A car and driver, along with four more soldiers, are waiting for us at the airport and an hour later, we’re pulling into the guarded gates of a gothic style mansion.
“This is my uncle’s house,” Stefan says.
It’s huge and beautiful in a very different way than Stefan’s Palermo house.
“How long are we staying?” I ask as we pull up to the front entrance. I notice the scaffolding along the whole of one side of the house.
“Just overnight.”
“What’s going on there?” Part of the house seems to be under major construction.
“There was a storm a few weeks ago that blew over a tree. Damage was extensive.”
Stefan steps out of the car and extends his hand to help me out.
I ignore it and climb out on my own. I stand taking a deep breath. It’s a little less warm here than Sicily, but it’s still hot. I love Rome. I always have. And I’m excited about the party being at our house later. I’m hoping to sneak away to my old bedroom just for a few minutes at least. It always felt more like home to me than the New York house.
We enter Stefan’s uncle’s house which is loud with construction work, and an older man whom Stefan resembles comes to greet us.
“Stefan,” he says with a wide smile. The two embrace.
“Uncle Jack. It’s good to see you.”
Uncle Jack stands back to look Stefan over. Stefan does the same.
“You look good,” Stefan tells him.
Uncle Jack pats his round belly. “Enjoying life,” he says, then turns to me, openly looking me over.
“This is Gabriela,” Stefan says. “Marchese’s daughter.”
I guess they all know my father.
Whatever Uncle Jack thinks of that, he hides it well because his expression doesn’t change. He extends a hand.
“Welcome to my home, Gabriela.” He touches my ring and lifts my hand to examine it. “And congratulations to you both on the engagement.”
Stefan comes to stand beside me, wrapping an arm around my waist. “Thank you, Uncle. Gabriela’s excited about tonight’s party, aren’t you?”
“Can’t wait,” I say with a false smile.
There’s a sudden sound of something crashing in the other room. Uncle Jack shakes his head. “I’m going to kill these idiots,” he mutters as he turns toward the cordoned off construction area where the sound came from. “They’ll be gone in a few hours,” he yells over his shoulder to us.
Stefan turns to me. “I’ll take you up to your room. You have about an hour before the hair and makeup people come.”
“What time are we leaving?”
“Seven.”
It’s a little after five now.
I let him lead me up the stairs and to a bedroom. I note the dust that’s crept into the undamaged part of the house and feel a warm breeze. I wonder how much of the side wall is gone.
“Here,” Stefan says, opening a door.
“Where are you staying?”
He grins, opens his mouth to stay something but I hold up my hand to stop him and roll my eyes.
“Don’t get excited. I just want to know which room to avoid.”
“I’ll make it easy,” he says, gesturing for me to enter. I do. “You’re to stay in yours until I come for you.” He walks through and peeks into the adjoining bathroom, then walks to the door.
“My bag?” I ask when he reaches it.
“Someone will bring it up shortly.”
When he’s gone, I go to the window and watch the construction crew out there. There must be fifty men and the scaffolding only stops when it reaches my window.
There’s a pool in the distance where three women are sunbathing. A big truck is pulling in through an opening in the gates and when I look down, I find Stefan and Uncle Jack walking outside, each of them holding a beer. They head to the pool to greet the women, and I watch how each one wraps herself around Stefan and kisses his cheek. I see the happy smile on his face as they all chat.
Well, good for him because I’m never going to wrap myself around him like that.
I walk away from the window and think about what Stefan said about his brother.
About my father.
I think about what my father ordered done to Alex and I think about how quickly I defended my father to Stefan even though part of me knows the truth.
But why would my father order the killing of a man in the witness protection program? A mafioso turned snitch? He has nothing to do with the Sicilian mob. No business with them whatsoever. At least not that I’m aware of.
Stefan’s wrong. There’s no link. Even if my father is capable of such brutality.
I shake off the thought and sit on the bed. There’s nothing to do but flip TV channels so I do that until, an hour later, a man walks in carrying my duffel and a garment bag. He’s followed by two women each dragging a suitcase.
The man leaves and the women begin to set up, telling me in Italian that they’re here to do my hair and makeup and prepare me for the party.
I answer them in English and just smile when they admire the engagement ring. I manage to sneak to the bathroom for a few minutes with my iPod so I can message Alex that I’m in town. That I want to see him. I will figure out a way how. The party is big enough and I can sneak away once Stefan is distracted. But I can’t switch the thing on because it’s out of charge and the cord I shoved into the duffel is a US cord. Shit.
I take a minute to think. This is fine, not a huge setback. I can message him through my computer at home and grab a charging cable from there too.
When I return to the bedroom, the women are set up and waiting for me.
It takes them a full hour to do my hair and makeup and I sit obediently through it. I don’t wear make up most days mostly because I’m lazy and it takes too much effort but also because I hardly see anyone or go anywhere, apart from parties my father arranges and then he has people come and do it for me. Like tonight.
I don’t give it too much thought, honestly, and wonder how irritated Stefan would be to know how similar he is to my father. They both want to dress me up like a doll to show off to their friends or, in tonight’s case, to flaunt me in my father’s face.
But I push those thoughts aside because I have more important things on my mind.
Like Alex.
