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Last year, Giano went all out, even having a limo pick us up. I wore a cobalt blue, strapless gown with an empire waist, adorned with a silver band under my bodice. My cleavage was top notch with my breasts proudly on display. The cocktail length number also accented my firm, tanned legs.

Giano wore a black suit with a matching blue shirt to my dress. His lack of a tie allowed me to see a slight patch of his dark chest hair peeking out from the two unbuttoned buttons at the top. His short hair was spiked with gel, giving him a total Hollywood movie star look that had women turning their heads as we exited the car to go to the most upscale restaurant in Jersey. We dined privately, and Giano gave me a diamond tennis bracelet after we finished a dessert of cherry cheesecake. The entire night was magical, one I would never forget.

Wondering what my stranger would do this year to outdo last left me with little to no desire to actually attend anything at my school. Why go out with a teenage boy when I had a man who would give me his attention and shower me with gifts? It might not be fulfilling my every desire, but who knew what the future would hold for me and my stranger? Look how far we had come already. Why give up something better to have something … normal?

“Of course she does!” Randi shrieked from behind me, pulling me out of my thoughts. Apparently, she had overheard our conversation and had taken it upon herself to answer for me.

Paul reached out and ran his hand through my hair before grabbing the back of my head. Firmly, he pulled me to him and planted a quick kiss on my forehead like he had every girl before me. Too bad I wasn’t one of his groupies. I guessed he hadn’t gotten the memo he had picked the wrong girl.

“Can’t wait. I’ll text you. We can go out one night next week and make our plans.” He winked before walking away and allowing me time to get out of this mess.

Sure, he was what all the girls thought as hot stuff. Sure, he gave me butterflies, but so did anyone coming near me honestly. Sure, I could go with him, but what did he expect? Out of all the girls in the school, why me?

I might have had the body of a model and dark hair, dark eyes, and tanned skin, but I was a nobody in our school. I didn’t hang out with the cool kids. I wasn’t on any teams or on the student council. My only friends were Randi and Mandy. What a pathetic person I was compared to so many others. Why did he have to pick me?

“O.M.G., you hussy! You’ve been holding out on us!” Randi screeched beside me, reminding me I wasn’t alone.

“I have not,” I replied, readjusting my back pack as I made my way down the hall.

“That was totally unexpectedly awesomesauce! Mandy is gonna be so jelly.”

“There’s nothing to be jealous of. I didn’t plan on attending,” I stated.

“You seriously can’t turn down Paul Castillo. No one turns him down. Are you freaking crazy?”

I sighed in relief when we got to the front of the school where Giano was in his SUV, waiting for me. As soon as he saw me, he smiled, which settled me down. He comforted me simply by being there.

“Gotta go. Talk later.” I aimed to take off, but Randi’s arm shot out and grabbed mine, stopping me. Looking over my shoulder at her, I saw she had a serious look to her face.

“You just have to go, Lina. If you say no, people will ask more questions than they already do,” she whispered the last part.

For the first time since eighth grade, I wondered what people were saying about me. I had kept myself completely sheltered. I didn’t keep my nose to the grind and allow myself to think about anyone talking about me, because I made sure to stay off everyone’s radar. With Paul asking me out, I had obviously failed at remaining unknown.

“What do you mean people will ask more questions?”

She shrugged and exhaled loudly. “People wonder if you’re broken since your mom, you know. They wonder if you even know what a man and woman do together since you haven’t seen your dad with anyone since your mom … you know.”

Anger boiled inside me, turning into rage. “Since she what? Say it, Randi. Say the words! She died! My family had to deal with that loss.” I immediately thought of the loss Giano felt every day for his wife and daughter, not the true loss of my mother.

My mother was dead. I had googled it at school one day. According to the newspaper, faulty wiring led to a gas leak inside our home. The three of us had died in a fire as a spark ignited inside the home.

“My mom died, Randi! I deal with that, not you and not anyone else. They can ask all the questions they want, say whatever they want. Until they have to face it, they couldn’t understand.”

