After I Could Hear the Don's Thoughts

The day I learned the family's secretary had been Richard's mistress for three years, I called off the wedding without a second thought. Heartsick, I took a family flight and moved out to the West Coast, only to walked straight into an ambush. When they had me surrounded, Richard appeared out of nowhere and threw himself in front of the bullet meant for me. He ordered his most trusted guards to keep me alive, whatever it cost. Dying, he stared deep into my eyes. "Elise, I have no right to ask your forgiveness. Just live. Live well, and let me love you properly in the next." The sea ran high and wild that day, and they never found his body. By the time the rescue boat pulled me out of the water, I had already cried myself hoarse. After that I lived to eighty, carrying the guilt of him every single day. Then I opened my eyes again and found myself back, before he had ever betrayed me. This time, before I could even speak, he fired Charlotte right in front of me. Apart from family business, his greatest interest was cooking dinner for me. Everyone marveled at it. The Don himself, Richard, loved Elise nearly to the point of madness. And then, the night before our wedding, I heard his thoughts. [I'm finally about to have Elise.] [This time I can't let her find out Charlotte exists.] Chapter 1 Now Richard was down on one knee, choosing my wedding shoes for me himself. His fingers traced lazy circles over my ankle. [Elise's calves are still a little thick, and it makes her ankles look heavy too.] I froze. I thought I’d imagined it, and then he went on. [Charlotte's legs are so much better. Long, straight, that soft pale skin. I could touch them forever and never get bored.] My whole body went tight on instinct, and the scene from my past life, the moment I caught them, rose up in front of my eyes again. My trip had ended early. I came back to the Marlowe estate and heard the kind of laughter coming from the study that no one should ever hear. Through the gap in the door, I saw Charlotte wearing nothing but a pair of black stockings, perched on the huge black-walnut desk. Richard had her leg in his hands and was kissing his way up from her toes, slow. My stomach turned, and I clenched my jaw shut. "Elise? What's wrong?" Richard had noticed something was off. He patted the top of my foot and asked, all tenderness. I yanked my foot back sharply. The skin where he had touched me had gone to gooseflesh. "What is it? You don't like these shoes?" I fought to stay calm. "No. I just felt cold all of a sudden." As I spoke, I stole a glance at him. His face was perfectly composed, without a flicker of panic. "If you're not feeling well, we'll stop." He turned to the clerk. "Send everything she tried on today to the Marlowe estate." Then he stood, slipped off his jacket, and draped it gently over my shoulders. It carried a thread of sweet, cloying musk, the perfume Charlotte always wore. I frowned. "Have you been in contact with Charlotte lately?" He went still, and disgust surfaced on his face at once. "A woman who cares that much about money is never loyal. I already fired her. Don't worry about it." He gripped my hand, the words coming fast. "Where she goes from here, I don't know and I don't care!" "Relax. She could strip naked in front of me and I wouldn't blink." In this life, Richard really had cut Charlotte off early. At the club, in front of everyone, he had humiliated her, calling her a useless parasite who collected a paycheck and did nothing. Then he fired her on the spot. Charlotte argued back, frantic, and knocked over a wine bottle at the edge of the table, and a shard of glass caught my shin. Richard was so angry he drew his gun then and there and pressed it under her chin, telling her she would pay for that with her life. "How many lives do you have to dare hurt my Donna?" he snarled. In the end I was the one who didn't want a scene, so I told him to let her go. He holstered the gun, reluctant, and warned her. "I'll keep this bullet just for you. If I ever lay eyes on you again, I’ll put it straight in you." He looked like he hated her even more than I did. Richard's voice cut into my memory. "You're fine. Why bring her up out of nowhere?" I stared into his eyes. There was a flicker of unease in them, almost too small to catch. I was about to speak when I heard it again. [Did she figure something out? No. I showered twice before I came to see her, so there shouldn't be any scent left.] [Don't spook yourself. I've been so careful this time, and she can't have noticed.] [After tomorrow, after the wedding, Elise becomes my Donna for good.] His mouth stayed pressed shut the whole time, and at last I understood. That was what he truly thought deep down. Chapter 2 I stared hard at Richard's face. He worked to keep his expression natural, his eyes brimming with devotion. In my last life, when he lay in the seawater, his face had gone white, but his eyes were still frighteningly bright. They shone like the stars over us that night. "Live. Live for me too." "I love you, Elise." I had remembered those words my whole life, and I had wanted to spend this life repaying what he had given me. And all he wanted was to