I adjust my suit and take another deep breath. “Of course.”
Rosalie is taking slow breaths, despite her instance of not needing to. I take a step over and grab one of the soft hand towels from the counter by the sink. I move over to Rosalie and hand it to her.
“Dab gently or your makeup will smear. It hasn’t run yet,” I say quietly.
She looks up at me with a confused look on her face.
“What?” I ask her.
She blinks and shakes her head. “Nothing. Just…give me a minute alone, will you?”
My jaw sets and I nod. I move past Damian and out of the restroom. There’s a small line forming.
“The bride-to-be needs a moment,” I tell them in a low tone. I don’t care if they think something bad has happened, that perhaps we’ve had a fight. It won’t change the fact that we have to get married.
Nothing will change that.
After dinner, and another hour of mingling with people I don’t give a damn about, it’s finally time to go home. I think.
At least, until Rosalie makes me aware of an after-party event, where a select few will be joining us for drinks well into the night at the Fiorelli estate.
“Don’t you even think about skipping out on it,” Rosalie warns me. “After what happened with the dance, we need to make a good impression.”
“I’ve made nothing but a perfect impression, thank you very much.” I glare at her as we sit in the car on the drive over. Damian sits in the driver’s seat, having become not only Rosalie’s bodyguard, but chauffeur, apparently.
“You think that, but you don’t know the look on your face,” she says with a sigh.
“Why is it so important to you that people believe we’re a happy couple anyway? It doesn’t matter, we have to get married either way,” I remind her. Even though just a couple hours before, I had been enjoying the game we were playing. I find myself far too sober to enjoy it now. Now, I’m tired, and I’ve been without a cigarette for way too long.
I light one up while we are in the car, and roll the window down.
“Do you have to do that disgusting habit in here?” Rosalie asks me while fanning away nonexistent smoke from her face.
“If you want me to be at all pleasant when we get out of this car, yes,” I say as I take a drag and blow the smoke out of the crack of the window. That first pull into my lungs feels remarkable. I close my eyes and savor the next one even more.
I hear a very light chuckle from the front of the car, and the sound makes goosebumps rise on my skin. Not from the cold either.
I open my eyes to look at the back of Damian’s head, and then at the rearview mirror, where I meet his cool eyes. Not covered by sunglasses. They look at me for just a split second before moving back to the road.
I wonder if Damian smokes on his off time.
I can imagine offering him one. Watching his mouth surround the butt of the cigarette, and the smoke billow out from his lips into the air.
Maybe I’m not quite as sober as I think I am.
When the car stops in front of the estate I’m going to have to get used to for now, I toss the end of the cigarette out of the window into the icy slush under the car and adjust my suit jacket. I even straighten my tie and brush a lock of my hair back into place.
“You’re so vain,” Rosalie says with a smirk.
“Are you teasing me?” I ask her with narrowed eyes. “That’s a dangerous game.”
“This whole thing is a dangerous game, Alessio,” she reminds me. “Now, behave yourself, will you?”
Damian gets out and opens the car door so that she can get out. I expect to open my own door, but the next second he’s on my side, opening it for me.
I look up at him curiously before I slide out.
“Thank you,” I mumble.
