Vincenzo glances at the clock. “No time. We’re going to the fight early to watch the Dervishis arrive, so we’d better get ready.”
I look down at the blouse and skirt I put on for class and then back up at him. “I can’t go to a fight like this.”
Sofia smiles at me. “What you’re wearing is fine. Some big curls, a bright lipstick, some smoky eyeshadow, and you’ll be a different woman. Come with me.”
Sofia leads me upstairs. Her bedroom is warm and cluttered, with perfume bottles crowding the vanity alongside jewelry boxes and framed photographs. She sits me down in front of the mirror and gets to work.
“You have beautiful bone structure,” she says, tilting my chin to study my face. “We just need to bring out your inner Malus girl.” She winks at me.
“Aren’t I already a Malus girl? I was born and raised here.”
“You’ll see what I mean.”
She heats a curling iron and sections my hair, transforming my neat waves into tumbling, voluminous curls. Then she attacks my face with brushes and pots of color. Smoky gray shadow blended into the creases, black liner smudged along my lashes, bold red lipstick that makes me look older, harder, nothing like myself.
Sofia untucks my blouse, undoes several of the lower buttons, and then ties it high beneath my bust. Suddenly I have curves, cleavage, a body that demands attention. The pleated skirt that was preppy this morning now looks provocative. She loans me a pair of strappy stilettos and steps back, assessing her work.
“Perfect. You look like trouble.”
I barely recognize the woman in the vanity mirror. She’s the kind of person who would turn her rings around and start a knock-down, drag-out fight with someone who got too flirty with her boyfriend. I look like someone my father would disown. I feel different.
I feel powerful.
Sofia adds a few gold chains from her jewelry box, stacking them around my neck. “If anyone asks, you’re a girl from the neighborhood. No designer labels, no fancy education. Just a pretty thing on the arm of a dangerous man.”
“I can do that.”
“I know you can.” She squeezes my shoulder. “You’re tougher than you look, Adora Montoni.”
A tattooed hand plucks an eyeliner pencil from the vanity, and I look around and see Vincenzo. His hair is a rich dark brown. He must have used a rinse or a spray to turn it that color. Holding the skin beneath his eye, he rims his lower lashes with black. He looks good wearing the liner. Criminally sexy.
Gone is the sleek man in edgy suits. In his place stands someone rougher. A white T-shirt is stretched across his chest, and he wears worn black jeans and scuffed boots. There’s a bandage on his forearm, and I guess it’s to conceal his raven tattoo. With the dark hair and lined eyes, he looks like exactly what he’s pretending to be. A dangerous man who settles disputes with his fists.
He catches me staring in the mirror and smirks. “See something you like, doe?”
My mouth goes dry, and every nerve ending in my body lights up at once. He looks rough and raw and utterly devastating, and I want him so badly I can barely breathe. The eyeliner makes his blue eyes even more intense, and the way that tight shirt stretches across his chest makes my fingers itch to touch him and trace the lines of muscle I can see through the fabric.
I want to cross this room and put my hands on him. I want to feel his skin under my palms, taste his mouth, press myself against all that hard muscle and heat. The need is so acute it’s almost painful as a throbbing ache low in my belly makes my thighs clench. If I don’t touch him soon, if he doesn’t touch me, I’m going to come apart.
My heart pounds so hard I’m sure he can hear it. I’ve never felt desire like this before and never understood how it could make you reckless and desperate and willing to forget everything else.
Heat floods my cheeks. “You look…different.”
“That’s the idea.” He sets down the eyeliner and turns to face me. His eyes travel slowly down my body—the tied blouse, the curves, the red lips—and something hot flickers in his gaze. “So do you.”
“Sofia’s work.”
He reaches out and adjusts one of the gold chains at my throat, his knuckles brushing my collarbone. Leaning closer, he dips his head, and whispers, “You look like you were born for this.”
Finally, he’s going to kiss me. I’ve been aching for his mouth on mine for hours.
His lingers for a moment, but maddeningly, he still doesn’t lower his mouth to mine.
He steps back, his eyes bright with purpose. “Let’s go.”
The sun is settingas Vincenzo parks in the shadow of an abandoned warehouse, the industrial district of northern Malus sprawling around us in a maze of rust and concrete. From here,we have a clear view of a larger building across the lot. A former meatpacking plant, Vincenzo tells me. The Dervishi fight venue.
“Hardly a glamorous place for a birthday party,” I observe.
