Playboy Billionaire

STELLA

It’s rather erroneous, the amount my family spends. Money, time, energy— all so I will have a legacy to uphold. I hated it growing up. My equally rich friends, but unequally famous compared to the shadow-life I have to live.Self-preservation, my father called it. After the Luciano clan took over our reign of New York, my life spun on its head, and I’ve been even more confined since. Out of control of my own life.

I used to be envious of the brighter sheen of glamor in my friends' worlds, known for their careers in the entertainment industry— models, actors, musicians. I could never have that life, even if I aspired to it.

Being a mafia child is far less exciting— strange, I know. You’d think guns in every inch of your house, mysterious guests coming and going, and a deeply distorted version of reality because of your sickening amount of wealth would be enough to keep a girl on her toes. But if anything, it makes me even more desperate to flee from it.

That’s why sitting in Harvest— a fine dining restaurant on the bay near Harvard University— waiting for the son of the most predominant gang family in the world gives me no tingles of excitement whatsoever. I know why I’m here. To form an alliance with Antonio San Giovanni. It’s a business deal. One that ensures we can take back New York from the Luciano clan.

“The power his family possesses is truly unmatched, so to be in their good graces is an honor,” my mother had said, smiling at me before I left Malibu for Massachusetts. (Even saying that sounds horribly underwhelming.)

“Your father would have been so proud,” she’d added for good measure, as if it would really sell this whole marriage idea to me. It’s so archaic and manipulative of her to use my deceased father as a selling point for the entire jig. It’s not like they actually think I’m going to fall in love with him anyway. My heart’s already sold to Gucci and Chanel, not men and mafia drama.

I check the time and watch a waiter pass me by, after taking a side-eye at my two-person table only occupied by one. Should I have expected him to be on time? I would have left after fifteen minutes of this from anyone else. I have standards. But this is different, so maybe that’s why I’m still here, taking the brunt of embarrassment that’s mostly self-invoked because a woman can eat alone if she so pleases.

He probably wouldn’t even recognize me, but I remember him from my childhood quite well. He ran on his own time-clock then, too. Our parents were sort of business friends who brought us along to the occasional vacation or dinner parties. Usually, the getaways were because we needed to go into hiding for a time, let things settle at our home bases. I didn’t realize it until I was much older, but what kid should have to think like that?

He’s grown since then, apparently into even more of an ass than I remember him. Knowing this, knowing who he is, his reputation as a party-boy, serial romantic, with a need to always be the center of attention— makes me hope he remembers me too. If he does, perhaps he’ll actually show. Though my mother and grandmother have tried their very best to keep me out of the public eye, I’m plastered on magazines and Daily Mail articles because,guilty by association.

Famous friends plus mysterious, rich, suspected mafia daughter— you do the math. I can’t help that the cameras follow. It’s recent, my rise to “fame,” but moving to Malibu didn’t help in their attempts to hide me. I go out just like anyone else now, and that’s the way I’ve always wanted it. I like my freedom and independence— revel in it. It’s probably because what control I do have is very little,with security around every corner surrounding me like I’m the fucking president or something.

Though Gran was initially upset about my being photographed, the family as a whole now feels it could actually help send a message if I fraternize with a San Giovanni.

That brings me to the next reason I’m currently sitting here forty-five minutes later, fighting with my spoon until it’s perfectly aligned to my knife and ignoring the self-respecting screaming in my head to get up and leave already. As a deal that began with shouting and ended in tears, I won’t be allowed to leave our mansion ever again if I don’t start to at least date Antonio. Not seeing my friends or attending social events, not even stopping by the Promenade to shop at Gucci with Iris Woods (stunning model and bestie-since-kindergarten). But I know they want to see our unity end up and begin with marriage.

It’s probably best I leave all of this information out when he comes— if he comes. The less desperate he thinks I am, the better. I know how to flirt, so this should be a piece of cake (not sure why I used cake as my metaphor. I’m strictly sugar-free). At least, until he gets bored with me.

The next fifteen minutes go by, and the waitress is asking me for my order like I haven’t been waiting this whole fucking time for the second person on the reservation. She’s smiling at me, sadness in her eyes that infuriates me to the point of aggression because I don’t need anybody feeling sad for me. I grit my teeth and grab my crushed pearl Chanel clutch, standing in my custom Miu Miu heels that cost more than this woman’s life and walk out the door without a single word.

Shit. What have I done?

As I cross to the car, security jogging after me, I feel my life slipping through my fingers. The last bit of control I have that I worked so hard to gain, waving goodbye to me with little resistance. I can’t hold on to it any more than I can regain it.

I wonder what the papers will say. “Stella Lombardi, Missing In Action,” “Gone Girl?” or, “Sources say she’s no longer on speaking terms with the infamous group that set her name in lights in the first place.”

So, I’m dramatic. I’ve accepted it. I guess I have to accept all of this, so as not to crumple into a ball on the floor of the car. My seatbelt would ding the moment I unhook it anyway. I’d have several sinewy men with quads for fingers reaching to buckle me back in like I’m a child. There’s no winning, only losing.

I can see the disappointment in Madame Lombardi’s— my grandmother’s— gracefully aged face. Grandpa and father died so that we would one day be on top again, and here I am, crying in the back of this stupid Rolls-Royce, on the way to my private plane with nothing to show for it.

Pathetic.

Fuck Antonio San Giovanni and his stupid ego too.

I get on the plane, avoiding the inquiring eyes of my closest bodyguards, just needing to decompress in the back with a martini and a bowl of assorted olives. It's not nearly a long enough flight because I’m only tipsy when we arrive back home, reluctantly getting off the plane and crossing to my town car before I can properly grieve the total loss of freedom awaiting me.

“Malibu, Princess?” Alk, my driver since I was eight, calls back, looking into my eyes from the rearview mirror. I give him a nod, pulling out my lip-gloss, so I can look remotely presentable. Not sure why, but ever since I was little, I primp myself before asking for anything or going somewhere I know I need to fight for myself. It’s an odd ritual, I’ll admit— thinking that looking pretty equates to getting what I want— but it’s all I know to soothe my rapidly beating heart.

I run over points in my head as to why I had to get up and leave instead of waiting until the restaurant closed for his arrival. It’s as pointless as my cherry-colored gloss because they don't care how I look or what I say if it doesn’t start with the time and location of our next date.

The sun is close to rising, and I can see its light brimming on the cusp of the ocean, greeting me into my first day as an inmate of Madame Lombardi’s Malibu prison. It’s sobering, and not just because I’ve barely had anything to drink. I almost ask Alk to turn on the War & Peace movie score, but I decide that would be a little too over-the-top.

The drive takes us longer than expected because of a crash on one of the main highways that I seldom remember the name of. I don’t drive, so don’t judge my lack of attention to such matters. We’re almost halfway there, and the sun has fully risen. At this rate, we’ll be at the mansion by late afternoon.

I soak up those hours the best I can, while feeling nauseous from the motion-sickness, attempting to read the only book I will never admit to loving— Pride and Prejudice. I’m not basic, so loving it is bad for my overall image. The only other indiscretion I can admit, but only to myself, is my annoying obsession with K-Pop in high school. Embarrassing.

I’m at the best part of the book, the first proposal scene in the rain. My heart is swelling at the tension between them (and so is my queasy stomach from the car ride). Just as I turn the page, the car comes to a screeching stop on a two-lane, mountain curve road that’s bumper to bumper both ways. We’re nearly inches away from slamming into the car in front of us as Alk curses in Italian.

“Fanculo! Merda asini di cervello!”