’ve been here for just a little over two weeks and everyone already knows me as this foreign rich girl, all thanks to Papa.

He refused to let me stay in the college dorms, insisting I stay in one of the private apartments close to school instead. So far, he’s had his driver take me everywhere and bring me back home whenever my classes are over. It’s a miracle I was even able to make friends, yet I haven’t even had time to properly socialize with them.

My birthday party was supposed to be my first real introduction into the real world, and he insisted on me having dinner with him instead of going to a party like other girls my age. He should be back home for God’s sake. Yet, he’s here, still ruining things for me.

I run a hand through my dark curls and turn to look at the mirror before me, away from where Nicole and Lisa are sprawled on the bed. I’m starting to get upset.

I’ve spent my whole life behind high walls, taught by private tutors, always watched by guards and house staff. My world was curated and controlled. The information I received was only what my father wanted me to receive. I never had friends growing up. I’ve never experienced what living as a normal person, a normal girl, feels like. I wasn’t allowed to ask questions or be curious.

The only reason I was able to leave Milan was thanks to my dance tutor back home. She saw my potential and helped me through the whole process of applying to schools abroad. I didn’t think I could get in, but receiving an acceptance email from Montclair Academy of the Arts made me realize that my dreams were very much real.

When Papa learned what I had done, he was the angriest I’d ever seen him. It was the first time I ever did something he was strongly against, the first time I rebelled. He fired my dance teacher and took away all my devices. According to him, if I didn’t see what other people were doing online and on TV, I wouldn’t feel like I was missing out.

That was when I got mad. I stopped talking to him, starved myself for days, and threatened to end my life. It was dramatic, but it got the job done. He eventually conceded, and I know part of the reason he agreed is because he does business in New York and visits often. So, he might be miles away, but he feels he still has some control over my life.

Papa thinks me wanting to pursue classical dance as a career is just a passing phase, a hobby, something to occupy me before I’m eventually hitched to whoever he picks for me to marry. But I vowed to prove him wrong.

I vowed to be normal, and the thought of people seeing me as anything other than that makes me panic.

“Enough about your dad,” Lisa huffs before her lips spread into a mischievous smile. “Jack said he’ll be coming tonight. He hasn’t stopped talking about you since the other day.”

“You’re lying,” I say, but I feel my cheeks heating up.

“And you’re blushing,” Nicole laughs, and I’m glad at the change of topic. It was starting to get really tense here. “Did you see the way he looked at you in ethics class?”

I roll my eyes, but I’m smiling. The truth is, I had noticed and maybe even flirted back just a little.

We spend the next hour talking about boys and the party. Lisa won’t take my not coming lightly, even if it means they have to leave the party and come pick me up. When it starts getting late, they both hug me, promise they’ll save me a drink, and head out to go set up the venue. I linger by the door after they leave, staring out at the front porch and hoping Papa might change his mind and cancel dinner.

Unfortunately, I’m in no such luck, and my night is about to go to absolute shit.