Fragile Longing

“Of course. Do you have any preferred lies I should tell her?”

My anger rose quickly. “The same lies I’ll be telling Sofia.”

“That’s enough,” Pietro said before turning to me. “Maybe you should have a word with Sofia. It’s been a while since you saw her.”

I forced a smile and excused myself to go in search of my future wife. I hadn’t seen her in more than a year. Emma’s laughter rang out, followed by Sofia’s. It wasn’t a little girl’s laughter as I remembered, but still held the bell-like quality of her voice. I followed the sounds toward a library and froze in the doorway. A blonde girl stood by the window, long legs peeking out of a summer dress that accentuated a narrow waist. It took me a couple of heartbeats to realize the girl was Sofia. With the blonde hair and her face in profile, her resemblance to Serafina was striking and unexpectedly unpleasant. I hadn’t seen my ex-fiancée in many years and had absolutely no intention of changing that.

I stalked into the library, trying to control my rising anger and confusion. The latter in particular set my teeth on edge.

Sofia’s eyes widened and a hesitant smile brightened her face.

“Emma, can you give us a moment? I need to talk to Sofia alone.” My words were clipped.

Emma nodded and wheeled out of the room, closing the door after her.

I backed Sofia up against the wall, completely taken aback by her appearance. I hadn’t seen Serafina in years and now Sofia played her doppelgänger. None of the blonde girls I’d fucked over the years had come even close to looking like my ex-fiancée and here stood my fiancée, looking like a fucking replica of her sister.

I towered over Sofia, staring down at her pale, confused face. “What have you done to your hair?” I growled. I touched her blonde strands, then cupped her face to force her to look me in the eyes. She blinked, pink lips parted, eyes wide. She had more freckles than her sister and her lower lip was plumper. Not to mention she was a bit shorter and more petite.

My sixteen-year-old fiancée.

I took a deep breath through my nose, trying to calm my racing pulse. I dropped my hand that was still touching her face and took a step back. I knew I should apologize, but that was out of the question.

“What have you done to your hair?” I repeated, unable to take my eyes off the golden hue. It wasn’t just any shade of blonde, it was Serafina’s.

She jutted her chin out. “I wanted a change.”

“You look like a bad copy of your sister. Do you want people to badmouth your family again because of what happened?”

“I–I didn’t mean it like that.”

I shook my head. “People will talk at the party if you show up with blonde hair. About you, about me, about our families. I won’t have it. You’ll get your old color back before the party, understood?”

Sofia had Serafina’s eyes. The same cool blue. And if one didn’t look too closely, even their faces were very much alike. It felt as if the past was meant to repeat itself, as if fate was taunting me with my biggest failure. I’d lost one girl, but I wouldn’t lose another. And I definitely didn’t need a daily reminder of the most shameful day in my life.

I’d been fucking blonde girl after blonde girl for years, as if I could fuck her out of my system. It never worked. Any reprieve I felt was short-lived before my anger burned only brighter.I was frozen in shock as I stared up into Danilo’s angry face.

I’d been nervous about his reaction to my new hair, but it had been more of a nervous giddiness. I’d secretly been hoping that he’d be delighted to see the similarities between Serafina and me. I hadn’t expected his fury.

He made it sound as if I’d committed blasphemy by looking like my sister, as if I was sullying the perfect image of her that he probably still harbored in his mind.

“Understood,” I said through clenched teeth, even as my throat closed up in a mixture of shame and frustration.

Some of the anger dissipated from his face, and he took another step back, clearing his throat. He was becoming the gentleman I’d only ever encountered so far. “Good,” he said quietly.

I stayed pressed to the wall. He ran a hand through his hair. “You don’t have to be scared of me. I’m . . .” He regarded me for a few heartbeats, his mouth set into a tight line.

I wasn’t really scared of him. I wasn’t even sure what I felt. A whirlwind of confusing emotions. Was he going to say he was sorry? Because I definitely deserved an apology.

“You caught me off guard. I expected to see you and not . . . not this version of you.”