NineAudrina Bianchi To be completely honest, I had never really planned on going to the same school as Luca. In fact, even the three hours I was required by law to do as someone in the entertainment business, I hated. My career showed no signs of stopping and people threw around names like Tyra Banks, Heidi Klum, and Kate Moss when they compared me to other models. I was good enough I could make this a lifetime career if I really wanted. Or spin it off into something else if I tired of it. Then my bad girl phase happened, and it started with cocaine in my purse. When I didn’t even use the stuff. They found it when I was flying to Milan for a fashion show. I was arrested. I was put on trial. I had to plead guilty. Even though I told Marie and the cops it wasn’t mine, my PR team decided that was the best way to minimalize the damage the scandal had done. I also had to do community service for a year, which meant that I had to stay put. No fashion shows internationally. “Well
TenLuca Capaldi I forced Audrina to sleep in my bed with me. I knew the mansion had enough rooms that she could have had her own. Hell, Daniela hadn’t even lived there and we’d given her one when her mom had worked for us. But Audrina had spent enough time away from me. Now that she was back in my life, I wasn’t going to let her out of my sight even for a moment. When I woke up in the morning, I had my arms wrapped around her. She had slept fitfully during the night. That was understandable. I don’t think she planned on me forcing her to be my wife for real. Not when she had killed my father. The thing was, I couldn’t even bring myself to be sad about Pop. Giuseppe was a bastard who had used people for his own devices and didn’t care if they were family or not. Only about what they could give him. In a way, she had done me a favor. Now, I was the head of my father’s empire. I could make the changes I wanted to that he had never done. I would do everything with her by my side. I
ElevenAudrina Bianchi I had grown up with people looking at me. I was used to it. I was a super model, it was my job to be looked at. This morning though, it was different. This morning, people weren’t just looking at me, they were looking at my husband also. Even I had to admit, I didn’t blame them. Luca Capaldi’s body was finely sculpted from years of sports. Swimming. Judo. His blond hair aristocratic features made him look like a prince. Only I knew the truth. There was nothing Princely about him. Princes assain, maybe. “Aren’t you going to eat?” Luca asked as he took a bite of the waffles that he’d gotten. I frowned at him, then took a drink of my mimosa. “How can you be so casual about all of this?” “About all of what?” he said. “It’s brunch. I remember when we were teenagers, you told me that if you could spend eternity at brunch, you would. Because you could have dessert for breakfast and no one got upset if you got drunk early in the morning and it lasted until noon
Twelve Luca Capaldi Detective Wallace Wilkins had worked as my family’s private investigator for as far back as I could remember. Giuseppe had had him on retainer. I intended to keep him as such. He was good at finding out information that I needed. He was an older man, with a bald head, a round nose, and always wore a black suit with a black fedora. Even when he was inside a fancy restaurant, like we were now. “Luca,” he said. I stood up, and took his hand, patting him on the back. “Good to see you, Wilkins. You remember my wife?” I gestured to Audrina. Audrina stood up and shook his hand. “Hello, Detective. It’s nice to see you again.” Wilkins looked Audrina up and down. It was an appraising glance, the kind that he might give any new person that he had just met. But somehow, the idea of Wilkins looking at Audrina made my fists clench together. Audriana Bianchi was fucking mine. The three of us sat back down at the table. “So, surprised that the two of you finally took
Thirteen Audrina Bianchi It was surprisingly easy to become friends with Daniela. She was a loner, and since Niccolo had a stern grip on the school, no one dared to even try to be friends with her. They knew that doing that would go against him. And since he was one of the richest boys in school, no one wanted to do that. Daniela spent most of her time at school when she wasn’t in class hiding out in the library. The other girls hadn’t been welcoming when I’d showed up at the academy. They’d thought because I was a model that somehow meant that I was a threat to them and their boyfriends. After my first week of being there, I found my locker spray painted with the words COKE WHORE. I took that to mean I wasn’t going to be invited to any sleepovers anytime soon. So, one day when I found Daniela sitting in the library, I went to go hang out with her. “Hi.” She’d been midway through chewing her sandwich and looked up at me, stunned. Swallowing, she said, “Oh. Um. Hi. You’re Audr
Fourteen Luca Capaldi Swim team wasn’t exactly known for it’s glory. Most of the time, girls preferred watching football players practice instead of us. The main reason I was allowed to be on it was that Giuseppe saw swimming as a skill. He saw football as a game. It was also one of the few reasons he would allow me to skip going with him to any “meetings” he had. In the water, I wasn’t the heir to a dynasty built on bullets and bloodshed. In the water, I could forget about all of the responsibilities and strings that came with this privileged life. Practice for swim team was Wednesdays and Thursdays, and then the rest of the week the pool stayed open after hours for any students that wanted to use it to train harder. The pool was my safeplace. I could ignore my future there. Ignore the way my brother was an asshole to the girl who was probably the closest thing I had to a best friend. Ignore the way that Daniela looked like she was breaking on the inside most of the time because
FifteenAudrina Bianchi “Where are you going?” Marie Bianchi asked. It was Friday, and I had managed to arrange a club outing for Daniela. Luca and Niccolo would be there, and so would Louis. I was wearing a silver, Valentino dress, with a matching pair of strappy, silver high heels. “I’m going out.” Marie Bianchi was a tall, dark haired woman woman in her forties whose plastic surgery had been paid for by the work I did as a model. “Do you actually care?” I asked. If she were the kind of parent that gave a crap, she would have. Especially since I had been arrested for having drugs in my purse and that was the whole reason we were in Boston in the first place. She was sitting on the couch in the living room of our loft, flipping through a magazine, not even looking up from it to talk to me. “No. But I received a call from Andre this afternoon. He’s very upset that he hasn’t seen you recently. And you know, he is footing the bill for this place.” At this, she looked up from
SixteenLuca Capaldi We finished our breakfast with Wilkins, and then I took Audrina to the Prudential Center. It was a large, shopping mall filled with designer stores with everything from Dior to Kate Spade. “What are we doing here?” Audrina asked. “You know I can just have my stuff shipped from my home.” I laughed. “You’d have to go back to New York to do that. I’m not letting you out of my eyesight now that I’ve got you. Besides, since the public knows that we’re married now, there’s something important that the two of us need to do.” Audrina groaned. “Please don’t tell me that you want to have a vow renewal ceremony or something. The wedding in Vegas was enough. I don’t want to live through that experience again.” I kept my face neutral. Audrina was the kind of girl that loved to put on a show. When we were younger, we’d gotten married as a spur of the moment thing to keep her safe from Andre. Now, we were adults, with money of our own. Not that we’d ever been poor. We’d