CHAPTER SIXTEEN
GIA
The knock comes at half eight the next morning.
I'm still in bed, on my back, staring at the ceiling the way I've been doing most mornings since I got here.
"Come in."
Carla steps inside. She's in her usual dark uniform, hair pinned, very hard to decipher expression on her face. She looks at me in the bed, at the state of the room, at the curtains still drawn.
"Good morning, Mrs. Caruso."
"Morning, Carla."
She moves to the window and opens the curtains with two clean pulls. Grey light fills the room. I sit up and push my hair back.
"Mr. Caruso wanted you to know there is a formal event this evening." She says it the way she says everything, evenly, completely, like the information is neither good nor bad and its reception is not her responsibility. "A dinner. He'll require your presence at seven."
I look at her. "He'll require it."
"Yes, Mrs. Caruso."
A beat. "Did he use that word specifically?"
"He said he'd like you ready at seven." The correction is diplomatic. Barely.
"Right." I pull the covers back and swing my legs over the edge of the bed. "What’s the theme so I can pick out a dress?”
Carla crosses to the wardrobe without being asked. Opens the right-side door. Indicates, with the particular neutrality of a woman who is simply conveying information and has no opinions about its content, the single black dress hanging at the center.
"Mr. Caruso already selected this one."
I stiffen.
That fucking psychopath…
We’re doing this again huh?!
I glare at the dress. Floor-length, black, structured at the top, open at the back. It looks very expensive and very chic.
And I really want to hurl it at Rafael’s handsome head.
"Thank you, Carla," I manage to say instead.
She nods and goes.
That evening I open the wardrobe door. I look at it to understand the full scope of what is happening to me. It is the kind of thing that makes a statement on behalf of the man you arrived with before you've opened your mouth. It is, objectively, beautiful.
I want to scream.
I hate it with my entire body.
Not the dress itself. The dress has done nothing wrong. I hate the chain of events that produced it appearing in my wardrobe with an instruction attached, the casual assumption that I willput on what I am given and appear when I am told and perform whatever function is required of me at whatever event has been scheduled without being asked whether I have any thoughts about any of it. I hate that it fits the specific shape of my life here so neatly, so matter-of-factly, like of course this is how it works, like of course she'll wear what she's told.
Because hell no, that’s not happening!
I go to the other side of the wardrobe. I’m going to choose something else because fuck Rafael Caruso if he thinks he can control me like this.
