Chapter 2

I did not fall in love with Jace Moretti on a sunny day.

I fell in love with him on a rainy Tuesday in November, when he was fixing my father's broken boat.

I was seventeen. He was eighteen.

For a year after he ruined my sixteenth birthday with Chapman, my father banned him from the main villa. He was only allowed to work in the garden and the dock. Sofia still cleaned inside, but Jace stayed outside, where he belonged — at least, that's what my father said.

It should have been perfect. I didn't have to see him. I could pretend he didn't exist.

But Lake Como is small. And our villa is right on the water.

My bedroom window looked straight down to the private dock where my father's old Riva boat was parked. The one he loved more than me.

That November, the boat's engine died. My father screamed at three mechanics from Milan. All of them said the same thing: "Engine is finished, Signore Bianchi. Buy a new one."

Jace, who was carrying firewood in the rain, stopped and said quietly, "It's not finished. It's the spark plug. It's flooded."

My father stared at him. "What do you know about Riva boats, houseboy?"

Jace didn't answer. He just put down his firewood, walked into the rain in his thin t-shirt, and opened the engine cover.

I watched from my window. My school books were open but I wasn't reading. The rain was beating hard on the lake, grey and cold. Jace's t-shirt was soaked instantly, sticking to his back. You could see every muscle move as he worked.

For forty minutes he worked in the cold rain. His hands black with grease. No one helped him.

Then — VROOOM.

The old Riva roared to life. Loud, beautiful, echoing across the lake.

My father laughed for the first time in weeks. He clapped Jace on the shoulder. "Bravo! Bravo, ragazzo!"

Jace just wiped his hands on his trousers and picked up his firewood again, like it was nothing.

And that was it. That was the moment the hate in my chest cracked.

I didn't hate him. I had never hated him. I was obsessed with him.

That night, I couldn't sleep. I kept seeing the rain on his back. The way his hands knew what three mechanics from Milan didn't know.

Jace Moretti, the boy from the staff quarters, was smarter than all the rich boys in my school combined. He got first position without textbooks. He fixed boats in the rain. And he still looked at me like I was nothing.

I had to change that.

The next day at Scuola Internazionale di Como, my best friend Chiara asked me who I liked. All the rich girls liked Matteo from the hotel family, or Luca whose father owned the vineyard next to ours.

I said, "No one."

But in my backpack, I had a letter. A stupid, folded, pink letter I had written at 2 AM, my handwriting shaky.

Jace,

I know you hate me. I hated you too. But I don't anymore. Do you remember when we shared the bicycle? Do you remember when you poured water on my socks? I think about it every time. I'm sorry about your mother. I'm sorry I was a horrible child. Can we talk? Just once? Not as Principessa and houseboy. Just as Elena and Jace.

— E

It was the most pathetic letter ever written. No rich girl from Lake Como had ever written a letter to a staff quarters boy. If my friends found it, I would die of shame.

After school, I didn't go to the main villa. I went to the staff quarters.

The small stone room was empty. Sofia was at the market. The door was half open. Inside, it smelled like clean soap and rosemary. One bed, neatly made. A small table where Jace did his homework. His textbooks were covered in old newspaper to keep them clean. On the wall, a small crucifix and a photo of his late father.

My heart was beating so fast I could hear it.

I left the pink letter on his pillow. Right on top. Where he would see it.

Then I ran.

I ran back to the main villa, up to my room, and locked the door. I waited.

One hour. Two hours. The rain started again.

At 6 PM, I heard his door slam from my window. He was back.

I peeked through my curtains, holding my breath.

I saw him enter the small stone room. I saw him stop. I saw him pick up the pink letter.

He stared at it for a long time. His back was to me.

Then he opened it.

I watched his shoulders tense. I watched him read it once. Twice.

My hands were sweating. Would he laugh? Would he tear it? Would he show it to his mother?

He did none of those things.

He folded the letter very carefully, put it inside his old textbook, and sat down on the bed, his head in his hands.

For ten minutes he sat like that.

Then he stood up, looked straight up at my window — as if he knew I was watching, as if he had always known — and walked out of his room into the rain.

He walked across the wet garden, past the rose bushes, straight toward the main villa. Straight toward ME.

I panicked and jumped away from the window.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Soft, but firm, on the back kitchen door. The door only staff used. The door my friends never used.

My mother was in Milan. My father was in his office with headphones on. Sofia was still at the market.

I opened it.

Jace was standing there, soaked. His hair dripping. His grey shirt transparent. The pink letter in his hand.

His eyes were not angry anymore. They were something else. Something that made my knees weak.

"You shouldn't have written this," he said, his voice low, rough.

"I know," I whispered. My Versace dress from last year suddenly felt childish.

"Do you know what they will do if they find out? Your father will throw us out for real this time. Not for two days. Forever."

"I don't care."

"You should." He stepped closer. Rain dripped from him onto my marble floor. "You are Elena Bianchi. I am nothing. I live where your bins live."

"You're not nothing," I blurted out, tears suddenly in my eyes. "You're the smartest person I know. You're the only person who doesn't pretend with me. Everyone else wants my father's money. You... you pour Chapman on me."

That made him laugh. A real laugh, short and surprised.

"Principessa," he whispered.

Then he did it. He cupped my face with his cold, wet, grease-stained hand and kissed me.

It wasn't soft. It wasn't like in the Italian movies Chiara watched. It was desperate, angry, six years of hate and silence pouring out at once. He tasted like rain.

I kissed him back. I grabbed his wet shirt and pulled him inside the kitchen, away from the window.

For two minutes, there was no Lake Como, no rich and poor, no staff quarters and main villa. Just me and Jace, kissing in my mother's expensive kitchen, on the cold marble floor where his mother scrubbed every morning.

When we broke apart, both breathing hard, he pressed his forehead against mine.

"Took you long enough, Principessa," he whispered, using my hated nickname like a love word.

I smiled, crying and laughing. "Shut up, houseboy."

We had done it. We had crossed the line.

That's when we heard it.

The front door of the villa slamming shut.

And my father's voice, loud and furious from the living room:

"ELENA! Where are you?! And why are there wet footprints from the staff quarters to my kitchen?!"

Jace's eyes widened. He looked at the wet footprints he had left across the white marble — a clear trail from the back door to where we were standing, tangled together.

And outside the kitchen window, standing under an umbrella, watching us through the glass, was Chiara — my best friend — with her phone out, recording.