She was a snake.
“Is everything all right?” she asked, cocking her head slightly, making the gold earrings dangling from her ears catch the light and refract it.
“Of course,” he said, sounding so stiff he barely recognized his own voice. Unacceptable. “You look different.”
She glanced down at herself. “I suppose I do. You were right, an admission I don’t make lightly. But wearing color, looking more like someone you would usually have on your arm, will be far more gossipworthy than if I dressed as I usually do. Just as the hideous flowers you sent me did.”
It was disorienting, to mix business with fake pleasure. That was all. He just had to get his wits about him. He put on his usual smile—always so easy—offered his arm and felt somewhat reassured when she hesitated.
It was still the same Serena underneath this costume, and he’d need to remember that to make it through the evening.
CHAPTER FOUR
SERENA WAS Abundle of nerves on the inside. On the outside, she was a fortress of sophistication. But taking Luciano’s arm was like one final step into a madness she did not want, but had no choice about.
So she wasn’teagerto start this farce.
She did not care for the dress. It left her feeling exposed, when usually her wardrobe, hair and makeup felt like armor. Today, it was simply a costume. A role she was playing.
A woman foolish enough to be caught up in the charming smile of Luciano Ascione. Because this was the element shewasnervous about. How did one pretend to be in love with a man they hated?
And yethatewasn’t quite accurate as she put her arm in his. Somethingelsewas happening inside her body. It wasn’t disdain. It wasn’t revulsion. She had been in a male-dominated business enough to know whatdisinterestfelt like.
This wasn’t that, and she could not make sense of it since she did not like Luciano Ascione and never would.
Never.
He led her outside, and the cool air felt good against her overwarm skin. The act ofwalkinghelped take her out of her tumble of thoughts and focus. Because everything in business was focus. One step and then another.
And any inner feelings—good or bad—did not matter.
He led her to his car and opened the door for her, and she did not make eye contact. She had been haunted for too many nights about what it felt like in that restaurant to meet his gaze.
She wanted nothing to do with it.
Once seated in the back of his car, she closed her eyes for a moment. Just to center herself. Just to remind herself what this was for.
“Nervous?”
“Of course not,” she said, reacting too quickly, too forcefully. She knew it the minute she nearly jumped a foot out of her seat when Luciano put his large hand over her clasped ones in her lap.
She wanted to scoot farther away from him, but he was hardly crowding her. Even his hand came off hers quickly. There was absolutely no reason to find the spacious backseat too small. Too enclosed. And smelling far too much of his expensive cologne, something woodsy and enticing. Subtle, when the man was anything but.
“I suppose I am nervous,” she said to him, because claiming the emotion she felt was the first step in defeating it. In maybe eradicating this winded feeling. “You are the experienced actor in this little play.”
“Then let me do the talking.”
“Talking, I am good at. I am not good at…” She trailed off, because she didn’t know how to articulate it. She was always playing a role, so it wasn’t that. It was simply that she usually played a role she chose, or maybe it was less of a role, less of a fiction, and more of a mask over her real self. One that suited her. Businesswoman. Whether it required a little flirting and ridiculous compliments, or shrewd no-nonsense facts. She could do it all.
But she did not know how to attend an event and pretend that it was simply to enjoy the company of her date. The goal was not business—it was gossip and drumming up interest inher.
She had always preferred to be in the background, to let the business do the speaking. No one needed to know about her cats or what she liked to read or the name she had planned for the miniature dachshund she wasthisclose to adopting.
Now, she was pretending to let everyone know something. Something she didn’t actually want anyone to know, because being fake in love with Luciano was embarrassing. He was a notorious playboy, flirted with anything that moved. Everyone would look at her and feelpityfor thinking she of all people would have won his loyalty.
“I’m waiting for you to confess something you don’t think you’re good at, Serena. Frankly, I did not think hubris one of your main qualities.”
She scowled at him. “One does not need hubris when one is self-aware,” she returned with a primness that steadied her. Because she wasprim, and organized, and controlling and thereforein control. She knew her flaws. Understood them and tried to keep them under that same control.
