1. ISABELLA

Chapter 1

ISABELLA

I pace the polished wooden floor of the living room in the house where I grew up. When I was younger, I used to think of it as home, but as I grew up, it started to feel more and more like an opulent prison.

Prison Moretti was placed strategically on the banks of the Charles River in Commonwealth Avenue, Back Bay, Boston.

Prison inmates—one. Obviously, a very dangerous one who is also a great flight risk. Hence the top-of-the-line hi-tech security, which consists of ten guards disguised in various forms of grounds workers.

Then there's the bodyguard disguised as my cousin and a spy disguised as the housekeeper. Keep the prisoner princess in check and in sight at all times.

I stop my pacing for a few seconds with an exaggerated sigh and glance down the hall to where my father, the head prison guard, Marco Moretti's home office is.

The door is still closed, which means my darling father is late as usual to take me to lunch because of his one-hour conference call.

My stomach growls, demanding its lunch as I missed breakfast. I couldn't eat, being a bundle of nerves over my big decision—today's the day I, Isabella Moretti, will stand up to my father.

I am going to take charge of my life. I'm going to look my father in the eyes and say— This is my twenty-first, and I'm going to celebrate it my way.

Oh fuck! I blow out a nervous breath and shake my hands out like a gymnast about to start a complex routine. I think I wasn't even that nervous when I was about to start a complex routine at the state championships in my final year of competing.

Probably because I knew I wouldn't fuck that up as much as I'm going to fuck up trying to talk to my father.

Shit, I think climbing a rugged rock face is less complicated than going face-to-face with Marco Moretti and telling him that after my stuffy twenty-first yawn fest of a lawn party, Stacy and I are heading to Vegas.

There, I'm going to get blind drunk, gamble away a small fortune, take in a show, and maybe try my hand at stand-up comedy or singing.

Then I'm going to fuck the first beautiful man I find attractive. Which hopefully will be Stacy's older brother, Harry, who I hope she can talk into coming with us.

Ah…Handsome Harry…just thinking about him makes me wet and achy down below. Even when I think about his name, I can feel his lips on mine and his hands sliding all over my body.

Head shake and deep breaths! This is not the time to zone out and go back into fantasyland about mine and Harry's sexy encounter in his parent's pool last year.

I don't have time to play with my pre-birthday toy, which my best friend Stacy gave me this morning when she came over to provide me with a final confidence boost to face my father about my twenty-first this Saturday. My heart skips a beat every time I think about my birthday in three days.

This brings my nervous thoughts back to what I have to do today and what I'm about to tell my dear old dad. My dear old formidable dad, while pushing sixty, is still extremely handsome, and probably more muscular and fitter than most men in their forties.

While I can basically get him to do or buy me what I want, he has never budged at giving me my complete freedom. Nope, I have to wait until I've finished my studies at age twenty-five.

No distractions, Princess. Remember, staying focused keeps you on track, ahead, and in some cases, alive! I only want what's best for you, Princess, and trust me, this is what's best.

Well, I want to stay focused only on something other than my current life for a change. Like having a good time in Vegas and maybe putting an end to my being the only twenty-one-year-old virgin in the state of Massachusetts.

I'm almost twenty-one; I'm sure I know what's best for me, and that's not a fucking yawn-fest lawn party. Jesus Christ, I may as well have a bouncy house, clowns, and pony rides.

Oh! Wait, those are actually on the list for all the cousins, kids, and kids of kids. Why the fuck are Italian families so big? The last time I looked at the guest list for my party on Saturday, almost a hundred people were coming, with still another fifty to RSVP.

I hope my father got a good few ponies because of those hundred people, at least twenty were kids. Kids at my twenty-first mid-afternoon birthday party, complete with a champagne fountain and a quartet.

Stacy's twenty-first was four months ago, and it was awesome. Well, what I was allowed to see was awesome. As the male strippers got there, I was yanked away by my lumbering six-foot-three shadow, James, and dragged back home.

I later escaped and bumped into Harry, who pulled me into a quiet corner to finish what we'd begun a few months before that. But that silly snitch, Lilly, who's had the hots for Harry forever, told James where to find me, and this time, I got locked in prison Moretti, having to fill in the blanks of our encounter with my imagination.

Since my prison break from Prison Moretti on Stacy's birthday, my father has doubled down on the watchful eyes that surround me. I can't go anywhere without a chaperone. It's like I'm living in the goddamn eighteen-hundreds.

I've never even driven a car, although I have a license, and I've never been to a campus party, even though I've been at college for three years.

I find I'm pacing again, knowing that our housekeeper, Genevra, is probably tapping her foot somewhere at me, wearing down the shine on her secret weapons. The floor death traps are suitable for sock sliding but not for trying to run away or chase someone.

Genevra's highly polished floors have slowed me down and tripped me up many times in my life I swear she does it on purpose in case I try and escape—as if I'd go through the fucking front door if I did.

Another sigh escapes my lips as I glance at the ornate clock on the mantle. My father is now nearly twenty minutes late, and I'm starved.

