The Sister Code (D.O.R.K #2) (14 page)

“Bet that’s a word you never thought you’d use to describe yourself.” He smirks.

I giggle uncontrollably. That smolder of his always gets me weak at the knees. “No, definitely not.”

We walk in silence for a couple minutes, and then he stops and turns to me again.

“Hey, listen…I’m really sorry about what happened here the last time.” Gio’s eyes darken with remorse. “I know I was pushing you too hard to stay away from Raven. She’s your sister. I get it. I’ve seen the way you two are with each other, and it’s obvious there’s more to your relationship than meets the eye. I just wanted to say I understand now.”

“I’m sorry too.” I lay my hand on his exposed forearm and his warmth travels up from my hand all the way to my core. “I should have explained myself better. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I know you were just trying to protect me.”

Gio slides his arm until his hand meets mine and clasps it. My stomach clenches with alarm. I search the beach for familiar faces.

“Gio, we can’t do this.” I wriggle out of his grasp even though every fiber of my being wants to stay attached to him.

He sighs with frustration and looks out toward the ocean. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just hard to stay away from you.”

I smile up at him. “Believe me, I know the feeling.”

After a long moment of silence, he turns to me suddenly. “Hey, did I ever teach you how to surf?”

I shake my head. “No, we were always too busy with other things.”

He grins, clearly remembering those “other things” well. “Well, I was just thinking it might be a good way to hang out while keeping our hands off each other.”

Giggling, I figure he’s right. “Sounds good.”

“Obviously, we’re not dressed for it today,” Gio goes on to say, “but maybe tomorrow after we study together we can come back here and get started.”

“Sure, sounds fun.” I drop my gaze and twirl my hair around my forefinger. It does sound fun—incredibly fun—but I know I’m swimming in dangerous waters the longer I allow myself to be near him.

Chapter 22

September 26, 2015

Mission DGC: Don’t Get Caught

Today I went to Santa Monica with Gio, and something almost happened between us, but I stopped it. We just walked and talked for a while and came up with a plan for how I’m going to go between our two mansions without anyone seeing me. The paparazzi always seems to be hanging around this area since the two of us live next door to each other, so instead of going between our two gates to study, I’m going to climb the wall every Sunday. I’ve already tested myself once, and I’m able to do it with very little trouble. I think this should work if I wait until after dinner. Once the sun starts to set, they won’t be able to see me at all.

I told Raven Gio’s my lab partner, but I still worry what she would think if she knew I was going over to Gio’s place to work all the time. Knowing her, it would turn into some jealousy thing and she’d try to stalk us, especially while she’s staying at our place for a week. I’d rather just keep this on the DL for now. What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her, right?

Tomorrow Gio and I are meeting to study and then he’s taking me to Santa Monica to teach me how to surf. I plan to wear a tight swimsuit with a shirt over it and athletic shorts just in case. We’re about to find out if my clumsiness with sports extends to standing on boards in the ocean.

Laughing out loud…I already know how this is going to go.

Ttyl,

Mads

***

I grip the warm gray stone and hoist myself upward, feeling a burn as my muscles tense in ways they haven’t for several months. I used to climb things all the time back in Kentucky, so luckily my body is conditioned for this, but it still takes some getting used to when you’ve been out of practice for a while. I jump to the ground from the top and grunt when foot shock shoots up both my legs. Shaking it off and looking in all directions, I cross the Abate-Lowe’s manicured lawn and sneak to the back door of the villa that leads to the patio. Gio meets me at the glass door and lets me in, grinning from ear to ear.

“Forget music, you should train to be a spy,” he says. I slap him playfully and let him lead me upstairs to his room.

After a long and painfully boring hour of slaving over homework, Gio and I finally take a break to listen to some music. He cranks up some alternative music on his stereo and smiles when I bob my head with appreciation. Alternative music is our middle ground. He likes hip-hop and I like rock, but we can both groove to some alternative, so that’s what we listen to when we’re together.

“I love me some Florence and the Machine.” I sing along to illustrate my approval.

Gio chuckles beside me. My heart squeezes at the sound of his adorable laugh. “I can tell. It’s kind of mesmerizing watching you move like that.”

I feel a blush burn my cheeks. “Thanks.”

“You really do sing like an angel,” he says. “I’m glad the rest of the world knows about it now.”

