Maybe because I hadn’t moved, too in shock to relax enough to do what he’d ordered me to, Aniello said, “Move, Rosalia. Now,” in Italian.
I didn’t have the full language, but enough to understand certain words and phrases. The only one who ever really spoke to me in Italian was Aniello. He seemed to know different dialects of it too—like maybe Sicilian.
Even though I felt unsteady on my feet, I lifted my chin and squared my shoulders. I was going to have to walk in between them to get out unless Ben moved to let me through. He didn’t. And I knew Aniello was making me do it on purpose. As punishment? Or as some kind of symbolic show?
Just as I went to slip between them, Aniello moved so my body didn’t touch Ben’s. My hand brushed Aniello’s, and a shiver tore over me. Then my heart started to beat faster when he removed his jacket and set it over my shoulders, securing the button so I was covered. He never took his eyes off Ben as he did it.
Being around Aniello was giving me emotional whiplash. Adding to that was what was going on between him and Ben. Their bodies weren’t close anymore, but the tension still felt lethal.
* * *
I movedthrough Club D like a monster was on my heels. From experience, I knew Aniello didn’t like to wait. He wanted what he wanted when he wanted it.
The closer I came to his bath suite, though, the slower I moved.
What was he going to do when he had me all alone? Would he tell me I broke Club D’s dress code? Fine me? Send me home? Punish me? I knew for a fact that this dress wasn’t something to send me home for.
Girls had worn similar dresses before. Maybe not a lot, but they had. The one condition we had to abide by was that our clothes match the time of the day, and always, they had to be considered dressy for the time. And as time passed, most of the girls seemed to become part of the scenery by the clothes they chose. They all looked like they fit into a Club Desolation painting.
Even though this dress was a little risqué, it was still considered evening wear. He couldn’t get me there. I wouldn’t allow him to.
Not that he ever discussed his behavior with me. It wasn’t like we were going to discuss anything. Whatever he said went.
In all honesty, I was pulling at strings, coming up with things to think about, to buy time before I made it to that door.
I had wanted the truth.
I had a feeling I was about to get it…or not.
I wasn’t sure which scared me the most.
In my dreams, Aniello Assanti was everything I needed him to be.
In reality, he was one-dimensional, because I wasn’t sure if he was capable of blinking.
I’d spent a lot of my time creating him, making him come alive in my fantasies. Because in real life, there was no getting to know him. Who he was. Who he wasn’t. I was constantly guessing at his motives. When he spoke to me, the times felt monumental and could have meant anything fromYou’re everything to metoYou’re nothing to me.Because there was always something beyond his words that I couldn’t seem to grasp.
That pretty much summed up the situation I was about to walk into, but this time, no matter what the words meant, I needed to feel them. I needed the truth to become real to me, either way.
After the accident, my entire life felt like it revolved around seconds, minutes, hours, days that were behind a missing, revolving door.
Before I stepped into that steam-filled room, I slipped my heels off, holding them by the straps as I moved even closer to the door. I needed my feet on steady ground. As much as I could get in a slick bathroom.
“Shit.” I looked around, making sure no one had heard me. Everyone was closer to the main pool, not paying any attention to me.
Steam slipped out from beneath the door, which meant that he had beat me and was waiting. I’d only stopped for a minute or two.He must have moved like lightning after the scene in the pantry.
He was too quiet to be compared to thunder. And thunder wasn’t the most dangerous of the two. It gave too much of a warning.
I’d never hear him coming, even when I could feel him nearby.
With the intensity of a jolt, I realized that was the crackle that I always felt in the air. That crazy energy that always crept closer and closer to me when we were in the same room.
It was him.
There was something electric about him—I could feel the currents before he even walked into a room.
Not wanting to just stand around outside of his door, I knocked.
