THIRTEEN

  

“I don’t see why we need to go veg just because Elle has gone veg.”

Mazy stabbed a piece of zucchini with the tines of her fork, glared at it, and dropped the utensil and the vegetable back on her white china plate. “Zucchini squash crepes? Why ruin a perfectly good dish with a vegetable that grows like a weed?”

“I rather like courgettes,” Shirin said. “I grow tired of all the heavy South Tyrolean food.” She looked at Douglas, who was seated to her right. “Don’t you agree, darling?”

“I’m with the writer. I prefer meat.”

Mazy continued to stare sullenly at the food on her plate. They were seated at the long dining table in the interior dining room. Like most of the castle, it had marble floors and high, arched ceilings. Frescoes had been replaced by intricate scroll work, and paintings of Austrian nobility graced the walls. The party around the table had dwindled since the previous week. Sam’s attorney was not dining with them that evening, and Michael was gone. The Aldens, Mazy Coyne, Lara, Jeremy, and Elle sat around the middle of the table. Karina was there at the outset of dinner, but by the middle of the first course, she had disappeared—presumably to tend to Sam.

“My father’s not feeling well again,” Elle said, addressing a question no one had asked. “He’ll be dining in his rooms.”

Jeremy frowned. “Again.”

Elle shot him a pained look.

“What the hell are these doctors doing for him?” Jeremy asked.

“They’re trying. But he doesn’t always cooperate. You know, Jeremy. Some days are worse than others.”

“This goddamn country. He needs to go back to the States.”

“He won’t listen—”

Jeremy stood abruptly and walked to the door.

Elle watched him go. She glanced at Allison, sighed, and rose to follow the director.

  

By ten o’clock, dinner had been finished and the remaining guests gathered in the parlor for drinks. Neither Elle nor Jeremy had returned, leaving those left—Mazy, Shirin, Douglas, Lara, and Allison—to chat about nonsense for the next hour. Once the drinks started flowing, conversation followed. Allison, caught by the bar by a tipsy Mazy, listened while the author droned on and on about the plot of her next novel. By midnight, Allison was feeling sleepy. She was waiting for Mazy to take a breath so she could politely excuse herself when there was a sudden crash and the sound of glass shattering.

Allison looked up just as Mazy did the same.

“Oh,” Mazy exclaimed. She slapped her hand across her mouth.

Shirin had dropped her wine glass. More precisely, she’d squeezed the glass until it shattered. Blood ran down her hand and dripped from her fingers, mingling with the deep red wine now pooling on the marble floors. Shirin stared at her hand, then at the floor, before fixing her stare to her husband.

“That will stain,” Mazy murmured. “Marble stains.”

Allison grabbed napkins from the bar and began her way over to Shirin. Before she could help the other woman, Douglas reached his wife.

“Shirin, stop.” His tone was threatening. He held her wrist. “Stop.”

“That’s the scent, Douglas. That’s the fucking scent.”

“Not here.”

“That’s the scent.”

Shirin was staring at Lara who, until a few moments ago, had been sitting next to her on an ivory settee.

Shirin put a hand to her mouth. Blood trailed down her arm, painting abstract flower patterns on the sheer white toile of her dress. “Bastard.”

Douglas shook her other arm. Allison could see white indentations where his fingers had found soft flesh. She thought of the bruises on Shirin’s wrists. The plum-colored circles on Elle.

“Let her go,” Allison said.

The sound of Allison’s voice seemed to be a call to action. Douglas dropped his wife’s arm. Lara, who had been silent until that moment, groaned. Mazy started wiping wine from the mottled marble floor.

Shirin dashed toward the entrance to the parlor. She slowed when she passed Lara. “You see, I don’t wear Chanel. Ever.” Her voice was suddenly calm and steady. “You can have him.”

She left, her last steps a run.

No one spoke for a millennium. Finally, Mazy looked at Douglas and said, “She finally figured you two out? Took long enough.” She threw the wine-soiled napkins on the bar. “May want to ask your girlfriend not to wear perfume in the future. Women always know.”

With a backward glance at Allison, Mazy left.

Allison felt some responsibility to tell Elle what had happened. But where was she?

“Please don’t say anything to Jeremy,” Lara said to Allison. It was the first she had spoken to her since the incident in the forest. “Things are complicated between us. It’s not what it seems.”

Douglas gave her a derisive snort. “Denial much?”

“You should talk. Aren’t you at least going to go after your wife? She left bleeding and angry.”

Allison’s attention ping-ponged between the two lovers as their argument went on and on. She didn’t care about them. She couldn’t say she was fond of Shirin, either. But she didn’t like to see anyone get hurt.

Allison’s eye caught movement. She looked up quickly to see someone retreating from the arched doorways. A chill ran through her. Who had been watching?

She pulled her cell phone from her purse and called Elle. When she didn’t answer, she tried Dominic and Karina. Right to voicemail. She sent her client a detailed text and left. Tomorrow would come too soon. And with it, she was sure, more drama.