Chapter 19

After swallowing my fear at his threat, I silently nodded.

I had to leave my fathers office quickly, before the staff noticed and figured out what had occurred. I slipped off the desk and almost fell before grabbing the edge of it. My knees were like jelly and my head spun.

The moment Matteo left, a chill had run over my body, goose bumps rising on my arms. He seemed to have taken all the warmth with him.

Damn that man.

My only saving grace was he was not here to see the aftereffects of the intense orgasm he had just given me. I doubted his male ego needed any additional stroking.

After taking a deep breath to steady myself, I wobbled over to my sister's high heels and forced my feet inside. While smoothing her dress over my hips, I pulled the zipper back up over my breasts and left the office.

As I stepped toward the door, I almost tripped over my panties on the floor. Doing my best to ignore the fiery blush that crossed my cheeks, I picked them up, crushed them tightly in my hand, and returned to my bedroom.

Id barely crossed the threshold when a deep chuckle filled the air.

Antonia was lounging on an upholstered chair near my bedroom window, my cello across her lap like a guitar. She strummed the strings, making a terrible screeching sound. "Did you have fun, dear sister?"

I ripped her dress over my head, hissing when the zipper caught in my hair, tearing out several strands. I tossed the offensive garment into my laundry basket and reached for a pair of black capris.

As I pulled them over my hips, I confronted her. "You told me you only saw him come into the house. You deliberately kept your scandalous conversation with him from me."

She stroked the strings again. "And you, dear sister, kept the fact that you tried to fuck my fiancé from me."

In two strides, I had crossed the room and torn my cello from her grasp. After placing it gently back on its stand, I went over to my closet to choose a black turtleneck. With my back turned to her, I said, "I didn't try to fuck him. The kiss took us both by surprise. It was barely a peck. He came to his senses and broke it off right away. He was just confused over the whole look-alike twin thing."

She snorted. "You wish you looked like me."

I looked exactly like her, but since I'd been taunted as being the uglier and more awkward sister by both her and my father for years, I stopped being hurt by it.

Pushing my head through the top, I shoved my arms into the sleeves and ignored her comment. "Besides, you've repeatedly said you don't want him as a fiancé," I continued. Brushing the hair out of my face, I then pulled it into a tight ponytail at my nape, cringing at the tangles and hairspray crunch from Antonia's mini me makeover. "Not that I do… or that it is an excuse or anything…"

She launched out of her chair, got in my face, and shoved at my shoulders. "God, Ella, you're nothing but a closet whore who likes to tischi-toschi."

"I do not like to tischi-toschi. The last thing I do is put on airs!"

I pushed her hands away and backed up, instinctively blocking her view of my beloved cello. I vividly remembered when she threw my previous cello out the window, demolishing it, after getting mad at me over something trivial. Father refused to pay for another one and wouldn't allow me to get a job to earn money to pay for one on my own, either. The old cello my mother had given me was smaller, intended for younger players, so I had to work in secret at the music school while playing on a borrowed subpar instrument for two years before I could afford to replace it with my current one.

"And what else did you call me?"

She placed her hands on her hips. "A closet whore. In public you tischi-toschi, and are nothing but ajudgmental prude, but secretly you're a fucking slut. At least I'm honest about who I am."

My mouth fell open at her harsh words even as my cheeks burned. Although I wouldn't call myself a judgmental prude, it was true my recent clandestine activities with Matteo were not exactly Christian.

I pointed a finger at her chest. "You're the one who came to me for help! You're the one who's insisting I pretend to be you! What did you think was going to happen if I went to Abruzzo for you?"

She snorted. "You're just jealous of how hot I am, because you could never get a man like Matteo Cavalieri to look twice at you."

I flattened my palm against my chest. "We are identical twins!"

"Don't remind me."

Inwardly, I fumed. She was missing my point. I moved over to the bed and fished out my ballet flats from under it. Shoving my feet inside them, I said, "You're lucky we are, or you'd be fucked. Father would have killed you for failing that blood test because you're pregnant. Did you know Matteo's paying him a million euros for this marriage?"

She lifted one shoulder. "Why not? I'm worth it."

What must it be like to be that confident? I wished I had inherited a fraction of her moxie in our mother's womb. "E cu è, Totò Termini?" I quipped back. "Don't you have a rather high opinion of yourself. Have you considered the consequences of marrying someone else without Fathers permission? What happens if he learns about the baby?"