“Me too,” I say, chuckling with relief.

Gio shocks me by pulling me out of my relaxed state with an intense gaze and a startling question. “Remind me why we broke up again?”

I panic and swallow hard. I wasn’t planning on having this conversation today, especially not so suddenly. However, if we’re going to be hanging out and studying together, I guess it’s inevitable.

“It wasn’t really breaking up.”

Confusion overtakes him. “Why would you say that?”

“Because it’s true. We weren’t together, we were just fooling around, remember?”

“It wasn’t just fooling around to me,” Gio informs me about two and a half months too late. “I thought we were actually getting serious. What makes you think we were just fooling around?”

Every muscle in my body tenses. “You called me your ‘crush’ on the red carpet. Not ‘the girl I like,’ not ‘my girlfriend,’ ‘my crush.’ You could have a million crushes. How the fuck was I supposed to know I meant something to you?”

I stand from the bed and stomp over to look out across the balcony at their immaculate front yard through his sliding glass doors. Standing with my arms crossed, I hold myself rigid, not wanting to show him just how vulnerable I feel in this moment. I didn’t mean to blurt that explanation out. It just sort of crawled its way out of me. Now he knows I was hurt, and I don’t know what he’s going to do next.

I hear him stand from the bed and sense his presence behind me a second later. “You wanted me to call you my girlfriend?”

I shrug. “Something that proved I meant something to you. Anything. But that just wasn’t enough. I thought it was at the time, but I was lying to myself. When it comes to relationships, I have to know it’s serious.”

Gio comes to my side. “Madness, back in July I had no idea whether you were even staying in Los Angeles or not.”

I swallow forcefully. He
would
come back at my one logical argument with an equally logical answer.

“I didn’t want to commit to someone if I didn’t even know where she’d be at the end of the summer,” he continues gently. “I was going to ask you to be my girlfriend as soon as you told me you were moving here.”

Tears prick my eyes. I turn to face him. “You were?”

Gio’s lips curve up in a regretful half-smile. “I had the whole evening planned out. We were going to go out on Papa’s yacht by ourselves. I was going to treat you to a five-course meal with dessert, and then we were going to kiss on the deck until sunset. In the moonlight, I was going to give you a diamond bracelet and ask you to be
mia ragazza
. I actually still have the one I bought for you. It was too nice to return.”

Gio turns to hunt in his nearby dresser in the top drawer. I gasp when I see a long black velvet box hiding behind his socks. He grins at my surprise and brings the box over, opening it to reveal a gorgeous diamond line bracelet that looks as if it cost him a fortune.

“Ho-ly shit,” I mutter. I resist the temptation to reach my fingers out and touch the gorgeous thing, knowing I don’t deserve it anymore. I glance up into his eyes, wondering if they or the bracelet are more mesmerizing. The sadness at knowing I could have had both and threw them away is almost more than I can take.

“God, Gio…I totally misjudged you,” I whisper.

Gio snaps the box shut and lays it on top of the dresser. He turns around and keeps my gaze with sincerity. “There’s something else you need to know. I wasn’t lying when I said she told me the relationship was fake. I can’t speak for whether it was real to her or not, but I do know what she told me. The proof is right there in my phone if you want me to show you.” He nods in the direction of his nightstand. I nod wordlessly and let him take my hand to lead me back to the bed.

We sit down together and Gio releases my hand to open his phone. He goes to his photos, which are sparse, and finds a folder called “Screenshots.” Once he finds the one he’s looking for, he enlarges it and shows it to me. It’s a conversation with Dalton from last year.

Gio: Man I need someone over here right now. I just got blindsided.

Dalton: Whoa dude what happened? I’m at work. I can’t talk on the phone right now but I can text if it’s an emergency.

Gio: Raven and I had a huge fight because she thought I was out with this girl the other night. I didn’t do anything wrong, but she wouldn’t believe me. Then she told me it doesn’t even matter because our relationship is fake. FAKE. I’ve been had.

Dalton: What? Fake? How is that even possible?

Gio: It was all for show, man. All for the media. She’s a damn con artist. I wanna sue her for every dime I ever spent on her.

Dalton: You should! Hang on, dude, I’m gonna see if I can get off early. Don’t do anything dumb. I’m coming as soon as I can.

Gio: Kk.

