Belladonna (Billionaire Boys Club #1)

Chapter 5

Another ten or so minutes go by.

Each feels like hours. Stretching on for what seemed like millennia.

Lucas has not looked at me again.

His blank expression remains plastered to his face except when speaking to his sister, his mother or mine.

I have yet to finish my meal. Not that there's any point now, it has been cold for twenty minutes.

I am about to whisper to my mother about how long we have to stay before the tension, that somehow I am the only one feeling, will suffocate me, when Lord Agosti begins to speak.

"Verona, Mattea, are you two excited for the ball tonight?"

I'm sorry.....what?

"Oh yes, we were just talking about that," she replies. "How did you find the planning?"

"Oh it was nothing," mama answeres. "All I did was choose everything, make sure everything we needed was here on time, hire all the staff, directed the set up..."

Everyone laughes.

I smile at my mother and her sarcasm.

That, I definitely get from her.

But I know that even though the words she says come out jokingly, she worked hard at this. She works hard at everything..........

.......hold on.

A BALL?

Tonight?

At our house?

Tonight?

A ball?

Why was I not told about this?

Why haven't I heard about it?

Oh god.

In.

Out.

It's going to be fine.

"Well with you in charge I am sure it will be magnificent. What time is it again?" Verona asks my mother.

"It will start at eight and finish probably around two o'clock,"

Six hours?

Six hours surrounded by strangers?

Six hours surrounded by strangers, who I'm probably going to have to talk to.

Six hours surrounded by strangers, who I'm probably going to have to talk to, with no way to escape.

"Are you excited girls?" Verona asks.

Alessia nods her head, an unsurprising grin on her face.

She loves balls, so do I, except for the whole being in an inescapable room full of random people you don't know and are going to have to meet for the first time on the same night without any way of getting out of it and having social anxiety coursing through you the entire time part.

You know?

"What about you, Lucrezia?" Verona asks her daughter.

She twists her head to look at her big brother. "Will you be there, fratello?"

"Of course he will," Stefano insisted.

She blinks at him. "Will you?"

He smiles softly down at her and nods his head.

She returns his smile and copies his movements.

"What about you Madelaina?" Verona directs her next question at me.