I bang on the door.

“Lucian, open up!” I yell out.

Nothing. I groan in frustration.

“Luciano Romano. You better open up right now, or I swear I’ll—”

The door flies open, revealing a half-naked Lucian in only a pair of boxer shorts, his top half completely bare. I gulp, staring at his bare chest that’s covered in tattoos with random swirls and patterns. He’s not nearly as tatted as his two older brothers, but he’s still tatted, nonetheless.

He clears his throat, and my head snaps up to his, my cheeks flushing at the realization that I’ve been caught staring.

Then I look at him properly. The messy bed hair and the lipstick stains on his neck. He looks like someone who just had sex.

I ignore the pang in my chest. Yes, he probably had the best night of his life, fucking some random girl he met at some club while I stayed at home, curled up in bed with a book. But that shouldn’t bother me. He’s Luciano Romano, after all, and whatever he does and who he does it with shouldn’t matter to me. It really shouldn’t, but it does, for reasons I don’t even want to think about.

He notices me staring at the obvious post-sex signs and opens his mouth to say something, but an incredibly annoying feminine voice butts in.

“Luciano,” the voice calls out, so squeaky, it makes me cringe. “Who is it?”

So I was right, after all. I may be inexperienced in that area, but I still know stuff when I see it. I don’t read for nothing.

Plastering an obviously fake smile on my face, I tell Lucian, “Your father says to come down for brunch, since you clearly forgot me and my family were coming over today.”

Then I turn around to walk away, but he grabs my arm, pulling me back.

“What?” I hate how bitter I sound.

He just stares down at me, his eyebrows furrowed. The way he stares at me, it’s like he’s trying to figure me out, and I hate it. I hate it when he tries to read me. I’m afraid I’ll give too much away.

“What?” I repeat, louder this time.

Then he tips his head back, stepping aside so that the girl he slept with comes into view. She’s stark naked. The silk bedsheets are barely covering her body. She’s pretty, blonde and blue-eyed. The complete opposite of me.

“Get rid of her for me,” he says instead of asking. I glare at him. Is he seriously asking me to get rid of his one-night stand for him? How cruel can one person be?

“What do I look like to you?” I snap, pulling my arm out of his hold. Then I stomp away before he can try and reach for me again. I make my way down the stairs to the dining room where our families are sitting.

They all turn to me when I reach the table.

“He’s coming,” is all I say before taking a seat next to my mother. I try not to think about Lucian and his conquest of the previous night as we wait. Of course, they won’t start eating without him.

“Are you okay?” my sister, Alba, whispers to me. I resist the urge to sigh. Of course I can hide my emotions from everyone else, but she notices. Sometimes I hate how close we are and how well she knows me. She’s only one year older than me, twenty-one years old, and I guess that’s why we get along better than with our eldest sister, Viola, who’s ten years older than me and nine years older than Alba.

“I’m okay,” I lie, hoping that even if she sees through it, she’ll let it go.

Then, a few minutes later, Lucian comes strolling into the dining room, probably after saying goodbye to his... whatever that girl was.

He’s cleaned himself up quickly, now dressed in a pair of black trousers and a crisp white shirt that he’s rolled up at the forearms. I hate to admit it, but he looks really handsome all cleaned up. Although his dark hair is as messy as always, like he never bothers to tame those thick tresses, and his bright blue eyes are filled with mischief, like he’s a cheeky little child, even at the age of twenty-five.

He stops right behind my chair. I freeze when I feel his presence behind me, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up in anticipation. I resist the urge to groan. What will he do now?

Then he turns to Alba and says quite bluntly, “Move.”

“What?” Poor Alba blinks in confusion.

“I said move,” he says, his voice snappy and impatient.

“Honey, come sit on my other side,” our mother says when Alba has no idea what to do. I roll my eyes. Of course Lucian gets his way. Even in my family, the Russo family, he’s treated like royalty, like better than their own children.

Alba rises up from her seat and hurries to the one on the left of our mother, her cheeks red in embarrassment.

“Luciano, was that really necessary?” Lucian’s father, Gio Romano, asks, his tone telling us that he’s tired.

Lucian merely grins, sitting down next to me. His father hardly seems bothered by his blatant disrespect, almost as if he’s used to it by now. Of course. Lucian is the baby of the family, and so he’s spoiled. People think the same of me, even though that’s the furthest from the truth. “Well, dig in, everyone.”

Everyone starts eating while I just sit there, my appetite having left me the moment I saw Lucian emerge from his bedroom in that state.

Then suddenly Lucian scoots closer to me, moving the whole chair to me. I turn to him with questioning eyes.

“Are you not going to eat?” he whispers to me so that only I can hear him.