Prologue I

PROLOGUE I

Francesca

“ I think you should wear the red one. You looked fantastic in red.”

Standing in front of the over-the-door mirror in the bedroom I shared with my older sister Kate, I held up the little crimson slip dress against my body, then traded it for a green one on the other hanger. And then switched them back again.

“Sure, red looks good,” I told Kate. “Just like it does on every other dark-haired Italian woman. Should I start singing ‘Mambo Italiano’? Or maybe talk like one of the Mario Brothers wherever I go? Eat nothing but spaghetti and meatballs?”

“Classic is different from cliché,” Kate replied from the other side of the door, where she was pawing through the meager options in our closet.

Her side mostly consisted of thrifted goods and vintage finds. My half was the wardrobe of a college student—nothing special, mostly knockoffs and fast fashion. The few dresses I owned were leftovers from high school dances and a few bits of cheap clubwear. Not that they had ever gotten much use. All four of my sisters and my older brother had called me a shut-in more than once. My friends said I cared more about books than having fun like a normal twenty-three-year-old.

Four weeks ago, they were right. Four weeks ago, I was still a virgin.

But that was before I met him.

I’d been with friends, enjoying a much-needed night out after finishing our midterm papers. I had a plan. Have a beer or two. Laugh at a few jokes, gossip, then go home for some much-needed sleep after a week of very late nights.

This plan did not involve a six-five, black-haired, devastatingly handsome British man named Xavier Sato. A half-Japanese aspiring chef looking for a job in the city, Xavier talked like Mr. Darcy, but looked more like a young John Wick. Seriously, you try staying a wallflower when the twin of a young Keanu Reeves starts chatting you up with an English accent.

And once those clothes were off…well, let’s just say he was singularly Xavier. No fictional hero would ever measure up again.

And so, while I was supposed to be studying and Xavier was supposed to be interviewing, we had instead spent the majority of the last twenty-some days in his hotel room. Naked.

“I can’t get enough of you,” he had murmured as his tongue tickled the crook of my neck just last night. “You’re a flavor I’ve never tasted. I must have more.”

It hadn’t mattered that no man had ever looked at me, mousy wallflower Frankie Zola, that way and there was no reason one should start now. Xavier’s azure eyes had seared over my body like a crazy blue flame, and I flew straight into the fire like a moth.

“There’s a reason why Sophia loved her red dresses,” Kate said as she emerged from the closet empty-handed.

I snorted. “I don’t look a thing like Sophia Loren. For one, I’m almost a foot shorter. And my tits are the size of apples, not melons.”

Sophia Loren, otherwise known as my very Italian grandmother’s favorite actress, was statuesque, buxom, and the definition of sex. At a few inches over five feet and the shortest of the six Zola kids, I was less statue, more doll. Admittedly, I’d developed a few more curves since high school, but my breasts were still small, my green eyes a bit too large for my face. My hair was the biggest thing about me, a thick, untamable mane of inky, almost black waves shared by the rest of my siblings.

“Look,” Kate said as she came to stand behind me. “It’s just like the dress Sophia wears in Scandal in Sorrento . The one where she dances around trying to make that guy jealous.”

I shook my head. “Old movies are Mattie’s obsession, not mine.”

“Please. Nonna ’s watched that film so many times she wore out the DVD. I know you remember that scene.”

That was true. We had all grown up with movies like that playing in the background.

“The dress is about the shoulders, not tits.” Kate tugged the straps outward so they were just off my shoulders, then gathered my hair and twisted it up. “Remember how Sophia shimmies and drives everyone wild? You’ll drive Xavier crazy too. Let him know for certain what he’s leaving behind when he goes back to Merry Old England.”

At the mention of exactly why I was looking for the perfect dress, I stiffened. After four perfect weeks, Xavier was leaving. Not permanently, he said, despite the fact that none of the positions he had applied for wanted to hire someone foreign. The obvious truth was that we lived in completely different countries. He was starting his life as a chef, and I was getting ready to begin graduate school. We were clearly traveling in different directions. For now, anyway.

The ping of my phone interrupted before I could reply. Kate grabbed it off my desk and started reading the message out loud.

“Hey!” I snapped. “Give me that.”

“‘Francesca,’” she intoned in an unnecessarily deep and truly terrible British accent. “‘I can’t wait to see you for my last night’—wait, wait, wait. This guy calls you Francesca ? Who is he, Father Deflorio?”

I rolled my eyes at the mention of our local priest. “Ew, no. And for the record, I happen to like it.” I grabbed my phone and read the rest of his brief message.

Xavier : Francesca, I can’t wait to see you for my last night. Promise me I’ll get the full 24 hours before I go.

“If it’s his last night, then you’re definitely wearing the dress. It’s on the house. Just tell everyone you got it from the shop.”

I glanced back at the mirror one last time. I definitely didn’t look like a shut-in now. And Kate was right. I’d never forget Xavier. I wanted to make sure he didn’t forget me either.

