“Miss?”
“No!”
“Miss Whitehall?”
I jolt upright. I’m not where I was.
A man stands in front of me. A stranger. He’s wearing the same grey uniform as Mr. Gretzky but he’s white-haired with a long Santa beard. He raises the bundle in his arms. “Sorry for disturbing you, Miss”
I pull the blankets up to my chin, my heart racing. “I… That’s okay.”
The older man smiles. “I’m Harvey. I’m here to bring you fresh clothes and take you down to the dining room for breakfast.”
It’s been so long since someone talked to me in a normal way, I’m a little blindsided. “Breakfast?”
“Of course. Although it’s almost lunchtime.” He lays the bundle on my bed with a toothy grin. “The ensuite is through to your left if you haven’t already seen it. I’ll wait outside.”
He leaves, closing the door behind him.
I was too stressed to pay attention to the room last night, but it’s pretty. There are leaf mouldings across the roof and a small grate for a fire. I crawl out of bed and wander to the huge window. Outside is a white fountain and what looks like a tennis court. Beyond that are rolling green grounds as far as I can see.
The ensuite is just as pretty as the rest of the room. Vowing to use the claw-foot bath later, I run the shower as hot as I can and get in. As I move the loofa across my skin, arousal pulses through me. This was where Bobby’s mouth was. This is where Doc’s hands were. That was no dream. I let a man go down on me while another man and I kissed. “Oh God…”
The night we met, Eli told me my morals were untested. I want to say I’m a good person and I know what’s wrong and right, but do I? I was excited to be put in front of them in my underwear and relieved to have a reason to be attracted to them. I know Bobby killed Kurt and Eli ordered it and Doc would have happily done it instead, but I still let them touch me last night. And I wanted them to touch me more. All of them, even—my stomach contracts as I think it—Adriano.
I shake my head, sending water everywhere. “But I’m still a virgin,” I tell myself. Even I hear the hollowness in my voice. It doesn’t feel like much of a consolation. What would mom say if she knew? What would Zia Teresa say?
I imagine her sitting on the edge of the bath, playing slot machine games on her phone.
“Zia, do you think I’m disgusting?”
She looks up at me, her expression mild. “I think you should get out of the shower,bella.”
I do as I’m told, drying myself and examining the clothes Harvey brought me. Yellow cotton panties, a blue sundress and ballet flats.
As usual, the dress I’ve been given fits perfectly but snugly. I look at myself in the full-length mirror and sigh. No wonder Doc keeps calling me ‘Tits.’
There’s a light knock on the door. “You ready to go, Miss?”
I put on my best ‘meeting new people’ smile. “I’ll be right out.”
Harvey leads me from my wing down another red carpeted hallway. The house is even prettier by daylight, but it’s dirty. There’s an inch of dust on every surface and cobwebs across the gorgeous stained-glass windows. Beyond them, I can see the edge of a thick green forest. We seem to be miles away from anywhere.
“Excuse me, Harvey?” I ask, trying to sound innocent. “Where are we?”
“Albany.”
Relief floods through me. Upstate New York. Not too far from home.
“And what is this place? It’s so beautiful.”
“Isn’t it? Velvet House belongs to Mr. Morelli now, but it was built by Wallace McKenna in 1869. He was a financier and a Governor of New York…”
As we walk down wooden bannisters and past huge bedrooms, Harvey keeps up his tour guide-y speech. He tells me when the conservatory was built and how old certain paintings are and the important people who were married in the gardens. I smile and nod, but my mind keeps dragging me back to last night. Kneeling in front of the fire as Doc took off his shirt; Eli murmuring to me in Italian….
Slut, my mind whispers. If I’d let them have me last night, I’d probably be on a plane to Italy right now. Is Eli still going to send me away? The floor seems to skid beneath me and I halt, one hand over my eyes.
“Miss? Are you okay?”
