I narrowed my eyes at him and adjusted my portfolio on my lap, conscious of how sweaty my palms were against the stiff paper.
“Maybe you aren’t ready to hear them,” I countered coolly, brow raised. “Some people take criticism better when it’s not from a virtual stranger.”
Yara didn’t chastise me this time, probably because Dante’s smoky chuckle filled the interior again and took away her opportunity to do so.
But also, maybe because Dante had not been an easy client thus far.
He flouted our suggestions, ignored sensible ideas, and seemed almost childishly easy to distract from the gravity of his predicament.
It was as if being accused of murder was only passably amusing whenever he did succumb to its presence in his life.
If he was enjoying my company, it might mean he would be more…pliable in the future. I decided then, even if this hadn’t occurred to Yara, I would suggest it to her myself after the indictment. I had no doubt I intrigued him because of my relationship with his best friend, who also happened to be my sibling, but I was a lawyer, so I’d use anything I had in my arsenal to earn an advantage.
“You’re not much like your sister.” It was a statement, not a question, and it made me grit my teeth to avoid the impulse to bite back at him.
He shouldn’t have said that.
Of course, I’d divulged my connection to the client before I’d made my bid for placement on his legal team, so Yara was unsurprised by the comment.
That wasn’t what made irritation burst into itchy, painful flames on the back of my neck.
Even though I loved her deeply, I dreaded any comparison to my youngest sister.
Cosima Lombardi, an international supermodel, was married to a gorgeous British aristocrat and she was as lovely at heart as she was on the surface.
In a comparison battle, anyone would lose to Cosi.
Still, I hated to lose.
And I’d been losing that war since she was born.
The favorite of my father, maybe silently of my mother, and certainly of my other siblings.
Cosima was the golden child, whereas I was the black sheep.
I was the firstborn but the least liked and most unsuccessful.
My ambition surged through me like adrenaline at the thought, reminding me just what was at stake in taking this case.
If we won this trial against all odds, it would make my career and catapult me to the kind of greatness a lawyer could only achieve in the Big Apple.
I wanted that.
Not for the money or even the power, though both were more arousing than most men had ever been to me.
No.
I wanted it for the status.
My therapist told me there was a name for what I had, that furious drive for perfection that had marked my entire life.
Kodawari, the Japanese word for the relentless pursuit of perfection.
I didn’t so much want to be perfect––which I was aware enough to know was an impossibility––as I wanted to seem perfect.
I’d been close, once.
As little as a year ago, I’d had my job at one of the top five law firms in the city and a gorgeous brownstone with my fiancé, a man both beautiful and successful in his own right.
We were going to get married, adopt a baby.
Adopt, because life saw fit to deal me another tragic blow and take my fertility from me early.
Still, it would have been a picture-perfect life.
My Daniel Sinclair and I.
After the life I’d been born into and excruciatingly endured in Naples, I’d deserved it.
Somehow, now, the brownstone was considerably less lovely when I was the only one living in the rambling, big home. Somehow, the job was a lot less satisfying without my companion at my side encouraging me in my climb up the legal profession ladder.
And it was all because of one person.
Quite simply, the bane of my entire life.
My other sister, Giselle.
Fury savaged my insides, blazing along the familiar path it always ran through my system, obliterating everything else until I was scorched earth, incapable of harboring any other emotion.
“Elena?” Dante’s voice pulled me back. “My comment was merely an observation, not an insult. I apologize if I caused offense.”
I brushed away the idea with a casual wave of my hand and smiled, knowing it was thin and transparent on my face despite my best efforts.
“Please, call me Ms. Lombardi. Cosima is my sister, but she’s also my best friend. Any comparison to her is a compliment in my eyes,” I explained breezily. “But that’s beside the point right now, Mr. Salvatore. What is important right now is the fact that you are being charged on three accounts of RICO, and today, we are fighting to get you out on bail. They’re going to argue you are a flight risk and that with your underground connections, you could easily find a way to leave the country. This is our one chance to keep you out of prison until and if you are eventually tried and found guilty. You really should have listened to our advice and dressed a little more saint and a little less sinner.”