“Fine, fine. I’ll wear the damn dress.” I tapped out a quick response.

Me: I promise. In a fancy new dress too.

Then I flopped back onto my twin bed and sighed. “I can’t believe you’re abandoning me here with Nonna and the brats to sell used clothes.”

After five years of scrimping and saving, Kate was finally living her dream, buying a vintage clothing shop in Riverdale. She was the third of the five Zola kids to fly the coop since we had come to live with our grandparents as kids.

I was happy for her. I really was. But right now, I could only think of one thing. “How am I going to survive without you?”

“Same way you survived when Mattie and Lea went.” Kate sat down next to me and pushed her chin-length hair behind one ear. “It’s time, Fran. We all have to leave the nest eventually. Mattie joined the Marines, and look at him now. Big shot with the Brooklyn DA. Lea and Mike are happy running the garage and making a zillion babies. Now it’s my turn. I can’t live in my grandmother’s house forever.”

I sniffed. Was it really so bad here? Okay, so maybe the shabby Bronx row house wasn’t a Park Avenue mansion. And yeah, maybe it hadn’t been the same since Nonno died. More than ten years later, my grandmother was still in widows’ weeds. But it was still just a few blocks from the parish school where all of us had learned our letters, and from the bakeries and the fishmongers and market where everyone knew our names, even though we lived in a city of eight million.

I looked around at the smudged white walls, the battered wood furniture, and the faded lace bedspreads.

It was home. I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

Before I could say as much, we were interrupted by a scream across the hall.

“Marie! I swear, if you don’t give me back my phone, you’re gonna wish you were never born!”

Joni, the youngest at nineteen, engaging in her fourth battle today with Marie, who was only ten months older. When our parents got busy back then, they really got busy.

Kate and I both rolled our eyes.

“I can’t imagine why you would want to escape this sanctuary of peace and quiet,” I said as Marie threatened to tear Joni’s hair out by the roots.

The shouting descended down the stairs. My phone pinged again.

Xavier: You could wear a bin liner and still look good. But I can’t wait to see it. And peel it off.

Kate’s eyebrows practically touched the ceiling as she read the message over my shoulder. “Maybe you should finish school over there. I can’t really imagine any place would be better than England at producing English Literature scholars.”

“Oh my God, privacy !” I snapped as I turned away to hide my phone and my face.

I wasn’t going to tell my sister that for a hot minute, I had thought about changing everything for someone I had met weeks ago. I was halfway through a master’s in English Literature here at CUNY. This fall, I’d be applying for PhD programs all over the country, though the current plan was to attend Columbia or NYU if I could get in. I could slip Cambridge and Oxford in there, couldn’t I? After all, I had the grades. There were scholarships for the fourth daughter of six who lived with her grandmother, weren’t there?

But those plans I had? They didn’t involve crossing the Atlantic and losing more than a year of credits, not to mention family and friends. Unlike my mother and my grandmother, I was not going to change the trajectory of my life for a man. No way. No how.

“It’s just a fling, Katie,” I said. “I’ll enjoy it while it lasts, and then get back to work.”

“A fling who popped your cherry?” She tipped her head knowingly.

I sat up a little straighter, willing myself not to succumb to my sister’s X-ray gaze. She was the only one who knew about that.

“Well, fine,” she said at last. “A fling is good for you anyway. You’ve been the perfect Catholic middle child for way too long. Finish your degree, then it will be your turn to fly the coop. And by then, you’ll be ready.” With a squeeze of my shoulder, she stood up. “I’m going downstairs to grab some food. I’ll be up in a few to check your makeup.”

I nodded, then got up and went back to our shared vanity, which was strewn with mostly Kate’s makeup.

Ten minutes later, I’d done what I thought was a half-decent job at mimicking Sophia Loren’s signature cat-eye.

“Not bad, professor,” Kate said when she returned holding a bowl of pasta. “Did you use the Scotch tape trick I showed you?”

I turned from the vanity, still holding the tube of liquid liner. “I did. You’re right. It was pretty easy. I—” Before I could finish the sentence, nausea seized my throat. “Jesus. What are you eating?”

Kate frowned at her bowl. “Just last night’s Bolognese. Why? You want some?”

“ No . It smells like a pig died in that bowl. Oh, God .”

My stomach lurched. The black stilettos flew off as I sprinted out of the room and across the hall, barely making it to the bathroom in time to empty my stomach’s contents into the toilet.

Kate appeared in the doorway, looking concerned.

“Kate,” I breathed. “Get that thing out of here!”

She examined the offending pasta, then jogged it back downstairs to the kitchen. I retched again.

God. What was wrong with me? Two seconds ago I had been ready to fly across the city just to jump Xavier’s bones—unusual, even if he was the hottest thing I’d ever known. Now I was ready to curl up and die on the faded linoleum. The only time I’d ever heard of someone getting sick like this was when women were?—

I froze.