"What the fuck is taking so long?" I mutter, frustration tinging my voice, and my stomach gives another growl, this time making sure I feel the hunger pangs mingling with my anger, making me hangry.

I know better than to stomp on Genevra's shiny floor, especially in my heels. I wouldn't do my stomping any justice in this tight pencil skirt anyway.

Sashaying my way to my father's office, I notice his door is slightly ajar, and the room is quiet. I take a little peek inside and see James sitting there within.

So that's where my oversized shadow's been for the past hour and a bit. James was chatting and scheming with Daddy dearest. I'm about to walk into the office when a man's voice, which I don't recognize, fills the room, making me freeze.

While I know better than to listen to my father's super secret meetings with his clients, today I want to know what sleaze bag he's defending that has delayed my lunchtime date with my father.

"I've held up my end of the deal," I hear the mystery voice say.

He doesn't sound like a criminal or someone who would want to make Marco's daughter starve because he's dragged out the meeting, having probably shot someone and then bathed them in acid.

What is my father going to plea for that—a skin peel gone wrong?

Oh, the joys of being the daughter of a highly sought-after criminal defense attorney who's probably got every mob boss on his client roster. It's also the reason I drive everywhere in a bulletproof car and live in a heavily guarded house.

Well, part of the reason, anyway. The other part is where my father still thinks I'm ten and going to be snatched off the streets by some criminal.

I step a little closer, making sure not to be heard, and stick my ear toward the opening of the door.

"I suggest we meet in the morning before the party to finalize the details and make sure all the paperwork is in order," my father's business associate answers something James asked that I couldn't quite hear as I wedged myself into my eavesdropping position. "Then announce the engagement near the end of it."

"I agree," my father adds. "That will make the wedding happen six months to the day after Saturday."

Is James getting married? I push my glasses back up my nose as my frown dislodges them slightly. I didn't think he was dating anyone recently.

Maybe he had a one-night stand and got the woman pregnant? But if that were the case, surely they wouldn't wait six months? The woman's baby bump would be showing by then.

Now I'm feeling guilty for eavesdropping. Obviously James didn't want anyone to know that he dipped his unprotected wick into a woman with an overprotective daddy. It's really going to be awkward enough trying to pretend I don't know.

So, the less I hear, the better. I'm about to turn away when James's following words catch me.

"Do you want me to tell her?" James's voice is edgier than usual. "I have to say this again because I'm the one that's going to have to deal with the consequences. But you never should've kept this from either of them."

"It was in our contract," the mystery voice on the other end tells James. "They couldn't know until this year."

I know what they say about eavesdropping, but tiny little pinpricks have started injecting my nerve endings with warning signals, and my feet won't move as I lean in closer.

"I know this is going to put more strain on you, James." My father's voice has softened slightly. I know that tone well. It's his soothing voice that's like a balm before it hits the open wound and burns like crap. "But we'll announce Isabella's engagement to Ivan's son on Saturday just after the final toasts in the late afternoon."

I shove my hand to my mouth to stifle the gasp stuck in my throat as my heart starts to pound in my chest so hard I'm afraid that my father can hear it.

I bite the inside of my mouth to make sure I'm not dreaming, and in my distress, bite a little hard. The pain and metallic taste of blood in my mouth let me know I'm not dreaming. I just heard my father announce my engagement.

"And what about the most important part?" my faceless future-father-in-law asks.

"I can assure you, my daughter is still a virgin."

What the fuck! I scream in my head. Well, I hope I screamed it in my head because now a whooshing sound is filling my ears like I've been submerged in water.

"I can verify that," James adds.

Now I understand why James or Genevra always insisted on coming with me to my gyne checkups. They were probably making sure that I was still chaste. Fuck me.

I'm living in the eighteen hundreds. What's next? Are they going to hang my blood-stained sheets out the window on my wedding night?

My stomach churns, hunger forgotten and replaced by a wave of nausea while I feel my world tilt on its axis. I have to get away from here. I step back and almost slip on the death floors from hell before I quickly slip my pumps off my feet with shaky hands.

I freeze when, through the crack, I see James's head tilt as if listening for something. I wish it were the stinging slap of my hand against the traitorous fuck-wit's earhole.

I wait, holding my breath and praying that my pounding heartbeat, which sounds like war drums, can't be heard by James's incredibly sharp ears.

I see James relax before I finally get to put my almost twenty-one years of survival skills my father drummed into me nearly every day of my life to good use as I stealthily slip away.

As I climb the sweeping stairs to my bedroom, I feel myself going numb, and the air around me grows heavy, making it hard to breathe as it squeezes in on me.

When I'm finally in the haven that is my bedroom, I lean against my bedroom door and slide to the floor, not caring about the ripping noise my tight skirt makes as I raise my knees to my chin.

I don't give a shit about a ripped skirt when my life and heart have just been torn apart—I'm steel reeling from the news that I've been betrothed to someone since I was three years old!