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I knock loudly. “Carina? You are awake?”
I hear a rustling inside. I picture her just getting out of bed, which surprises me. Perhaps I’m too early. But then she replies with a soft yes, and I push the door open.
She’s sitting by the window in her armchair, one of the blankets from the bed wrapped around her. She looks tired. It’s probably my fault, but it seems it’s to be expected. After all, as she seems keen to keep reminding me, I did kidnap her.
But that discomfort at being here will go away soon. She will see how good it is. How happy she can be at my side, I just have to show her.
“What’s this?” she asks, sitting up in her chair and leaning forward a little as we wheel everything in.
“What you asked for,” I tell her with a smile. “I promised you could have anything, and here it is. Designer clothes and diamond jewelry – that’s what you ordered, right?”
She gives me a wide-eyed look and slowly rises to her feet, dropping the blanket, as Enzo backs out of the room at my signal. He leaves us alone together, and I watch eagerly as Carina approaches on cautious feet. She’s still wearing the clothes from yesterday – of course – and she looks tousled, mussed by sleep.
“You can pick something out to wear today,” I tell her. “Everything is yours. If it doesn’t fit, or you don’t like it, I’ll have it exchanged.”
“You can’t be serious,” she says, staring at the rack of clothes in front of her. Most of the things are still wrapped in protective plastic and tissue paper: gowns, skirts, blouses, purses and belts, shoes, boxes of jewelry. I had to guess at most of her sizes, of course, but there was a little cheating involved. I simply had someone take a look at the clothes in her closet at home and tell me what they were.
“I’m deadly serious,” I say, moving to pull out one gown from the rack. “Here. Try it on.”
“No,” Carina says. It stuns me. I can only stare at her for a moment. Of all of the possible reactions I envisaged, this was not one of them.
“Why not?” I ask, at length. I gesture towards the ensuite bathroom. “You can have privacy while you change.”
“Because I don’t want your bribes,” Carina says, then blinks and shakes her head. “What’s the point of this, anyway?”
“They aren’t bribes,” I tell her. “And the point is to show you that I was telling the truth.”
“But it doesn’t make sense,” Carina purses her lips. “You wait for my Dad to pay you back, and in the meantime, you spend so much money on me?”
“Much more money, as it happens,” I say mildly.
“Then what is the meaning of this?” Carina shakes her head, with what I realize is something close to fury. “These gifts, who are they really for? Because they aren’t for me.”
“Yes, they are,” I say, cocking my head at her curiously. I’m interested in how she thinks, how she came to this conclusion.
“No,” Carina repeats. “Either way, I won’t be leaving here with them. I don’t want them. Take them away.”
“They’re bought and paid for,” I say, but I shrug. “I’ll leave them here. If you don’t want them, so be it. They will go to waste.”
I walk out and leave her. Perhaps she will be more forthcoming with trying the clothes and the jewels when I’m not there to make her feel shy. There seems to be some kind of righteousness in her, but I don’t understand it either, the way she says she doesn’t understand me. If she takes the clothes and sells them, she can make back what her father owes me easily. I wouldn’t be able to stop her. And yet, she resists.
Perhaps I’m not yet anywhere close to claiming her heart. I have to hope that she will come around – but I didn’t become Tommy Lucio by just hoping that things would go my way. No, I have to make plans.
The question is, what more can I do? I will show her little by little who I am and what being with me could mean, but we have limited time here. I need to find a new strategy. She’s not the kind of woman whose heart can be won just with flashy gifts and money. She needs more.
As I would expect from the perfect mate of my soul, the match to my fire. I’ve never tried to win a woman over before, and I have to operate by passion and instinct rather than experience from the women who are always trying to get their claws into me, but I will do it. She’s different. But when she’s mine, these gifts will look like child’s play, quaint little things that have no match to the luxury I will give her.
