Luca was so close, his spicy cologne reached out and touched me. Damn. He smelled good. I wanted to sniff the air around him.
Okay.
My heart was palpitating.
Maybe I was having a heart attack.
Or a panic attack.
Some kind of fucking attack because I couldn’t breathe when he stopped in front of me.
“Hello,” he said in a deep, accented voice, taking my hand and setting his free one over mine, enclosing it in warmth.
I curtseyed, and when I stood, I gave a little roar.
I fucking roared! Like a cub, but still.
His face went blank and then he exploded with laughter. His teeth were perfect and white, the last thing prey would see before he went in for the kill. “Ah,” he sighed, pressing a kiss to my hand. “How delightful. What is your name?”
I couldn’t answer.
“Pepper.” Milo had pity on me and answered.
“Pepper,” Luca repeated, but I could sense it. Either he didn’t believe Milo, or he didn’t think the name suited me. “Have a wonderful time tonight.” He roared at his wife as he continued down the line, laughing. His wife threw me a smile and a wink over her shoulder.
“You curtseyed,” Neil said in astonishment. “You fucking roared!”
The three of us turned to each other and laughed. It was an odd sound, though, like we were trying to relieve some of the tension. But Luca Fausti was a force-field, and I’d been sucked into his orb, no amount of laughing going to send me back to my own planet.
Seemed like Neil, Milo, and the entire line of press he’d passed felt the same way. Everyone was staring after him.
A guard cleared his throat to get our attention after Luca and Margherita disappeared. He announced in an accented, and no-bullshit, voice that the press was free to join the main event and to mingle. We were not allowed to roam the property, though. I includedmeinwebecause my background check must have come back listing me as a journalist, including credentials, even if Rainer had “invited” me as his date.
The three of us started for the main area of the event when Rainer took my arm and stopped me. Neil and Milo stopped too.
“Where did you go?” he hissed at me.
“Problem here?” Neil asked, nodding toward where Rainer had a hand on my arm.
Rainer didn’t even care—he was so obsessed with the thought of finding Scarlett Fausti, it seemed like he just wanted me to answer and be done with it. His eyes kept flicking to me and then to the crowd. On one glance, he was about to look back at me when he stopped and stared.
My eyes followed the line of his and stilled on Scarlett Fausti.
Rainer had spotted her, too, if the thirsty look on his face was any indication. But he was going to have to wait to get close to her.
With the grand entrances over, the main event of the night was about to begin. The music stopped and one of Marzio’s younger brothers took the stage, probably about to give a speech.
Edna had once told me studying the Fausti family was like studying a pride of lions from afar. Every day, little by little, like wildlife biologists or zoologists, we learned their ways. It was how we knew the family was steeped in the symbolic.
The city was no mistake.
Venice is known as The City of Masks, and this coronation wore two faces.
To the rest of the world, it was simply a charity ball, a way for the family to give back to their roots—we are Italy, they were known to say—while the other side of it was more personal and had to do with the kingdom’s politics.
Behind the mask, Luca would have taken his trustedconsigliereand gone to church where the priest would bless him, and his man would pledge fealty. Then the event would be where he pledged his everlasting love and undying loyalty to the family, to their country, to their private world, but in a way that would also wear a mask.
It was always important to listen beyond the words with them—it was always two stories. The surface one and the deeper one.
