“Nemours spoke to them—I believe his intuition spoke to him when I went sniffing around, attempting to find the details of your contract,” Rocco said. “It seems he can be highly persuasive when it comes to you. I do not know what he told them, but it was enough to bringNonnoout of the shadows.”
“When do I have to dance?”
“Nightfall.”
“Brando.” I turned back to him. “I’ve danced before—”
“There is one more thing,bella,” Rocco said, eyes firm on mine. “Your husband is not allowed in the room. If he attempts it, the French will be allowed to take you back to Paris, without him.”
Chapter Fourteen
Scarlett
Rocco talked the family into letting him accompany me. For the first time I saw him offer a hand to his brother, making some vow to keep me safe. Afterward, we left the steaming washhouse, following Rocco back into the central building.
We were led to a set of elevators that needed a special code. We went down two floors, and once we exited, Rocco led us to a standard dressing room, which was protected by eight men that I didn’t recognize.
Unopened makeup sat on the counter with numerous hair paraphernalia, and a black bag hung on the rack, a pair of emerald-encrusted pointe shoes with long ribbons underneath. A small bathroom, shower included, was filled with products to make a woman smell tempting.
Rocco promised to come back for me when it was time. In the meantime, he ordered one of his guys to bring food. He looked at Brando when he said this, as if it was at his request.
Brando still hadn’t spoken a word to me, but he followed me wherever I went. For whatever reason, for the sheer privacy of it, I took a hot, long shower. He watched. He watched as I dried my hair, as I curled it, as I moisturized my skin, as I applied makeup, almost hypnotized by each move, though he had watched my usual routine countless times before.
He watched me like a man about to say goodbye. He was being too Machiavellian, too cold. He was plotting.
After all of the preliminaries were done, he searched the platter of foods. He stabbed a piece of steak and brought it to me.
“You’re going to eat.”
I moved my face. “No, I’m not hungry.”
He tried again, and I slapped the fork away from my face. The piece of meat flew off.
“You are going to EAT!” He hit the table so hard that it cracked in two, dishes clattering to the floor in a messy and sharp slop.
I pounced from my seat, meeting him in the middle of his anger. “I will not!” I seethed. I couldn’t even think of eating—I would vomit, but hell if I’d let him know that. I refused to share my fear with him. “This is my show, not yours! You will listento me, dammit. You will hear me! Do you understand, Brando Piero Fausti? You will listen to me!” I stabbed a finger to my own chest.
His chest rose and fell at a lethally calm pace.
“I know what I’m doing. I’ve been doing it my entire life! That will not even beme—” My voice held a tinge of fear, so I stuck my chin up at him. And he was right. I vibrated when angry. “That will not even bemedown there! I am a performer. A dancer. I have always been. It’s what I was born to do. I do it for my love, and I do it for my bread and butter, because I do love it, and I do it below with the rats in the sewer. I will do it to save your life now. But I need you. I need you to be my tender, to be there for me when I rise to the surface, Fausti. I am going to needyou, my husband.”
Rocco had conveyed a message to me fromla famiglia—if you say no, or struggle, or do not perform to the caliber they know you are capable of, they will allow Nemours to take you back to Paris. And if your husband puts up a fight, they will kill him right in front of you—quick and easy, but dead nonetheless.This is their final word.
I knew it. Brando knew it. The power was in my hands. He resented me for it.
“Promise me.”Your word is as good your blood.“Or I will say no.”I will have them take me, and it will not be because of you.
His hands twitched at his sides, his jaw flexed, and the tick pulsated with the fury he contained.
He cleared his throat. “You have my word,” he said in Italian.
I hated how his voice sounded. I hated how it broke my heart in two to force him to say those words.He was a man, not a child!
Closing in on him, I wrapped my arms around his waist, breathing him in.“I need you right now. Make love to me. Please.”
It felt necessary to have him, to allow him to take what he pleased, and in return, give me the very thing that I knew was at stake—the sacred part of us. I would hold it, take it down with me, and keep it in that secret part of myself that no one could touch, unless given permission.
He did, and I came outside of myself, clinging to the secret part of him that he carried. I hoped all that was sacred inside of me was safely with him.
