His beautiful, impossible face.
“I don’t understand how it is that you fool so many people,” she told him, because it was that or weep over the gift of a story about her mother that she’d never heard before.
“I don’t fool anyone,” he replied, though she was holding on to him and she could feel the almost imperceptible way he stiffened. “What you see is what you get when it comes to me.”
“That’s not even a good line. It was obvious to me the moment I saw you again.”
“Though perhaps not from the very first moment,” he replied, his voice a silken bit of darkness.
Ivy wasn’t immune to the way that curled around her. How it sank deep into her and curled around and around until she was nothing but the heat he’d made.
But that wasn’t the point.
“I actually wonder if that’s why.” She held his gaze. And even as he moved the two of them across the floor, with all of that elegant grace that seemed so effortless from such a powerful body, he looked very much as if he didn’t see anything but her, either. “I saw all of you, and so it was impossible to see less.”
“I hate to be indelicate on the day of our most blessed union,” he said, his voice that dark blade that told her he was being deliberate. And likely provocative. “But seeing me naked is not exactly unique.”
“I wonder,” she replied. She tilted her head back and gazed at him. “You take such pride in showing yourself off but I’m beginning to think it’s just a little bit of sleight of hand. If everyone is so busy looking at everything you show off and too busy concentrating on your antics, then they’ll miss what you’re really doing, won’t they?”
She expected him to laugh at that, but there was something too sharp in his gaze. Then he twirled her around instead, which was no kind of reply. He twirled her out and then brought her in again, then dipped her low. And when he stood her up again, Ivy was dizzy and flushed and Giaco had that usual mocking curve in the corner of his mouth.
“What a fascinating line of interrogation that was,” he said, as if he was devastated it had ended. “Alas, I do believe our duty calls.”
There were more pictures, because of course there were more pictures. Elaborately staged affairs to make the most of the opulent elegance on display here. No doubt fodder for another puff piece that would make it seem as if Umberto Tavian himself had personally put together his own son’s wedding ceremony and reception out of the goodness of his loving heart.
No one who had ever met the man could possibly believe he had a heart. But then, rich men did not have to be kind. They only had to stay rich and no one would care what they were or to whom.
Ivy couldn’t wait to read about her own wedding in a glossy magazine, with pictures of herself that would look like a stranger.
Happily, soon enough, a helicopter landed out in the field and the staff loaded it up with bags they’d packed on their own with no input from Ivy about what she might need on a honeymoon. She was getting used to that now. Once the helicopter was packed, she and Giaco were helped on board. Where they could wave out at the crowd as they flew away.
It felt a lot like an escape.
The flight wasn’t long and after what felt like a short while they were circling into a landing on one of the prettiest islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea and touching down on a landing pad where a sleek convertible with a stretching cat ornament on its hood waited for them.
This time, the driver was Giaco. Thanks to the itinerary, Ivy knew that Giaco had a small estate here on the island of Capri. When they got to his villa, Ivy was charmed despite herself. Most of it was windows, so that at every opportunity, its inhabitants could gaze at the sea. And more, down the hill at the village of Capri that clustered into the hillside.
Inside the main room, she turned her back on the view and stared at her husband.Her husband, something inside her whispered, as if that term had only now landed in her.
She folded her arms. “Do you know what I’ve been doing to pass the time today?”
His gaze seemed hot and dark at once. “I shudder to think.”
“I’ve been counting up all the times I know you’ve lied to me, and it’s quite a few. They keep coming and coming.” Ivy considered him. “What I can’t decide is if you’re so busy wearing masks you can’t tell the difference between a truth and a lie any longer. Or if you mean it. Every single lie you tell.”
He stood there across the length of the room from her, and he didn’t come any closer. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think that you do. And I think you might have miscalculated.”
There was a flash of his smile. “Impossible. I never miscalculate.”
“Everything we’ve done has been a group project,” she pointed out. “Your house in Rome is filled with all of your people, all of the time. Your father’s castle is even worse. We go on dates but we only pretend that they’re private. We conduct ourselves in the glare of publicity at all times.”
“That is because our affairs are publicity,” he said, in that silken way of his.
“But now we are all alone. No staff. No intrusive family members. No paparazzi.” She shook her head, almost as if she felt sorry for him. “You must be terrified. When your masks drop this time, you must know I’ll see it.”
To her shock, he didn’t laugh. He didn’t make one of his typically off-color remarks. He didn’t slink toward her, brandishing his sexuality like a club.
