The Death of Me

9

My uncle handed us sheets of paper as Jett and Irina burst into laughter. I scowled at them before my uncle spoke again. "And Irina, you'll be posing as Rocco's wife too."

Jett laughed even harder, his face a bright shade of pink. He wiped a tear away from his eye as he walked away trying to contain himself. I resisted the strong temptation to punch the grin off of his face but gathered myself.

I pace around saying a string of curses before my uncle tells me to calm down.

"We leave in 2 weeks." My uncle leaves the room as me and Irina look at each other with dread.

*************************************************

Our plane landed in Sicily and we made our way to the Romanos home. I stepped out of the jet as the hot air hit my face. I forgot how nice it was to travel, and for a moment, my life seemed normal.

The Romano's had a private landing strip behind their home, which was convenient for us as we didn't want to deal with the press and the airport.

The Romanos flew back to Sicily as soon as they heard about the cruise and we were to meet them in their home a day before the cruise leaves.

"Hi, so nice to meet you. I'm Theresa!" Ricardo's mother and Gianni met us at the door with joy and welcomed us into their home. She hugged us one by one and introduced us to Ricardo's little sister, Daniella. Ricardo and Rocco we're nowhere to be seen when we went inside, and I could already tell that their reaction to this situation was just the same as ours.

When we sat at the dinner table, my aunt and uncle started talking with Ricardo's parents and Jett joked around with Daniella, who was around the same age of 19. Me and Irina awkwardly ate our food, detached from everything around us.

She lifted her head and her frown turned into a smile as Rocco entered the room and sat across her. I gave her confused glances, wondering why she was acting so different around Rocco. She blushed as Rocco exchanged flirty glances with her. Typical of Irina to fall for the guy who is supposed to pose as her husband. I rolled my eyes, not realising that Ricardo had sat at the table too. The tension around the four of us was so thick, you could cut it with a knife.

Ricardo looked slightly different from the last time I'd seen him two weeks ago. He was more...mature and I could see that he'd gotten more tattoos, as the dark patterns shone through his thin white t shirt.

After dinner, we were all shown to our rooms for the night. I plopped down on my bed, and sighed before changing into my pyjamas. Sliding under the sheets, I tried my hardest to doze off. But my body refused. I stressed over how I'm going to spend 2 months on a floating prison with the Romanos. And we can't even kill anyone.

I groaned and reached for my water bottle on the side table, shaking it to see if it contained water. Empty.

I got up and went down to their kitchen to fill it up. I didn't bother turning on the lights as the ones outside of the windows were enough for me to find my way. Reaching the sink, I filled my bottle and took a sip, the cold liquid cooling down my overheated body.

When seeing Riccardo, I flinched and gasped before
exhaling. "I couldn't sleep."

He ran his hand through his hair and looked off into the distance.

My eyes begged me to let them view the breathtaking sight next to me. The moonlight shone on his shirtless muscular body. His raven black hair ran wild, giving me the strong urge to run my fingers through it.

"You done?"

"I need a few more minutes."

He lightly chuckled, and there was a peaceful silence for a moment.

My eyes took a glimpse of the colourful patterns that inked his skin. "Nice tattoos."

He looked down to see what I was looking at. "You have any?" He leaned back on the counter behind us, further flexing his muscles and putting my body into overdrive.

"No. Never." I looked into his crystal eyes, and slowly lifted my hand. I reached over to touch his tattoos, moving slowly and raising my eyebrows to ask if it was okay.

When I saw it was, I placed my fingers over his chest, tracing the colourful inkings. His muscles tensed at my touch and he watched as I scanned over them. There were serpents, symbols and thorny vines.

I lifted my head up and my gaze met with his.

Slowly, I sighed and turned around to walk away before he grabbed my wrist and aggressively pulled me towards him.

He crushed his lips onto mine as I tried to resist at first, but eventually I gave it.

After a while I finally gained the self control to pull away slightly, and we both stared into each others eyes and breathed as our lips grazed each other. All I felt like doing at that moment was giving this man full control, but inside I knew this was wrong. We were wrong.

I calmly turned around and went back to my room, leaving him there as he watched me stumble away, both of us wondering what just happened.