My lips press together as swallowing becomes difficult—because it’s obvious who they’re talking about, even without names being mentioned.
A clicking tongue before another voice, just as old, replies.
“He must be walking her around out of pity. The girl just came back to town. Did you see the way she was throwing herself at the boys before Nero arrived?”
My eyes widen.Throwing myself at the boys?
“And the dress?” the second voice continues, and I drop my gaze to my own body, searching for flaws in my outfit before hearing the rest. “Pitiful. I thought Rosa would have enough money to at least dress her daughter properly.”
The woman sighs.
“No wonder Nero felt sorry for her.”
“Poor thing…” the woman who started it all feigns sympathy, and I clench my teeth, a mix of anger and helplessness burning in my chest.
The conversation goes on. They talk about my hair, my makeup, even the way I walk. But no matter where it leads, it always circles back to the same point:
Nero is only with me out of pity.
It’s impossible not to wonder if I’m just another case of baklava. Like Mrs. Eudora’s desserts, is Nero only keeping me company out of pity?
He had no reason to do that. No one expected him to. Him inviting me makes no sense—but pity being the reason makes even less.
“Any woman who looks at her and believes someone would keep her company out of pity is clearly overdue for an appointment with an ophthalmologist.”
Nero’s voice slices through my thoughts and silences the women behind me.
I turn slowly, holding my breath, unable to believe he actually heard them—and I find him standing exactly where he left me, on the other side of the pillar, behind the two elderly women who were speaking about me so cruelly.
They turn to him with awkward smiles and blinking eyes—silent apologies written across their faces.
Nero isn’t looking at either of them.
He’s only turned his head toward me, keeping his body positioned like a barrier between me and the two gossips. The expression on his face isn’t the playful one he wore before Daphne came to call him—but it isn’t the hard one he put on before dealing with whatever issue arose, either.
The lines on his face form something entirely new to me—something I don’t yet know how to interpret.
Only when I shake my head and silently mouthit’s okaydoes he step aside, revealing me to the women.
They at least have the decency to widen their eyes before greeting me as if they hadn’t been speaking ill of me mere seconds earlier. They hurry to excuse themselves and disappear into the crowd.
Nero extends his hand to me, and I take it. We stare at each other for nearly a minute before I speak.
“I need air.”
He nods, and without a word, leads me through the guests—winding through the hall and down corridors until the number of people around us dwindles to none.
I’m about to say it’s enough when he lifts his free hand and opens a door.
I follow him, curious, and step into a garden as we cross the threshold. The clean, cool air—so different from the air I’d beensharing with hundreds of people inside the association—fills my lungs, and I close my eyes, savoring it.
When I open them again, I find the blue seas Nero calls eyes completely focused on me—and I can’t keep the question inside.
“Why did you invite me?”
He studies me as if he doesn’t know the answer himself.
And just as the poison woven into the gossips’ words, the sideways glances, and the murmurs of the night threaten to settle as an absolute truth in my heart, he answers—driving it away completely.
