The Domenico scandal

The Bet.

Chapter 1

POV: Mati

The ball rolled to my feet. I caught it and tossed it back. The little girl smiled at me. Her toothless grin made me smile back, though it was the hardest smile I had ever given a child.

“Grandpa, Grandpa!” she cried, running back to a man. He picked her up, smoothed down her shorts, and pulled her T-shirt over her back. I blinked. He should have been a monster. Or a drunk. Or at least a sociopath.

My body almost shrank inside my clothes as I tried to explain away why he hadn’t wanted me.

It was easier when I thought he didn’t want anyone—except he did.

He obviously did.

“Ice cream,” the girl said, and he turned, walking straight toward my bench. I stared at the ground, noticing I had chosen two different socks. Instinctively, I reached down and rolled the longer one to match.

He looked good. Composed, well-off, tender. Why did thinking of him as someone unworthy of my love make it easier to accept that he had never once come to ask about me? I clenched my jaw so tight it ached as the child chose vanilla with sprinkles.

Realizing that he knew how to love made me feel like the dirt on the soles of the world’s shoes. He set her down to pay the vendor, and she peeked up into my face. “Are you sad?”

I nodded.

“Here,” she said, offering her ice cream. “Lick it, but leave the sprinkles for me.”

His hand, wearing a gold ring, gently pulled the girl back as a stray dog tore into a flock of pigeons, scattering them into the sky.

He had lived his whole life in this same place.

His hands went around the child’s waist, lifting her into the air. “That’s enough. Mom will be worried. We should go home.”

Mom? Was Mom his wanted daughter, or was this child from his wanted son? Did I have a brother growing up so close, and I didn’t even know it?

Don’t look. Don’t look.

I whispered it to myself.

But I did.

Our eyes locked, and he knew it.

He knew who I was.

He simply chose not to love me.

That realization had sat like a lead weight in my chest all afternoon.

If I could take back the time, I would never have gone through Mom’s private things. But I needed the exact hour of my birth to make my horoscope chart, and now I wished I could turn back the clock and unsee the name on my birth certificate.

It would be easier to live a lie.

• • •

“Where are you going?” Mom watched me from the bathroom door.

“Out.”

She scanned the apartment in the Domenico house—the place we’d called home our whole lives—and that simple act already made me edgy.

Vid Domenico was like a brother to me. He gave me everything, but we were still workers here. It was not a real home. Mom never had a home of her own.

“With whom?”

“The girls.”

She cleared her throat.

“What girls?”

She knew all my school friends had gone off to college. I would follow in two months, after taking a year off, because Mom wasn’t ready to let me go.

“Natalia and Marija are taking me to a bar.”

She went quiet. “Those aren’t girls. They’re grown women.”

My eyes darted to the box she always kept on the upper shelf of her wardrobe. I was angry at her, even though I knew she’d lied to shield me from this very feeling now festering inside me. I put on my mascara, ignoring her.

“I said no.” She turned away to switch on the TV.

Her favorite telenovela was about to start, and she would fall asleep within ten minutes. I could measure the time by her snores. That’s how predictable she was.

That’s how our lives were going nowhere in this place.

The moment she dozed off, I grabbed the dress I planned to wear that night and snuck out. The damp night grass soaked my sandals as I sprinted the short distance to Natalia’s driveway.

I didn’t look the way I’d planned. Instead of full makeup, I wore heart-print baby-doll pajamas and a bare face.

“Look at you,” Natalia said, smiling as I threw myself into the passenger seat. “Your mom treats you like you’re thirteen.”

“She’s old-fashioned,” I said, struggling out of my pajama top in the dim light of the moving car and wriggling into my dress. “She lives in constant fear I’ll repeat the family tradition.”

“And what tradition is that?”

“A long line of single moms. I’m her chance to break it.”

Natalia gave me a flat smile as she drove to the club.

The bass hit my chest the second we walked in. Marija was already there, saving us a small table with three cocktails waiting. She moved to the music, swinging her hips. If you asked me, she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. As I took the first sip, she leaned over the little table.

“Three o’clock, at the bar.”

“Who? What?” Natalia whipped her head around, and Marija rolled her eyes. “Could you be any more obvious?”

I didn’t look. Not out of good manners, but because I had seen him the moment we stepped in.

I watched him now through the shifting bodies. While others threw back neon shots, he nursed a short glass of something that didn’t look like whiskey at all.

Every time he lifted his glass, the heavy muscles in his shoulders shifted beneath his shirt. I didn’t know when he had arrived at the Domenico estate, but one morning he had passed my table and tipped his hat.

It was the only exchange we’d ever had—which was to say, none at all.

There were things about him that didn’t fit. He dressed like a horse handler, but no horse handler walked into Vid’s private office and stayed for hours. And those eyes—as blue as a clear summer sky—made me feel dark, restless, and completely flushed inside.

“I don’t think he’s a worker,” Marija said. “Did you see his hands? And the way Vid treats him... It’s a little suspicious.”

“Don’t look at me.” I took a desperate gulp of my sweet drink. “Theresa keeps me far away from the corrals.”

“I’m going to say hello.” Marija pushed her bra up, and I tried not to stare.

“Why the long face, honey?” Natalia teased once we were alone. “He’ll send her back. Politely. She’s already tried—twice.”

Marija returned minutes later, grabbing a fresh drink. “The man is gay.”

I smirked.

“Saying no to you doesn’t make him gay. It might just mean you’re not his type.” She leaned closer. “I’m everyone’s type. He wants someone with a dick, trust me.”

I slurped the rest of my third cocktail, my blood buzzing with wild, reckless energy. “Maybe we should use you as a gay detector. We could cash in a lot.”

Marija stretched her hand across the table. “Challenge accepted?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Let it go.” Natalia swatted her hand away.

I stared at Marija’s offered palm. I had spent the entire afternoon feeling completely unchosen. Unwanted by the one man who was supposed to love me unconditionally. I needed, with sudden, toxic desperation, to prove I was worth someone’s attention. Even a dangerous stranger’s.

I placed my palm in hers. “Bet accepted,” I said, standing up. “What counts as a win?”

Her lips curled upward. “He has to fall for you. Buy you a drink, offer to spend the night. If his tongue doesn’t taste your tonsils, you lose.”

I was way past the point of backing out. I turned my back on the two women. My pulse began to pound harder than the heavy club bass in my chest as I started toward him. Halfway across the floor, he slowly lowered his glass, and those ice-blue eyes locked directly onto mine.

***

I just want to say-Hi :) I missed you all so much. And not just writing, but also reading all the lovely stories that were updated while I was gone.

We are starting something new. I hope it keeps your imagination alive and your heart racing. If it doesn’t, please let me know ;) And if it does, please press the heart button!

Many sunny hugs from Balkan.