Tears rolled down my friend’s face at my outburst, but I was done talking, and I didn’t care what she felt or had to say. I wanted to run and hide and scream and cry all for myself and for the real Angelina.

I shrugged my shoulders and took off to the waiting car. Climbing in, I smiled my best smile at Giano. He took my hand and gave it a quick squeeze before he began to pull out of the school parking lot.

“What’s wrong, angel?”

“How do you know something is wrong?”

“It’s my job to know everything about you.”

“
Hmph
. Funny, I know so little about you,” I tossed my attitude at him as my frustration built.

What kind of life was I really living? My annoyance that people were talking about me had my mind racing with all the things I didn’t really know. I didn’t know how Angelina would have really lived after the loss of her mother. Would she have been able to carry on? She certainly wouldn’t have been fixated on her own father. Of course, he was not really my father, which only made me more frustrated and angry as we drove on.

“Don’t give me your teenage bullshit right now.” His tone was sharp. I didn’t like upsetting him, so it hurt me to know I was angering him.

Sighing, I gave him the truth. “A boy asked me to homecoming.”

I watched him grip the steering wheel tightly. “And you said?” His words were tense, making me wonder whether he was upset with my attitude or the boy asking me out.

“I said nothing. I didn’t have time. Randi came over and accepted the invitation on my behalf.”

“Who is this boy?” he asked as he hit the turn signal bar more harshly than necessary.

“His name is Paul Castillo. He’s a senior on the baseball team.”

He hit the gas pedal with more pressure than he should have, and I was jerked back into my seat.
What has him so pissed off
? I wondered. Giano was a man who was always in control. In all this time together, he had never behaved this way. I sincerely hoped it wasn’t my attitude that had enraged him to this point.

“If he wishes to take you out, don’t you think he should meet me?”

“I hadn’t planned on going,” I replied honestly. I didn’t know why he was making such a big deal out of this. I really had no intention of accepting Paul’s invitation.

I watched carefully as he released his grip on the steering wheel and visibly relaxed. He continued driving, not saying another word until we were home. Before I could exit the vehicle, he turned to face me.

“There comes a time when we must let go. If this boy will come to our home and meet me, then maybe we should consider you attending homecoming with him.”

“Really? You think this is a good idea?” I questioned, wondering if my knee-jerk reaction to remain sheltered had been all wrong.

“I didn’t say it was a good idea. I just know there comes a time when adults must let go of children.”

Something in that moment killed a little piece inside of me. Giano never called me his child. I was never his daughter unless we were in public, and even then, the reference was always as “my angel.” He never claimed me outside of this small endearment. I didn’t know if that was based on Angelina’s name and a way to keep our story straight or if he truly saw me as his in any capacity.

More than anything, what killed me right then was his desire to let me go.

He had saved me. He had given me a new life, a new hope, a new foundation. How could he so easily be ready to let me be?

“You’re seriously thinking I should go with him?”

“I think you are a fifteen-year-old young woman who needs to experience dating.”

“Technically, the world thinks I’m sixteen, Giano.”

He smiled softly, but there was something hidden in his eyes. “Yes, but we know the truth now, don’t we?” He cupped my chin in his palm, and I leaned into his soft fingertips against my cheek. “There comes a time in every young woman’s life when she has to face making decisions for herself. You know better than most right from wrong. Given your past—” He didn’t finish as I jerked harshly away.

My past. My dirty, twisted, awful past. There it was in black and white—why I couldn’t possibly go out with Paul or anyone, for that matter. No one could possibly understand what I had gone through as a child.

“Angel, relax,” Giano soothed. “This is how I know your date will be fine. Go out with this boy, have fun, but don’t let him take things too far. You aren’t ready for that.”

“What if he wants things? Things I can’t give him?”

“Well, of course he will want things. He’s a teen boy. You hold true to who you are and let me worry about the rest. Trust me, my angel, he won’t push any boundaries with you.”

I smiled softly because I did trust him completely. He knew my nightmares; he had given me a light in the darkness of my previous life. He had allowed me the ability to move beyond where I had come from.

