I hated Jace Moretti before I knew how to spell hate.

He lived where the bins lived — in the small staff quarters behind our villa on Lake Como. One stone room with one tiny window, with his mother who ironed my father's shirts and scrubbed our marble floors.

My family, the Bianchis, owned half of Como. Old money. Vineyards in Tuscany, hotels in Milan, and this three-story lakefront villa with a private dock.

His family owned one mattress and a hot plate.

And yet he acted like he owned the street.

"Move, Principessa. You're blocking the tap."

It was summer, 2009. I was ten years old. I was wearing brand new white socks my mother had bought from La Rinascente in Milan. She told me not to get them dirty because we had guests from Rome coming.

Jace was eleven. His school shirt had been washed so many times it was grey, not white. His shoes were his mother's brother's old shoes, two sizes too big, stuffed with tissue at the front. But his eyes — his eyes were always dark and furious. Like the lake before a storm.

"I'm fetching water for Mamma's roses," I said, lifting my chin the way my mother did when she spoke to waiters. "Wait your turn, houseboy."

His jaw locked. That word. Houseboy. He hated it more than anything.

What I didn't know was that his mother, Sofia, was standing right behind me with a basket of wet laundry.

PAK!

Her hand landed lightly on my shoulder, trying to move me. She didn't hit me hard, not at all. But I saw my opportunity.

I burst into loud, dramatic tears. The kind that made my father, Lorenzo Bianchi, drop anything and come running.

"Papà! Jace pushed me! He pushed me!"

My father came out of his office on the terrace. His face was red from wine and afternoon heat. Jace's mother immediately dropped her basket and started begging in fast, broken Italian mixed with English. "Signore Bianchi, per favore, Jace no, Jace did not— please, signore—"

My father didn't even look at Jace. He looked at Sofia like she was dirt.

"If your son cannot respect my daughter in my own house, pack your things today. Both of you. Out of my villa."

That was the day I learned what power tasted like. Sweet, like gelato.

Jace didn't cry. He just stared at me while his mother knelt on the hot stone floor, her hands clasped, begging for the job that fed them. His small fists were so tight his knuckles turned white. His whole body was shaking, not from fear — from rage.

Then he did something no one expected.

He picked up his own bucket. The bucket of grey, dirty mop water he had fetched for his mother to clean our kitchen floor. And before anyone could stop him, he lifted it.

And poured it.

Straight over my brand new white socks from Milan.

Cold, filthy water with bits of dirt and soap splashed up my legs. My white socks turned brown instantly. The mud ran down onto my expensive leather shoes.

The entire villa went silent. The gardener stopped cutting the hedges. The chef stopped stirring.

"Now you have a real reason to cry, Principessa," he whispered, so only I could hear.

I screamed. I screamed until my throat burned and the guests from Rome came out to see what was happening.

My father was so humiliated he fired Sofia that same evening.

I watched from my bedroom window on the second floor, behind my silk curtains. The window that looked out over the staff quarters and the lake. I watched them carry their things out. One thin mattress, one gas stove, three plastic bags of clothes, and one small bag that Jace refused to let his mother carry. He carried it himself, his small shoulders bent.

His mother was crying quietly, wiping her face with her apron.

Jace stopped at the iron gate of our villa. The gate that separated our world from theirs.

He looked up.

Straight into my window. Straight at me.

He knew I was watching. He always knew.

He mouthed three words, slowly, so I could read his lips clearly: I HATE YOU.

I should have felt guilty. I should have felt bad for making a poor widow lose her job.

I didn't. At ten years old, I felt victorious. I had won.

But we needed a cleaner. My mother, Giulia, who had a soft heart, begged my father. "Lorenzo, where will a widow with a child go in Como? It's winter soon." My father grumbled but agreed.

Two days later, they came back. Same small stone room behind the villa. Same tiny window. Same tap outside where we always fought.

Only now, Jace never spoke to me again.

For six years, he gave me silence.

He would walk past me in our compound carrying firewood or books, like I was invisible air. In our private school in Como — Scuola Internazionale di Como — where my father paid for him to attend as "charity" for the staff, he sat in the front row, always first position, his grey shirt tucked in perfectly, while I sat at the back with the other rich kids, the heirs of hotels and wine companies. If our eyes met in the hallway, he would look away like I was nothing, like I was less than nothing.

That was worse than him hating me. Being ignored by Jace Moretti was torture.

I started noticing him without wanting to. How he grew taller. How his shoulders got broader from carrying water and helping the gardener. How he fixed my mother's old Fiat when the mechanic said it was dead. How he carried my nonna's grocery bags up the steep hill from the market without being asked.

The hate was still there, but something else was growing under it, something itchy and confusing.

Then, on my 16th birthday, my father threw a massive party at the villa. String lights over the lake, a live violinist from Milan, white tablecloths, waiters in black vests. All of Lake Como's rich families were there.

My mother needed extra hands to serve drinks. She called Sofia.

And Sofia sent Jace.

He walked into my perfect, glittering birthday party wearing his one good shirt — that same grey school shirt, but ironed so sharp it could cut. He was holding a heavy silver tray with six tall glasses of red Chapman, his hands steady.

All my rich friends from school giggled behind their hands. "Elena, is that your gardener's son? Why is he serving?"

My face burned. I was in a pink designer dress from Versace, worth 800 euros, and he was making me look like I lived with servants — which I did.

I marched up to him, my voice low and furious. "Who asked you to come inside the main house? I said get out! You don't belong here!"

For the first time in six years, Jace Moretti really looked at me.

He was sixteen now. Not a boy anymore. His jaw was sharp, his dark hair fell over his forehead, his arms had muscle from work. And his eyes — still angry, but now they did something strange to my stomach. They made it flip.

He leaned down, close enough that I could smell cheap soap and lake air, his tray still perfectly balanced.

"Buon compleanno, Principessa," he whispered, with that same hate from when we were ten years old. "I hope you get everything you deserve."

Then he tilted the tray.

Six glasses of ice-cold, blood-red Chapman poured straight down the front of my expensive pink Versace birthday dress.

The red liquid soaked me from chest to knees. Ice cubes fell onto my shoes.

The violin stopped. The music stopped. Every single person at Lake Como's biggest sweet sixteen turned to stare at me, dripping red, ruined.

And Jace Moretti — the poor boy from the staff quarters — smiled at me for the first time in six years.