His knuckles bump beneath my chin, tipping my head up. “The fuck it is. I’m proud as fuck to walk in there with you on my arm. So, fuck anyone who thinks you don’t belong.”
He says these things sometimes. Big, earnest things with such conviction. He says them like they cost him nothing. But they wreak havoc on my heart every time.
“Even though I’m a nobody?” I ask, my voice sounding small.
“You’re the opposite of a nobody,” Iosif says adamantly. “You’re Janella Yuri. My stunning wife. That’s the only credential you need this once.”
***
The venue looks so much like a castle that I have to ask Iosif if it is one. Once his laughter subsides, he regrettably informs me that there are no castles that he knows of in Boston, Massachusetts.
Yet, when we walk in beneath magnificent, swinging chandeliers casting prismatic light across the glossy marble floors, I still maintain it’s close enough to one to count.
It’s useful that I appreciate it all enough to be more overwhelmed by the beauty than I am by any of my feelings of inadequacy.
My grip on Iosif’s arm never relents, regardless.
When one of the waiters rotating through the ballroom passes by us, he plucks two flutes with his unclaimed hand. With him in his natural habitat, it’s impossible to miss the way his hard, flinty gaze softens when it lands on me.
His attention makes my head spin. I’m grateful when others vie for his attention.
“Iosif!” A man who looks to be in his sixties is headed toward us. “Good to see you, my boy! And is this the lovely bride I’ve been hearing so much about?”
It takes me precisely point-two seconds to realize why he’d been so insistent about the prop.
Playing into my part, I hold it up, flashing it like a blushing bride. “That’s me!” I gush, nodding eagerly.
“Janella, this is Yiannis Nikolaidis. I know he looks like an old fart, but you’re looking at the man who owns half the commercial real estate in Massachusetts,” he introduces charmingly, losing none of his luster to fakeness. “Yiannis, this mesmerizing creature is my wife, Janella.”
“A pleasure.” Yiannis brushes his lips across my knuckles in an outdated fashion that flusters me. I don’t know what to do with myself. “Iosif’s a beast for keeping you hidden away. Though I can see why. I was the same with my third wife. It’s just what a man has to do when he wants you all to himself.”
I cover my mouth as soon as the laugh bursts out of me. I’m terrified he’ll be offended until I see that Iosif’s chuckling too.
I try to be normal, as normal as I can be, in this dress, at least. “I’d say I’ve been keeping myself hidden, to tell you the truth. Running a café uses up all my desire for socialization.”
“A café?” Either this man is genuinely impressed, or a fantastic actor. “My daughter’s been looking for a new spot for her book club. Do you have a card I can pass along?”
I’m about to apologize for the lack of one, but Iosif pulls one out of his jacket pocket before I get there.
He never stops amazing me, does he?
“The Great Escape,” Yiannis reads aloud, smiling widely. “I like it.”
We talk some more about the café, his daughter, and her girlfriend, Sophie, and the gala’s charity focus. By the time Yiannis moves on to someone else, Iosif is grinning smugly.
“I fucking told you so. You’re a natural.”
The evening unfolds through a series of introductions. Iosif, for his part, doesn’t leave my side once. He never stops touching me in one way or another—a hand at the small of my back, the backs of his fingers brushing against the flush in my cheeks, or whispering a quick joke in my ear while I try not snort champagne out of my nose.
Again and again, he introduces me as his wife. No qualifiers or addendums necessary.
“This is Janella, my wife.”
“Have you met Janella? She runs The Great Escape up on Newbury.”
“Janella just opened her own café a few months ago. You should check it out if you’re in the mood for something enchanting.”
Brick by brick, he builds me up. He polishes my confidence, never saying anything factually untrue to do it. Forget how natural I may or may not be at this. It’s he who has these wickedly wealthy, terrifyingly powerful people looking at me with respect. With intrigue, even.
