He pouts theatrically. “I was tired,” he says again, with a smugness that is both childish and delicious. “I sat down.”
“When there was a chair against the wall?” I add, because the truth of it is the only truth that matters when it comes to this house. “You enjoy seeing me lose the thread.”
“You enjoy being ruffled,” he counters. His smile is small and private, triumphant. “Or at least your cock does.”
It’s true. I do. I don’t like admitting joys to myself; they look like weaknesses in the glass. But the way he works at me—bratty, unashamed, bold in a way that gets under my skin—warms the colder rooms in my house, lights small, inconvenient candles. I realize it as if a man noting a stain on a shirt: there it is, impossible to ignore.
“Get up,” I say finally, an order that tastes like propriety. His expression falters for the briefest second, something like disappointment sharpening his features, then he moves, skirtsfrom my lap with the practiced skill of an athlete and the affected grace of an actor taking a bow.
We walk out together in a silence that is not uncomfortable. The path back through the mansion is familiar, but the dynamics are changed by the small, intimate transgression. I sense today will make stories in people’s heads—a Moretti son sitting like a spoiled prince on the Romano’s lap. It’s a tableau that will be gossiped over, analyzed, and used. I don’t much care. The game is more private than that now.
Later, in my study, I let the thought sit where it will. I study the ledger, the contracts, the black lines of accounts, but my mind keeps returning to the small rebellions of the man resting upstairs. I had intended to control him, to use him as a device in a larger campaign of reputation. Instead, he has become something else—a test, a constant, an irritant that teaches me new ways to feel.
There is a warmth in my chest that has nothing to do with fire. I file it under amusements and keep it close. The notion that I might want a distraction in the house is a dangerous one; distractions lead to errors. Errors have a habit of being fatal in this life. Still, I am not sure I care quite yet.
I let it sit. I let it marinate into a private plan to test him more, not to break him but to see how far he will go, how soft he will become under pressure, and if the softening will be a mercy or a weapon. I intend to keep him close. I intend to see what happens when a man like me—careful and cold and ordered—decides that a boyish insolence is worth the trouble of ownership.
For now, I roll the day back in my head and savor the small, infuriating stings: the kiss, his ass, his smug little victories. In the quiet of my office, with the papers spread like maps and the night shut out by glass, I let the new plan take shape. He will beuseful. He will be entertained. He will be disciplined. He will be rewarded if he behaves.
And perhaps, I think with a small, private smile, he will teach me how to be amused again.
6
Elias
The bow is the first thing I see when I open my eyes.
A bright slash of red on the dark wood floor, like someone had painted a wound across the room. For a second I think someone’s come to take me back home. The world is still soft-edged from sleep; the room smells faintly of cedar and the cleaner the staff use.
My heart does that stupid thumpy thing it does when my head is full of fear and bad plans. Then I remember where I am and who put the bow there, and the thump changes into something like a question.
The box sits under the lamp in the living room of my suite. It’s the sort of thing you’d use to hold a stupidly expensive present—the kind of box that promises something precise and dangerous inside. I swing my legs over the bed, bare feet meet cold wood, and the image of Lucian’s hand tying a bow at my throat flashes across my mind. My face heats in spite of myself.
I go to the box like someone opening a door they’re not sure they should. The ribbon is taut and perfect. I cut it withmy thumbnail because I’m impatient and also because I can’t make myself do anything slower. The lid lifts and the smell of new fabric hits me—dark, rich, something like crushed wine and the faint tang of the ocean. Inside is a suit: deep burgundy, a low, dangerous wine. Tailored. Perfect. The shoulders promise structure; the waist promises someone has thought the lines through. There’s a small envelope tucked into the jacket pocket.
My hands shake a little. I dig the note free. The paper is thick. The handwriting is impossibly clean and sharp, like Lucian wrote it with a practiced hand and a ruler.
Your reward,it says, in the same exacting script he uses when he signs off on depositions and debts.
There’s also an embossed invitation to the mayor’s January charity gala that evening. Black tie. Civic, official, public, eyes everywhere. A thousand people who call it charity who are really there to be seen. A thousand little lights and cameras, and a thousand faces that can be useful or knives.
It’s ridiculous. It’s an escalation. It’s a demonstration. It is also impossibly flattering.
For a moment, I let myself be ridiculous too: I imagine him sitting across from me, the way his mouth went narrow when I bit his hand, the dry amusement that passes across his face when he thinks I’ve been bested. He wants me by his side tonight, to be the spectacle that announces he owns my orbit. I feel the unauthorized warmth in my chest and I scrub at it with a thought: power play. It’s a move, like everything else. He’s sending me out so everyone will see me at his side and understand the arrangement. He wants them to talk, to wonder, to be destabilized.
I tell myself it’s a game and that I will play it on my terms. Of course I do. I always do.
Still, when I pull the burgundy jacket on, stepping into the trousers that fit like they were made for me, there’s a small,sinful thrill at the sight in the mirror. The suit hugs my shoulders and narrows at the waist; the color makes my skin look darker, my hair vibrant. I run my hand over the lapel like I’m testing whether the fabric breathes, as if it matters whether a suit can hold a secret. I button the jacket once and the mirror shows me a version of myself that looks older, not by much, but maybe enough to be noticed.
“Not now, Elias,” I tell myself, but the suit sits differently somehow. I look like a man who could belong to the night.
??? ??? ???
I nervously look at myself in the mirror, adjusting my black tie. I’ll go because it’s a public thing and because Lucian asked. I’ll wear his suit and be the prop he wants me to be. I will not be flattered. I will not be nervous. I will not let him know he can sting me with charm.
The mansion smells of heated stone and coffee when I walk out. The staff have prepared me like a prize; Mara has smoothed a small crease in the sleeve as if she is erasing my last night’s careless edges. When I step into the hall, Lucian is waiting. Not inside my suite, not in the doorway, but two steps from the stairs where the light catches at his coat, collar loose, a cigarette already kissed into ash between his fingers. He looks like a man who has been awake too long and done things he doesn’t like doing. He looks dangerously gorgeous in his own, precise way.
“Perfect,” he says with the economy of a man who does not use more words than necessary—the cigarette smoke curls like a small flag.