deceive me one more time. He didn't regret cheating. He only regretted not being careful enough. Maybe he believed he loved me, yet he loved Charlotte too. But to me, Richard—love could not be real if it was not exclusive. I gave a cold smile. "Nothing. I was just thinking about the wedding. Did you invite her?" "Are you serious?" Richard shook his head like he had heard a great joke. "I could invite all of New York and never get to her." He slid an arm around my waist. "Every Don of New York's Five Families is coming to our wedding in person." "It isn't only a wedding. It's your coronation as Donna of the Marlowe family." The words were romantic, but his thoughts gave him away. [Last time, when I put on that show and fired Charlotte in public, she threw a fit.] [That night I snuck out to see her and booked out an entire amusement park just to win her back.] [Tomorrow I get married, so she'll be even angrier. I had better figure out how to smooth it over in advance.] As if to reassure himself, he said it again. "Let's not talk about Charlotte. Bad luck." I knocked his hand away and held his eyes. The knitted brow, the lips pressed into a flat line, the look of pure disgust. Beautiful performance, Richard. If I hadn't heard his thoughts, I would have believed every bit of it. The night Charlotte cut me, Richard made an excuse about going down to the docks himself to meet an arms shipment, and I went to the hospital alone. I got through the stitches, the ointment, the bandages, all of it, by myself. And the whole time, Richard was at an amusement park playing fairy-tale prince for Charlotte. My nails dug bloody half-moons into my palm. I looked at that hardworking, performing face and asked softly, "Why do you hate Charlotte so much?" "She's not Sicilian." He answered instantly, like he had memorized it. "Shallow, stupid, not an ounce of honor in her." "Is that all? No other reason?" I took a step back and smiled coldly. "Did you forget she got your father killed?" Chapter 3 Richard's fists clenched hard. He shut his eyes in pain, and I couldn't help going back to five years ago. Richard's father was the former Don of the Marlowe family, Vincent Marlowe. He had a lot of enemies, and he was careful every time he went out. The night it happened, he had gone to the club where Charlotte worked as a bartender. At Richard's request, he gave Charlotte a ride home on his way out. What Vincent didn't know was that Charlotte, for a hundred-dollar tip, had let slip that he would be driving her home. His enemies set the ambush perfectly, and he took seven bullets. Charlotte spent the whole thing screaming with her arms over her head, and never thought to call for help. By the time Richard and I got there, Vincent had already bled out. Charlotte threw herself into Richard's arms. "It was horrible, they shot at me, it was so horrible." Start to finish, she never said one word about Vincent. Richard pushed her off, dropped to his knees beside Vincent, and coughed up a mouthful of blood. Vincent had been his father, his mentor, and the most important pillar of his life. He clung to me and wept like a wounded animal. "Elise, you're the only family I have left now." Richard fell apart. For a solid month he was like a man without a soul. He didn't speak, he didn't eat, he only stared at nothing. I was the one who took care of him, day and night. I was the one who fed him, one spoonful at a time. I was the one who gave the orders in his name and kept the family running. I carried him across that sea of despair on my back, straining to lift him up onto the shore. Richard's dry voice broke into my thoughts. "How could I forget? Forgetting is the only real betrayal!" He gritted his teeth and hissed. "That idiot Charlotte. I'd kill her with my own hands if I could." "If you hadn't stayed with me back then—" He took my hand, eyes reddening. "I never would have made it through." And then his thoughts killed the last bit of feeling I had left. [It was so long ago. Charlotte was only nineteen, and she had no idea the man tipping her was one of my father's enemies.] [She blamed herself so much she tried to take her own life, and her wrist still carries the scar.] [How can Elise be this vicious? Why is she still holding on to something from this long ago?] [Nothing can change that my father is dead. But I'm going to protect Charlotte's future.] Cold shot from my feet straight to the crown of my head. So all of it had been an act. He gritted out those vicious words while inside he ached for poor wronged Charlotte. I had used everything I had to lift him up, and the moment he found his feet he turned around to pity Charlotte's tears. "Elise." He reached for my face. "I wish my father were still alive to see us marry." I pulled away, and my eyes happened to fall on the ring finger of his left hand. Heat surged behind my eyes until they nearly burst. That wasn't our wedding ring. Ours was one he had designed himself. The crest of the Marlowe family, engraved with our initials, "R and E." He had said only the Don and Donna of the Marlowe family were worthy of wearing it. The ring on his hand now was the exact same design, but the letters cut into it read "R and C." C for Charlotte.