Sam was a variable he had never been able to solve.
Gio sat at his desk in the south wing, the quarterly assessnts still waiting, the lamp still burning. Outside his window, the garden was dark. The estate had gone to sleep above him. Sowhere upstairs, Arianne and the twins were asleep. And Gio was alone with the mory of a girl who had smiled at him like he mattered.
He had solved every other equation in his life. His survival under his half-brothers. His place in Arianne’s household. His role at her side. He had calculated and strategized and anticipated, and he had gotten everything right.
Except Sam. Sam was the variable that refused to resolve.
He t her when Arianne beca friends with Alex and Gilbert.
The brotherhood was forming then — Arianne and Alex and Gilbert, the three of them inseparable, their orbit pulling in others over ti. Gio was on the periphery. He was always on the periphery. When Arianne visited the Pemberton estate or the Rochefort house, she brought him with her. She never left him behind.
That was where he first saw Sam. Gilbert’s younger sister. She was five years younger than him — a child, really, when he was already a teenager. Even then, she was bright. She smiled like the sun. She had Gilbert’s bluntness but none of his edges, as if she’d inherited the Pemberton directness and softened it with sothing entirely her own.
She was kind to him. That was the first thing that registered. She was kind to him when almost no one else was.
The rumors about Gio had followed him since the day Arianne took him in. Bastard. Illegitimate. Mistress’s child. The other students at the high school knew who he was. They knew his father had been Gabriel Sumrs. They knew his mother had been the other woman. They made sure he knew they knew.
Sam never looked at him the way the others did. She never spoke of him badly. She never flinched when she passed him in the hallway at Gilbert’s school events, even when the other girls murmured behind their hands. She would catch his eye and smile. Wave. Sotis call out a greeting that made Gilbert turn his head.
"Hi, Gio!"
He never knew how to respond. He would nod or raise a hand. Sothing awkward. She never seed to mind.
Franz was the sa. Franz was closer to Sam’s age. They attended the sa schools, ran in the sa circles. Gio noticed the silent admiration Franz held for Arianne. The way the younger Rochefort brother watched his sister when he assud no one was looking. Gio recognized that look. He understood what it ant to want sothing you didn’t think you could have.
Franz had helped him because of that kinship, or so he’d assud. Eventually he understood it wasn’t the case. Franz had never looked down on anyone, regardless of their birth origin or status. Perhaps sothing he’d learned from his older brother, Alex.
Sam was different. Sam’s kindness didn’t co from a hidden motive. She wasn’t using him to get closer to Arianne. She wasn’t trying to curry favor with the Sumrs heiress. She was just kind. Persistently, bafflingly kind.
When Arianne left to study overseas, Gio assud his connection to the Pemberton and Rochefort families would fade. He was wrong. Sam made sure to drag him with her and Franz to lunch whenever she could. Every week. Every break. She would appear at his school or call the house phone and tell Aunt Estella she was kidnapping Gio for the afternoon, and Aunt Estella would smile and hand him his jacket.
He never understood why.
She was seventeen when she confessed.
Gio was ho from college for a break. Twenty-two years old. He’d been studying abroad, following Arianne’s path, trying to figure out what he wanted to do with his life. He still didn’t know. He only knew he wanted to be useful to her.
There was a gathering at the Pemberton estate. The brotherhood, plus Sam and Franz. One sumr. The gardens were in bloom. Soone had put music on. Sam was there, and she was different — older, taller, her cheerful smile now frad by the face of a young woman. She’d been scouted for modeling already. People were starting to notice her.
Gio had been noticing her for years, though he never let himself dwell on it.
After the gathering, she pulled him aside. Into the garden. Away from the noise and the music and the people. The sunset was bleeding across the sky. She was fidgeting with the hem of her sleeve.
"I need to tell you sothing," she said.
He waited.
"I’ve liked you. For so ti. Since I was old enough to understand what that ant." Her voice was steady, but her hands were not. "I’ve been working up the courage to say it for years."
He stared at her. The words didn’t make sense. They couldn’t make sense. She was Samantha Pemberton. Gilbert’s precious younger sister. Beautiful. Bright. Cheerful. She could have anyone. She could have soone who wasn’t him.
