Grabbing a few of my things, I washed up some. I redid my makeup because I wasn’t sure if we were spending the night or not. All my bags had been delivered, but that didn’t tell me much. He’d bring them here just to ship them somewhere else if this was only a stop to wherever we were going next.
I was getting a migraine, so I took my hair out of the French twist and ran my hands through it. If I brushed it, it would frizz. I twisted it up again because it just didn’t sit right down. This time, though, it was more relaxed and didn’t pull at my scalp.
I slipped on another white dress, this one silk and somewhat loose with patterns of cream lace. I didn’t have to worry about another pair of shoes then. I left the diamonds around my neck. They were too expensive to take off and just leave around. It was safer if they stayed with me until Nazzareno could deal with them. He’d told me they were on loan from a jeweler that had served his family for as long as it had been a family. Apparently, this jeweler had vaults for their most expensive pieces.
Once done with my appearance, I stood frozen in the middle of the spacious and empty bedroom, not sure where to go. I was being overly conscious of my steps. Fate was on my mind. One foot in the wrong direction, and I wasn’t sure what would happen.
Leave, Ava. Just leave.
That always made things better, and maybe it would in this situation, but I knew Nazzareno wasn’t going to let me go that easily, even if he was processing the truth I’d hit him with at the museum. I couldn’t help it. Putting a woman on a pedestal will do that to a girl with a past—make her honest about her history.
Especially when she might cause a war.
A war.
One fucking conversation with one of those men, and this was where it led me.
All right, I couldn’t just stand in the middle of this lonely room all night. I squared my shoulders and started to look through the rooms for Nazzareno. Maybe he had left me. Which meant…for the first time since the night I found out he was marrying someone else, I was alone. But that night, men had been watching Nazzareno’s place in Rome. No men were lurking here.
If I left, it would make things easier, right? I could go to Luca, tell him this was all one big mistake, and I just wanted to go back to New York and live my life. Scarlett even said a woman has all the power. What I took from that: I just had to know how to wield it, like these men wielded swords.
I was good at making plans on the fly. Once I could get out of Denmark, I would call Naomi. She’d given me her number in Rome. I’d find out where Luca’s place was in Florence—she’d been there before—and request a meeting with him.
The problem was…I was hesitating. I never hesitated when it was time to go. But invisible cords were rooting me in place, and my heart felt like it was already straining.
What if you always ran because it was preparing you for this moment—a moment that might save his life if you take off?
I took a step, then another, testing the skies a bit.
Fucking windy.
And why am I tiptoeing?
I knew why. I didn’t want him to hear me, because if I didn’t have the spine to do this, he would never trust me again. He would think I was just like Janis. Waiting for a moment when he was gone so I could stick a knife in his back.
“Shit!” I screamed when my foot ran into a hard piece of a furniture placed against the door leading out of the suite, and an even harder man sitting in it.
He rose to his towering height, engulfing me with his body, and pushed me back with his steps. We stopped when we came to a wall. A single industrial lightbulb lit the space between us. Everything else was cloaked in darkness. His eyes were wild, his pupils dilated. His nostrils were flaring, like he was scenting the air.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
“Are you trying to fly away from me, my little birdie?”
“I…I was testing the skies, so to speak.”
“Ah,” he breathed, and it was whiskey-laced and full of alcoholic fire. “You wanted to see if you could do it—leave me.”
“What if I was just looking for you?”
“Do not lie to me, Ava.” He crowded me even more, and I felt like I was going to become flat with the wall. He set an arm next to my head, and another, caging me in. “Tell me now, what did she tell you.”
She. Rosaria.
“She had feelings for Tigran.”
His eyes seemed to shimmer with hate at his name. He slammed his fist against the wall and it cracked, like it was made of glass. “I do not give a fuck about her feelings about a dead man. Tell me what she told you.”
“What does that have to do with this?” My voice hid the panic in my heart. They were both on the rise.
