Page 13 of Reckless Sinner
That surprised me. I found myself smiling as I texted him back.Why do you say that?
You remind me of Catherine Morland.
Was this his polite way of calling me naïve? I pointed that out to him.
There is something very… not naïve but untouched about you,he acknowledged.And you seem the type to appreciate a satire.
I pondered over my response. You had to give information to get information. Especially when it came to a lawyer. For better or worse, lawyers were always looking for the tit for tat, the exchange. They were so used to being ruthless in the courtroom and reading the fine print, I wasn’t sure they knew how to turn it off.
But I didn’t want to revealtoomuch of myself to someone I planned to betray. That felt… I wasn’t sure how it felt but it sure didn’t feelgood. Like I was exposing too much of myself. Setting myself up to get hurt in turn when I was supposed to be the one holding the reins.
I relate a lot to Anne Elliot,I said at last, and left it at that. Dante could puzzle over exactly what that meant.
The response was almost immediate.Life hasn’t passed you by.
I stared at the phone screen. He’d pegged me faster than I’d thought. I’d wondered if he would think I had made some big mistake in my youth, perhaps even passed up on a man I loved, or if he thought I meant I had listened to bad advice from well-meaning friends and mentors. But no, he’d gotten it right. I was worried that I had failed to seize the opportunities presented to me and that I would never have a happy, fulfilled life as a result.
What character do you most relate to?I asked, dodging the subject of myself. It was an obvious shift but I didn’t care. I wasn’t sure how to feel about being seen so clearly and so quickly.
Edward Ferrars,was the reply.
That was unexpected. I would’ve thought he’d say Darcy, everyone’s favorite awkward but honorable hero, or perhaps Captain Wentworth, the quiet man with a romantic heart.
You aren’t secretly engaged to an annoying woman?I texted him back.
It took a few minutes for him to respond. I saw the texting bubble appear and then disappear multiple times, like he was typing out something and then erasing it. Finally, he said,
No. Just trapped.
The novelSense & Sensibilitywas Jane Austen’s first published work and it wasn’t necessarily my favorite. But I wanted to understand Dante better. Just so that I could get him to date me and I could help my father out, of course.
And I had nothing better to do all evening, so…
Upon rereading it, I could sympathize with Eleanor Dashwood a lot more than I had as a teenager—which I supposed was the point. Marianne was full of genuine and romantic emotions and when you’re fifteen of course that appeals to you. Whowouldn’tadmire, at that age, her free spirit and passionate attachment to the dashing Willoughby?
But now I was older, and I could see how she was reckless, unable to see the warning signs and letting her emotions guide her completely. Eleanor, on the other hand, hid her emotions a bit too much.
I had no idea which woman I was.
But Edward… Dante had said he was trapped. And I could understand what he meant. Edward wanted one career, but his family pressed him into another. He was completely at the mercy of his domineering mother. He had to suppress his emotions and desires in favor of doing what was needed for his family.
I understood why he related so badly.
In the end, of course, Edward got the woman he loved and the career he wanted, free of his family, through a combination of petty people ruining things for themselves with their own stupidity and other good people recognizing and rewarding Edward’s good behavior. I wondered if that was that Dante hoped for himself—that someone, perhaps my father, would swoop in like the honorable Colonel Brandon and see that Dante deserved better than his lot.
I wondered if what Dante wanted was to be free from his family and their obligations.
By the time I finished reading it was too late to call or text Dante and I wasn’t even sure that it would be proper for me to ask anything about it. But he had offered up that information… that meant he didn’t mind me knowing it, right?
Maybe it was just the fact that I was playing double agent but I had no idea where I stood with this man.Never date a mafia man,I thought bitterly.Or a lawyer.
If Dante really did want to leave his family obligations and simply go live somewhere quietly with a woman to love, like Edward in the novel, then I couldn’t deny a huge bolt of guilt shot through me. Instead of helping him with that, I was going to set him up to metaphorically hang. Just so my father could get the political position he wanted.
My conscience, weak as it was, told me that I should stop trying to date Dante. That I should tell my father no. An even quieter part of it told me that I should tell Dante what my father planned, so that Dante could extricate himself.
But you didn’t say no to my father. He’d be furious with me and I didn’t want to have to endure whatever anger and disappointment he threw my way. I was completely dependent on him. I had no job, no home or money of my own, nothing.
And why would I want to go against my father? Even if I didn’t agree with him… he had always loved me and been there for me, fulfilling the role of two parents after my mother had died. And getting rid of the mafia would be a good thing, wouldn’t it? Didn’t I owe him this for all he’d done for me and how patient he’d been with me as I’d failed to be the accomplished adult he surely wanted?