"Sam." His voice ca out rougher than he intended. "You’re seventeen."
"I know how old I am."
"I’m twenty-two. I’m in college. I’m—"
"I know who you are."
"You don’t." He shook his head. "You don’t know what you’re saying."
"I’ve known what I was saying since I was thirteen years old." Her eyes were wet now, but her voice didn’t waver. "I’ve watched you for years. I’ve watched you look at like I mattered. And then look away like you weren’t allowed to. I’m tired of watching you look away."
He couldn’t breathe.
"I’m sorry," he said. "I can’t. I’m grateful for your kindness. I always have been. I can’t give you what you want."
The tears spilled over. She didn’t try to hide them. They fell, and sothing in his chest — sothing he refused to na — cracked.
He left for college the next week. He didn’t see her again for a long ti.
Over the years, he heard news of her.
She was dating soone. A boy from her university. Then another. Then soone in the industry. Her modeling career was taking off. She was on magazine covers. She was walking runways. She was building a life that had nothing to do with him.
He assud she had moved on. He hoped she was happy. Samantha Pemberton deserved to be happy. That was what he told himself whenever she ca to mind, which was more often than he wanted to admit. She deserved soone who wasn’t him.
The hotel room happened three years later.
He was twenty-five. Working as one of Arianne’s assistants — not yet executive, not yet exclusive. He took whatever tasks he could to lighten her burden. One night, a eting at a posh bar with an important partner. Gio was there as support.
Sam was across the room. She was partying with friends. Already a runway model, making a na for herself. She was drunk. Wasted. Stumbling. A man had his arm around her waist, and Sam was trying to pull away, her smile faltering.
Gio knew that look in the man’s eyes. He’d seen it before. Bad intentions.
He crossed the room before he’d made the conscious decision to move. Put himself between Sam and the man. Spoke words he didn’t rember later. The man backed off. Gio took Sam’s arm and guided her out of the bar, into a taxi, to a hotel room where she could sober up safely.
He didn’t lecture her. He sat her on the bed. Got her a glass of water and waited.
"You need to choose your friends more carefully," he said.
She looked at him. Even drunk, her eyes were bright. She smiled. "You ca for ."
"Of course I ca for you."
"Like when we were younger. You always looked out for . Even when you pretended you didn’t."
Gio didn’t answer.
Perhaps it was the alcohol. Perhaps it was the years of distance. She leaned forward and kissed him.
He should have pulled away. His body didn’t listen. His hands found her waist. Her back. The bed. She was beneath him, and his mouth was on hers, and then on her throat, and she said his na and sothing in him broke.
He pulled back. Stood. His hands were shaking.
"I’m sorry. This shouldn’t have happened."
She sat up on the bed. Her face was flushed. Her eyes glistened with tears.
"Why? Why shouldn’t it have happened? You want . I know you want . I’ve known for years. Why won’t you—"
"Sam."
"Why won’t you let yourself have this? Have ?"
"Because you’re Samantha Pemberton."
The words fell between them like a door slamming shut.
She stared at him. The tears spilled over. He didn’t explain. He didn’t tell her what he ant. He left the room. Left the hotel. Left her.
He’d been avoiding her ever since.
–
Gio sat in the south wing. The lamp was still burning. The quarterly assessnts were still untouched.
Sam had thought the issue was her na. Her family. The Pemberton heiress, too wealthy, too connected, too much. She’d thought he rejected her because of who she was.
The truth was the opposite.
He was the one who wasn’t enough. The illegitimate son. The mistress’s child. The boy who’d been beaten by his half-brothers until Arianne took him in. He had nothing to offer her. No na. No wealth. No standing. A pauper couldn’t fulfill the whims and wishes of a precious princess.
That was what he’d told himself for eight years. That was the cage he’d built, bar by bar, every ti he looked at her and looked away.
You can be selfish for this one.
Arianne’s voice, years ago. The permission he’d never taken.
How long do you plan to torture yourself?
Her voice again, this morning. The question he still didn’t know how to answer.
He stared at the dark garden outside his window. Sowhere in the city, Sam was living her life. Modeling. Filming. Building a career that had nothing to do with him. She’d moved on. Or she’d tried to. He’d never asked.
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