Oh, God. No. No no no no no . That wasn’t possible. Was it?

I did a quick count in my head. In the whirlwind of the last weeks, I’d completely forgotten something that should have arrived about a week ago.

Eight days, to be exact. And the only reason I knew that was because other than this moment, I had never, ever been late.

I pushed myself up from the floor and flushed away the evidence of my state. My skin was clammy as I brushed my teeth, and all the blood felt like it had drained from my head. But the nausea was gone.

For now.

“Oh, God,” I whispered, not sure if I was speaking to myself or the big man upstairs as I stumbled back to my room and plopped onto the bed again. “Oh, God. You have got to be kidding me.”

“What’s wrong?”

I sat up as Kate entered. One look at my face and she was on the bed in the less than a second.

“What’s the matter? Are you sick?”

I swallowed weakly. There was no hiding anything from my sisters. There was no point. Not in this house.

“I think—I think I’m pregnant,” I said in the smallest voice I could muster. “Oh my God, Katie. I’m pregnant.”

“Stop.” Kate set her hand over mine. She was preternaturally calm, though shock flared in the back of her cool green-eyed expression. “You don’t know anything yet. I’ll run to the bodega and get you a test. Don’t freak out before you know anything for sure.”

But I knew. Despite all the sense Kate was talking, I knew right then. I could feel my boobs getting sorer and bigger with every second, could sense my body slipping into a deep, intense fatigue. It was exactly like Sister Fatima, our high school health teacher, had told us it would be. Okay, yes, maybe it was too soon to be experiencing any of these symptoms. And sure, maybe I was imagining all of it, but I knew.

I was pregnant.

Then another thought occurred. “Xavier. Holy shit, Kate. He’s only known me a month. He’s going to freak!”

My sister bit her lip, clearly searching and struggling for some way to argue the point. Then her face relaxed. “Look, I’ve seen his messages. And besides that, I’ve seen your face every day since you met him. Fling or not, the man is crazy about you, Frankie.”

I swallowed. I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t wondered if there was more to this connection than sex. After all, a man who only wanted to screw you didn’t take you to the best restaurants in town, did he? He didn’t blow off all his meetings just to kiss you for an extra ten minutes. He didn’t tell you he loved you two days earlier in a haze of champagne and confirm it with a bouquet of lilies the next morning.

But he was leaving. And so, despite everything we’d said, I’d decided, in the end, it was just the throes of first…well, if not love, then lust. The inevitable attachment that came from losing my virginity to someone as perfect as Xavier Sato.

But maybe I was wrong.

“You’re right,” I said. “I’ll just be…I’ll be straight with him.”

“Silver lining?” Kate offered. “Maybe it’s not your last night together after all.”

I gave my sister a weak smile, then turned over to text Xavier. What, I didn’t know. Just…something. I needed a connection. Make sure I really would see him for a conversation that was bound to change both of our lives.

Apparently, he had the same idea. When I picked my phone off my pillow, an icon alerted me to an email from the man himself.

Email? Why hadn’t he just texted, like usual?

I pulled up the message. And immediately lost my breath.

“Frankie?” Kate asked. “Fran, what is it? What happened?”

Wordlessly, I handed her the phone. I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t speak at all.

Kate saved us both by reading the message out loud.

Francesca,

I’m so sorry to have to write to you this way.

I wasn’t completely honest with you when we met. My trip to New York wasn’t just for potential business. I was actually considering moving here permanently, something I wanted even more after meeting you.

Unfortunately, I just found out that my fiancée has been diagnosed with a brain tumor. I’m sure you can understand how impossible that makes it for me to break it off now. Regardless of what I might feel for you, I can’t do this to her. Or you.

For now, the restaurant is on hold while I support someone who genuinely needs me. I’m all she has. I can’t abandon her now.

I truly hope you have an amazing life, Francesca. I know I’ll always wonder.

—Xavier

“Fiancée? That son of a bitch.” Kate tossed the phone to the bed. “I’ll kill him. Well, more precisely, I’m going to call Mattie and he’ll kill him.”

“No, you’re not.” When I found my voice, it sounded like stone. “You’re not going to tell Mattie anything. Or anyone else. Not until I decide what I’m going to do.”

“And what’s that, Fran?” Kate asked, a little too sharply. “What are you going to do next with this two-timing asshole?”

I closed my eyes and focused on breathing. In. Out. In. Out.

Somewhere deep inside me, another being was going to have its first heartbeats. It was going to grow into a living, breathing person who would need more from me than I had ever thought I could give.

I knew myself. As terrified as I was, as worried, as completely blindsided, already I was attached to the baby growing inside me.

The popcorn texture of the ceiling blurred. But the crucifix on the wall next to the vanity still gleamed.

“The only thing I can do,” I said. “Let him go.”