“I’m fine, Calvino’s taking care of me.”
She smiles past me toward him. “Lovely to see you, brother-in-law.”
“Sister-in-law.” He nods to the chairs and she folds herself into one. I sit across from her and lean forward on my elbows.
“Do you want anything?”
Charlie waves that away. “I don’t have time. I can only stay for a little while. Vince thinks I’m out food shopping.”
“Don’t you have staff for that?” I ask and glance at Calvino, who frowns in response.
“We do, which is why it’s such a weak excuse, but I’m not exactly in my right mind right now.” She rubs her face and tries to smile, but it doesn’t reach her eyes, and her laugh is empty and bitter. “I’m sorry, Grace, I really am. I should’ve told you everything from the start, only it’s just—” She stops and tears gather, and I can tell she’s struggling to hold them back.
I reach out on impulse and touch her hand. “You’re here now.”
She nods and takes a breath to steady herself. I know what she’s going through or something like it, and I’m doing my best Riley impression right now. Back then, my cousin was the only person in the world that could make me feel better when it felt like the whole world wanted to crush me under its boots, and I want to do the same for Charlie, even if I’m terrified that what she’s about to tell me will change everything for good.
“I knew your cousin,” she says and meets my gaze. “She was such a good person and I’m so sorry she’s gone.”
I lean back in my seat, open my mouth to ask a billion questions, but nothing comes out. I’m in shock, and the idea that Charlie knew Riley never really occurred to me, and it still seems fake, impossible.
Calvino speaks for me. “How? When? I’ve never met Riley.” He sounds as confused as I feel.
“It was a while back, before Emilio. Riley was our first option. I guess we never imagined that it might be Vince, and we both assumed it was my fault, or at least Vince kept saying it was my fault over and over again, and he said he met this young girl, new in town, trying to be an actress like everyone else, but she was willing for the right amount of money and—” She’s rambling, telling the story in bits and pieces, and I can’t follow it.
“Charlie, slow down,” I say and look at her with my mouth hanging open, my pulse racing, trying to fit my cousin into the jagged half-narrative Charlie’s spilling out. “What do you mean, your fault?”
She chews on her lip and tries to reset herself. “We couldn’t get pregnant. We tried and tried and tried, but we couldn’t do it.”
I think back to the first night I met Emilio, that cute little one-year-old. “That’s right, you told me you think he’s your miracle.”
“Riley was our first option. Vince figured since it was my fault we couldn’t conceive, he’d use Riley as a surrogate, although he refused to go through official channels. There were no doctors, no paperwork, nothing, because he said that if word leaked out, it could ruin him. And I had to believe him, because what else could I do? Can you imagine, Grace? My husband was fucking your cousin to try to get her pregnant, and he did it almost every night with her for months before he gave up.”
I stare at her without comprehending for a long, quiet moment as Charlie leans forward and cries into her hands. Calvino’s face is stricken and his skin is ashen, and he’s clearly as shocked as I feel. My ears buzz and ring and I can barely think straight. I try to imagine what Charlie went through, but it’s impossible. Her husband, fucking another girl. Trying to get her pregnant. It sounds like a nightmare.
“Vince was sleeping with Riley?” I say it so softly it’s like a whisper. Like I can’t connect the two things in my mind.
Charlie nods, wiping her red-rimmed eyes. “He wanted to get her pregnant. He refused to go to a doctor because he was afraid that word would get out. He’s the oldest son and he was the first in line to become Don when his father passed. He was terrified that if his rivals saw him as defective and weak, it would ruin the family and make his ascension to leadership impossible. You know how these families are, they’re like medieval kings all obsessed with lineage and bloodlines. He found Riley somehow, he never explained where, offered her huge sums of money to carry his child, and fucked her over and over again. But Grace, it didn’t work.” She chokes out the last words and starts to cry again.
I look at Calvino, at an utter loss, trying to imagine Riley new to LA and struggling to survive on what little money she could make working as a waitress, and suddenly this opportunity falls into her lap—more money than she ever dreamed, and all she’d have to do is get pregnant and have a baby for this nice couple that can’t conceive on their own. It must’ve been horrible, and hard, and sickening, but she did it because otherwise what could she have done, gone back home? There was no home for her, not after she left.