I clutch my champagne flute too tightly, and the stem is like a fragile bone in my hand.
It feels like half the room is assessing the new prize Antonio has acquired, and already I am waiting for the first lecherous comment, the first possessive hand on my arm that isn’t his, the moment I am passed around like an expensive vintage to be sampled.
But it doesn’t come.
Antonio is a fixed point at my side, his presence a dark star around which the party orbits. And his hand, large and warm rests on the small of my back, his fingers splayed possessively over the emerald silk of my dress.
It’s not a cruel grip, not the harsh clamp of an owner seizing his property. It’s firm. Assured. Constant.
When a silver-haired man with the eyes of a fox approaches, his gaze flicks to me with open curiosity. “Antonio.Chi è la tua bellissima accompagnatrice?”
I freeze, bracing myself for whatever this is.
Antonio’s thumb moves, a tiny, almost imperceptible stroke against my spine. His voice is a low rumble, devoid of warmth for the other man, but layered with a possessiveness that shocks me. He speaks first in rapid Italian to the man, a fluid and commanding stream I cannot understand. Then his tone shifts, deepening as he turns his head slightly toward me. “This is Grace.”
The sound of my name on his lips, my real name, notpetordumpling, is like a shock of cold water. A startling and intimate recognition that steals the air from my lungs and leaves me staring, wide-eyed, at his profile.
He has never called me that before, not in public, not in a way that doesn’t shame me or label me as a traitor.
He continues, his voice leaving no room for doubt, “She is mine.”
The words are notmy mistress, notmy woman, but their meaning is unequivocal. A boundary has been drawn in steel. The man’s demeanour shifts instantly from curious to respectfully deferential. He nods at me. “A pleasure, signorina.”
It happens again and again throughout the night. Antonio introduces me to powerful, dangerous men, men whose names I vaguely recognize from newspaper headlines and news reports.
Each time, his hand remains on me, an anchor and a brand.
Each time, he uses that same tone, that same phrase: “She is mine.” And each time, I am met with nothing but polished, respectful acknowledgement.
The cognitive dissonance is a whirlpool in my mind, pulling me under. This is the man who shattered my family. This is the man who keeps me in a gilded prison. He is my jailer. My Master, my monster.
So why is he acting like a guardian? Why does the way his fingers press into my silk-covered skin feel less like a chain, and more like a claim? The confusion is more terrifying than outright hatred.
Hatred is a straight line. This is a maze, and I am lost in it.
The party becomes a blur of smiling masks and murmured Italian. I drink more champagne, hoping the bubbles will dissolve the knot of anxiety that is tangling tighter and tighter in my chest. The alcohol goes to my head, a pleasant fuzziness that softens the sharp edges of my fear and confusion.
By the time Antonio leans down, his lips close to my ear, his breath a warm caress against my skin, I am pleasantly adrift.
“It is time to go, Dumpling.”
The drive back is a silent, dark journey through the ancient streets. I lean my head against the cool window of the Bentley, watching the ghost of Rome slide by. The champagne has morphed from a social lubricant into a truth serum of emotion. The awe from the day, the nervous tension of the party, the bewildering warmth of his hand on my back; it all churns inside me, like a chaotic storm desperately looking for an outlet.
Antonio’s villa is silent, bathed in the milky light of a rising moon. Antonio dismisses the staff with a quiet word. The heavy door clicks shut, and we are alone in the vast, marbled entrance hall. And god, is the silence deafening.
I can’t take it. I can’t…
I kick off my heels, the cold marble a shock against my bare soles. There’s a sleek sound system built into the wall. I stumble toward it, my fingers fumbling over the controls. I need noise. I need to drown out the voices in my head; my father’s broken sob, my mother’s terrified silence, the polite greetings of men who were more than happy to watch my father die, the sound of Antonio’s voice saying ’she is mine.’
Music floods the room. It’s something modern and Italian with a pulsing, insistent beat I don’t recognize. It doesn’t matter. It’s sound, it’s movement. It’s escape.
I close my eyes and I start to dance.
It’s not graceful. It’s a raw, uncoordinated unravelling.
I let the rhythm move through me, my arms flying up, my head tossing back. The silk of my dress swirls around my legs. I am not thinking, I am justfeeling. I am chasing the ghost of the happiness I felt staring up at the Colosseum, the pure, uncomplicated wonder. I am trying to forget the guilt. I am trying to forget the terrifying, unfamiliar flutter in my stomach when Antonio looked at me tonight not as a thing, but as something else.
I dance to forget that I am his,