Those thoughts brought me full circle back to my fears. No longer did I care about the intentions of a teenage boy. No longer did I need to think of my past. Giano once again had put all of that at ease for me. Still, he was trying to let me have a life, a real life, away from him and away from what I had come to know.

He really planned to let me go … and that burned deep inside of me. I wanted to cry out my passion for him, my love for him, my devotion for him. Fear catapulted to a whole new level at the thought of his rejection. There was too much of a risk in Giano knowing that, if he asked me to, I would stay with him forever.

Gone were the days of me counting down my escape. Now I could only count the days I had left and hold on to each moment as if they were my last. If only he wouldn’t let me go … if only he would want me to stay...

Chapter Twelve

“What I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall in your dining room tonight!” Randi squealed in delight from the chair in my room.

I stood at the window, curtain in hand, looking out. “Amanda won’t talk to me. Is she really that upset over Paul? If it’s that big of a deal, I won’t go with him.” Honestly, I would love an excuse to get out of this. As each day passed, I found it harder and harder to go through with it.

“You know how she gets. She’s jealous. She thinks she’s better than everyone else, so she doesn’t understand why Paul wouldn’t ask her. Don’t let her get in your head right now. Think about tonight. Paul is coming over and meeting your dad!” She was practically bouncing up and down in excitement.

If only I could be so enthused. I still had mixed feelings about attending homecoming with Paul … or anyone, for that matter. This was what “normal” teens did, and Giano expected me to be normal. He never pushed me, but there was always this underlying, unspoken thing between us about needing to fit in so people wouldn’t question our story.

“Help me find something to wear, and then you’ve gotta go. I don’t want you here when they get here,” I said to my smiling friend as I let my nerves get the best of me.

She helped me French braid my long, brown hair, and I wore a light blue, spaghetti strapped, halter sundress with wedge sandals to finish off the look. My makeup was done by Randi, so she gave me the full–on, heavy smoky eye with dark eyeliner and mascara, making my already dark eyes seem almost black.

Randi departed not long after, leaving me standing at the window, wondering what life for the real Angelina Diamante would have been like if she was here and not me. Would Amanda be just as jealous of the real Angelina? Would Paul have asked her out? Would she even have wanted to go out with him?

Some days, I felt this duty to her to behave the way she would have or somehow give her an experience she would have had since I was acting on her behalf in a way. Although, I guessed in some ways she and I had truly become one in the same. No one knew any differently other than Giano.

When a whistle at my doorway got my attention, I turned to see Giano watching me. My body instantly warmed, and my nipples hardened against the fabric of my dress. I felt the blush across my cheeks as he looked at me intently.

Tonight, he was dressed casually in worn jeans and a red polo shirt that fit him tightly across the chest and arms. His dark hair was spiked as usual, though definitely more relaxed as the day was coming to a close.

Dark eyes met my own in a heated stare that made me wonder if he was feeling the same attraction I was in this moment. I knew better than to keep letting myself have these thoughts, but I couldn’t seem to stop.

“As beautiful as you are, I’m not sure this is the right outfit, angel.”

I looked down at my dress. “What’s wrong?” Insecurity crept in as I wondered if I looked like a fool. Maybe it wasn’t desire he saw in me after all. Maybe I just looked like an overdone idiot.

“I wouldn’t want your friend to have an accident in his pants from his lack of control in seeing you,” he responded.

I gasped in shock at his boldness as Giano smiled brightly at me.

He walked over to me, brushing his knuckles over my exposed shoulder, his eyes dancing in mischief. “Perhaps a cardigan to cover some would help. We don’t want to embarrass the boy before the introductions.”

I nodded my head, not knowing what to say or do. Giano had never given me this much of an indication that he found me truly desirable. Sure, he had called me beautiful, but one could easily brush that off as fatherly adoration. This, though … This was something else entirely, and I liked it.

Before I moved, Giano leaned down and placed his lips to my cheek in a slow, tender moment. His breath was hot on my neck as he whispered, “Absolutely gorgeous, angel.”