The woman is just zipping up the side-zipper of the dress when the door opens. My back is to it, but I don’t have to look to know it’s Stefan. It’s like every hair on my body stands on end in warning.
When I turn my head, I find him standing in the doorway wearing a black tuxedo and I have to admit, he looks good. Really good.
He’s tall, taller than most men I know, and built well with thickly muscled shoulders and arms, a trim waist and powerful legs. Those I remember from his swim the other morning.
The thought brings a flush to my face and I give a shake of my head to clear the image.
But it’s not just that he’s beautiful. There’s something else about Stefan Sabbioni. It’s the way he carries himself. He has an amazing amount of self-confidence like nothing and no one can fuck with him.
No, it’s more than that.
It’s like he’s daring anyone to try.
He looks me over and I think he’s taken off guard for a moment.
I haven’t seen what I look like yet. I know my hair’s up, and that they loaded me with so much mascara that it’s hard to blink, but apart from that, I don’t know.
Stefan clears his throat, gesturing to the door with a tilt of his head. The women straighten and scurry from the room. Is that how he thinks I’ll obey someday? Because I never will.
He never takes his eyes off me as I stand, becoming aware that I’m nervously turning the ring on my finger. I school my features, not quite looking at him because it would only inflate his ego to know I find him attractive.
Or I would find him attractive if I didn’t hate him.
“What?” I ask, happy my voice sounds almost bored.
He’s shaved so the scruff of earlier is gone and when, a moment later, he gives me his signature aren’t-you-a-piece-of-work grin, I see the dimple on his cheek. He steps into the room and closes the door.
“Turn.”
“What?”
“I want to see the back.”
“I’m not a thing.”
“You’re very beautiful, Gabriela,” he says, that grin gone.
The compliment—or maybe its delivery—catches me off guard.
I look away, feeling my face heat up.
Instead of thanking him, I look at the full-length mirror in the corner of the room and I’m not a vain person and looks are a freaking lottery and I know I got lucky, but okay, yes, this, what those women did, it looks good. I look older. Maybe even a little beautiful.
Like her. Like my mom.
I walk to the mirror and meet my own gaze. I reach out one finger and touch it to the glass and I feel suddenly, incredibly sad. My eyes fill up and fuck the eighty pounds of mascara on my lashes because I can’t cry unless I want to look like a raccoon. But this, the way they have my hair in this twist with the bangs pinned neatly to the side, and the dark makeup, I look exactly like my mom on her wedding day.
She was eighteen too. And Stefan is twenty-nine, just about the age my father was when he married her.
Ironic all these similarities.
Or just life’s cruel joke.
Stefan’s reflection as he comes up behind me makes me force those thoughts away. Makes me steel myself.
Show no weakness.
It’s the one thing I’m grateful to my father for teaching me. Although, it’s not that he meant to teach it on purpose. These men, men like my father or Stefan, they see an opening, any tiny crack in the surface, any chink in the armor, and they’ll attack. They’ll devour you whole.
I narrow my eyes and look up to meet his in the mirror.
His gaze slips down my back and I remember how the dress drapes at my lower back, the swell of my hips pronounced by the fabric collected there.
I realize then he’s holding a box and I don’t move when he opens it, lifts whatever is inside and tosses the empty box on the bed. He raises a long, gold chain over my head and closes the clasp at my neck and I remember that first night we met. When I didn’t know who he was. When he closed a blood-crusted necklace around my throat, and I thought he’d strangle me with the chain.
My fingers move to touch it as his brush my spine, just the very tips light as a feather as they trace the line of it, from the nape of my neck down, barely touching each vertebrae, making me shiver as they move lower, lower, stopping just where the dress stops.
His gaze follows the line of his hand and a moment later, he straightens. His eyes are darker when they meet mine in the mirror.
He clears his throat, reaches out to lightly touch my shoulders and turns me so I’m facing him.
His eyes trap mine and my throat goes dry because I’ve stopped breathing. I seem to do that around him, especially when he’s so close. It’s like there’s not enough oxygen in the room for the both of us. Like one of us has to give.
One will.
He touches my chin, lifts my face and with the pad of his thumb, wipes at my temple. His touch is so soft it’s almost not real and it’s so opposite this hard man. This brutal, dangerous man.
“Eyelash,” he says.
I blink away, nod. Because I don’t know what the fuck I’m thinking or should be thinking or feeling or anything.
He’s just picking off an eyelash, dummy.
He gestures for me to look back at the mirror.
I turn to it to see how the necklace, a simple, delicate gold thing, hangs all the way down my back with a single sparkling diamond like a pendulum, the weight at the end of the chain.
It’s beautiful.
“Are you ready?” he asks.
I turn back to him and think what a couple we make.
“Sure,” I say, trying to sound casual, unaffected.
When we move to leave the room, his hand comes to my lower back, to the bare flesh there. It spans the width of it, and it takes all I have not to shudder at his touch as he leads me out and down the stairs.
Uncle Jack is dressed in a tuxedo and smoking a cigar while drinking a whiskey.
He gives me an approving nod.
“I’ll see you there,” he says to us.
“Don’t drink so much you forget to come, old man,” Stefan throws over his shoulder as he leads me outside into the warm night.