She frowned. "How would he find out?"

I threw my arms up in frustration. "Because if I can't get out of going to Abruzzo to save your ass, eventually they are going to learn that I'm me and not you!"

"So? Matteo will get the poor man's version of me. At least you're still a Fichera daughter, if not the hot one."

My jaw hurt from how hard I clenched my teeth. "I'm not marrying Matteo Cavalieri for you, Toni. Besides, that's not what he or Father wants. There are reasons why they want you, not me."

Wow. Why did that hurt so much to say out loud?

"What reasons?"

I sighed. "If I had to guess, I'd start with the fact that everyone knows you're sleeping with Alessio, who is married and a top-ranking officer in Father's … business."

"So? That's nothing new."

"Obviously, something changed. They mentioned that horrible man who used to come to dinner, Salvatore, and his murder. Somehow Father and the Cavalieris are mixed up in it. I don't know the details. The point is, they want you out of Sicily and married off, not me."

She narrowed her eyes and lifted her upper lip in a sneer. "Why not? You two certainly seem to get along." She then raised an eyebrow. "In fact, he seemed extremely comfortable with the idea of bending me over Father's desk and spanking me … almost as if he'd done it before. He mentioned something about his boat?"

To cover my guilt, I marched over to my jewelry box and tore off her heavy Bottega Veneta gold-dropnecklace and replaced it with Mother's simple pearl strand. "It was cruel of you, Antonia, to set me up like that, knowing I was only trying to help you."

I took a deep breath and lied my ass off, which by the way was still sore from the belting Matteo had given me earlier. "It was only because he kept insisting that you leave for Abruzzo tonight that I got away from him and his… demands."

She snatched her gold necklace from off my bureau top. "I know."

I froze, feeling all the blood drain from my face. While clasping my shaking hands, I attempted to speak with a light voice. "You know?"

Sciatiri e matri!Was she eavesdropping outside the office? Did she hear my moans and all the dirty things Matteo said?

"Maria came upstairs and started packing my things. Father's orders."

Air rushed back into my lungs. "Well, don't worry. I bought us another week."

She snorted. "You mean you bought you another week. Remember your promise," she chanted in a twisted singsong as she sauntered out of the bedroom.

Three days had passedin a sickening rush.

In the meantime, I had broken the news to Antonia that I had to stay in Sicily. I had realized the only way to get the wedding called off was my original plan of getting Father arrested for Mother's disappearance and probable murder. In order to do that, I couldn't be halfway across the country in Abruzzo.

Fino was ignoring my calls and would only respond with increasingly threatening text messages about me going to spy on the Cavalieris for him. I resigned myself to finding a way around him to speak directly to Judge Marzio Delluci. Even if I had to camp conspicuously outside the Judge's office.

That there was no way I could even be in the same room as Matteo after what happened between us, let alone pretend to be his bride for a few weeks, had no bearing on my decision. Nope, no bearing at all.

I should have learned my lesson on the boat… and then in the gazebo… but now I'd definitely learned it. I was staying far, far away from the man.

So over the short time we had left together, I tried repeatedly to coach Toni on what to say to Matteo to get him to call off the wedding, or at the very least to postpone it for as long as possible. It was like talking to a wall.

She refused to even acknowledge she was leaving for the Cavalieri winery in two days.

I sat on the edge of her bed. "You seem very calm, considering you're about to be carted off as purchased property sold by Father."

She stood in front of me and gently pushed my ponytail back over my shoulder as she gave me a deceptively sweet smile. "Because I trust you will fix everything. Like you promised."

Oh hell.

Once again, I would have to go into the long, tedious explanation of why I couldn't go to Abruzzo. I swore, sometimes dealing with my twin was like dealing with a hyperactive toddler who just did a speedball of sugar.

"Listen, Toni. We've talked about this…"

"Hold on." She left the room and returned moments later with a bottle of red wine and two short glasses. "I don't want us to fight anymore. Let's share a drink first."

Reluctantly, I held both glasses as she poured.

She took one glass and held it up. "To my dear sister."

I raised mine. "Salute."

Alarm bells went off in my head the moment I saw her lower her glass without drinking.

The room spun, causing a wave of vertigo to hit me.

My eyes widened as the glass slipped from my numb fingers onto the floor. "Toni, what have you done?"