“If you don’t believe me, Dalton has these same screenshots. He can show you—”

“I believe you,” I whisper, still in shock. It’s the evidence I’ve been waiting for. Everything Gio told me was the truth. Raven straight-up lied to me, just like I feared all along.

Gio and I turn to each other in the same moment, and I can’t miss the pleading in his eyes. He wants me, for real, and I’ve finally seen just how genuine and romantic he can be. He hesitantly reaches out and combs his fingers through my hair. Everything inside of me melts. I lean into his touch, surrendering for a brief moment. My gaze drops to his full lips and my tongue flicks out to lick my own. I now know without a shred of a doubt I still want him. A lot. Maybe even more than I want protection from Raven in this scary world of celebrity.

“I’m so sorry, Gio,” I whisper hoarsely. We lean toward each other until our foreheads meet and the tip of his nose brushes mine. His lips are right within my reach. If I wasn’t so afraid right now, I could have him.

Raven owns me now. If I take Gio now after everything we’ve been through, I’ll occupy the number one spot on her “To Destroy” list. Now that I know the kind of deception she’s willing to concoct, I’m more terrified than ever. She fooled Giovanni Abate into thinking he was in a relationship with her for three months. Exactly what is she capable of doing to me?

My stomach churns. I lurch back in fear and stand to my feet.

“I think I should go,” I choke out, feeling like my throat is clamped shut.

Gio springs to his feet and grabs my hand. “Madness, don’t. At least let me take you to Santa Monica like I promised. I owe you a surfing lesson.”

“Uh, I dunno…” I stagger back another step. “I just don’t think it’s safe.”

His eyebrows furrow with concern. “What happened to Wonder Woman?”

“Huh?”

He squeezes my hand, shaking his head sadly. “The girl I used to know would never let someone dominate her like this. You’re letting Raven dictate your every move. That’s a terrible way to live. I…” He sighs and releases me. “I should stop. I don’t want you to think I’m ordering you around.”

I’m letting Raven dictate my every move. She’s dominating me, controlling me. I’m just another one of her minions now. The horror that settles into me when I realize what I’ve done is overwhelming. I let one person turn my life upside down, just like I promised myself I would never do. I thought a guy would be the one to try that with me, but in a strange turn of events, I let my twin sister do that instead. What happened to me? Have I lost myself? Why am I so willing to cower in front of her and let her decide how I live?

“You’re right,” I say. A steely resolve settles into me. Raven may think she has me conquered, but I’ve got plenty of fight left in me. She’s going to have to work a lot harder if she thinks she can con me into submission. “Let’s go to Santa Monica. That’s one choice she has absolutely no say in.”

***

Cool salty spray assaults the tender skin of my face as I swim after Gio into the briny Pacific Ocean. He told me the first step to conditioning your body for surfing is to get good at swimming in the ocean, and since I haven’t had much experience with that, he decided he should toughen me up a little first. He’s already at least ten feet ahead of me. I thought I was decently in shape until I tried this. I’ve been doing okay in my P.E. class at Wilcox so far, but being out of breath after only a couple minutes of swimming through the force of the waves pushing back against me shows me I have a long way to go.

“You okay back there?” he shouts over the crashing of the waves.

I push myself to catch up with him, breathing heavily. “Yeah. This is tougher than I thought it would be.”

“You’ll get used to it,” he assures me. He stretches out his hand over the water. “Here, grab onto my arm.”

“I don’t want to pull you under,” I protest.

“You won’t.” Gio grabs my outstretched arm and I hold onto his forearm. He pulls me into him. I wrap my arms around his shoulders and hang on for dear life.

“You sure there aren’t any sharks out here?” My chest buzzes with rapid blood flow and anxiety.

Gio smoothes my hair back and kisses my temple. “Madness, look at me.” I meet his gaze, and he smiles warmly. “You’re fine. You’re doing great. Nothing’s going to hurt you.”

I return his smile, feeling the draw of his magnetism like never before. “Okay.”

He leans his head against mine again and I feel his throat shift as he swallows. “
Dio, voglio baciarti
.”

“Hmm?” I close my eyes and lean in a little farther.

“Come here.” He releases me and swims in the direction of the pier. I follow him, this time a little more smoothly and with less effort since we’re swimming with the current. He brings us both under the pier and checks the area for other people. There’s not a single soul in sight.

“Duck underwater,” he instructs me.

I cock an eyebrow.