A Facade to Shatter(4)

She turned to go back into the ballroom, though she’d rather be anywhere else, and caught a glimpse of her reflection in one of the full-length mirrors lining the corridor. Revulsion shuddered through her.

No wonder he’d wanted to get away.

She was a whale. A giant pink whale bursting at the seams. She’d been so excited when she’d been asked to be a bridesmaid. She’d finally thought she might be accepted by the sleek, beautiful Corretti family, but instead she’d been forced into a blazing pink dress at least two sizes too small for her bust. Carmela Corretti had laughed when she’d walked out of the fitting room, but she’d promised to have the dress fixed.

She hadn’t, of course.

Lia’s grandmother was the only one who’d seemed to sympathize. When Lia put the dress on today, despair and humiliation rolling through her in giant waves, her grandmother had hugged her tight and told her she was beautiful.

Tears pricked Lia’s eyes. Teresa Corretti was the only one in the family who had ever been kind to her. Her grandfather hadn’t been unkind, precisely, but he’d always frightened her. She still couldn’t believe he was gone. He’d loomed so large in her life that she’d started to think him immortal. He’d been intense, driven, the kind of man no one crossed. But now he was dead, and the family wasn’t any closer than they’d ever been. Not only that, but Lia wasn’t certain that her cousin Alessandro wasn’t to be more feared as the new head of the family.

Lia screwed up her courage and reentered the ballroom. A glance at her watch told her she’d put in enough time to call it an evening. She was going to find her grandmother and tell her she was leaving. No one would care that she was gone anyway.

The music pumped and thumped as it had before, and the crowd surged. But then another sound lifted over the din. It took Lia a minute to realize it was Carmela, shrieking drunkenly.

Lia despised her late uncle’s wife, but thankfully she hardly ever had to be around the woman. She didn’t care what Carmela’s problem was tonight. She just wanted to go back to her room and get out of this awful dress. She’d curl up with a book or something inane on television and try to forget the humiliations of the day.

But, before she could find her grandmother, the music suddenly died and the crowd parted as if Moses himself were standing there.

Everyone turned to look at Lia. She shrank instinctively under the scrutiny, her heart pounding. Was this yet another ploy of Carmela’s to embarrass her? Did she really have to endure another scene? What had she ever done to the woman?

But it wasn’t Carmela who caught her attention. It was Rosa. Carmela’s daughter stood there, her face pale, her eyes fixed on her mother’s face.

“That’s right,” Carmela said gleefully, her voice rising over the sudden silence of the gathered crowd, “Benito Corretti is your father, not Carlo! That one is your sister,” she spat, pointing a red-tipped finger at Lia as if she were a particularly loathsome bug. “Be thankful you did not turn out like her. She’s useless—fat and mousy and weak!”

Rosa looked stricken. Lia’s heart stuttered in her chest. She had a sister? She wasn’t close with her three half-brothers. She wasn’t close with anyone. But a sister?

She’d never had anyone, not really. She’d often longed for a sister, someone she might get to know in a way she couldn’t get to know brothers. Her three half-brothers had one another. Plus they were men. A sister, however—that felt different somehow.

A surge of hope flooded her then. Perhaps she wasn’t really alone in this family, after all. She had a sister.

A sister who was every bit as lost at this moment as Lia had been her entire life. She could see it on Rosa’s face, and she wanted to help. It was the one thing she had to offer that she knew was valuable. But suddenly, Rosa was storming away from Carmela, coming across the room straight for Lia. She reached out instinctively to comfort her when she came near. But Rosa didn’t stop. The look she gave Lia could have frozen lava. Lia’s heart cracked as Rosa shoved her hands away with a growled, “Don’t!”

A throb of pain ricocheted through her chest where her heart had been. Rejection was nothing new to her, but the freshness of it in the face of her hope was almost too much. She stood there for long moments after Rosa had gone, aware of the eyes upon her.

Aware of the pity.

Soon, before she could think of a single pithy remark, the crowd turned away, their attention waning. Self-loathing flooded her. No wonder Rosa hadn’t wanted her comfort. She was so pitiful. So naive.