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“I’m not the only one who knows, Tilly. I am the only one who can protect you from the others who know. That might mean Mark or even Bobby knowing one day.”
“Why are you helping me?” The question is stupid. He's not helping me. He’s taking advantage of me. He’s using my body for his pleasure. He’s punishing me.
He gives me one of those long looks that make me feel seen in every part of my being, and then he says four words that are almost always superficial when anybody else says them, but hold so much significance when he does.
“I knew your father.”
Chapter 13
Angelo escorts me back to my room as the sun is rising. I don’t know where Mark slept. Was it nearby? Did he hear me getting fucked? The idea sends a tingle to the aching, ravaged part of me.
I take a shower and take stock of myself. My body feels different now. I feel different. I expected to feel dirty, but instead I feel cleansed. Maybe even elevated. Orgasm can make a lot of wrong things feel right.
When I emerge from the ensuite, I notice that there are boxes stacked along the wardrobe. My things from home. That means my clothes have arrived. But I can’t be bothered opening them. I don’t want them. I never liked them. My father chose them for me, and they all look like something out of the 1950’s, Sandy before she found leather.
I end up putting on a t-shirt and some jeans. Hardly glamorous, but really freeing. I’m a woman now. A married woman. I should go to the kitchen, I think to myself, and see if some kind of genetic legacy has been unlocked in the aftermath of our lovemaking.
At my father’s house, there was always a cook, and the kitchen was her domain. But I am the lady of this house. The only lady in it. And this lady wants… hm. What do I want? Cake.
Cake for breakfast. Yeah. Why not. Cake used to be the domain of Christmas, a dry fruit mix with a saccharine coating which barely made up for the age of the thing. Cook said it was traditional. I said it was terrible. Nobody cared what I said.
How hard can cake be?
Forty minutes later…
There’s smoke everywhere. Is this usually part of the cooking process? Who can say. Very probably. Likely, even. This is probably the part they don’t show on the television shows. I bet the kitchen catches on fire all the time.
“Tilly!”
Mark comes charging in, fire extinguisher at the ready. Before I know what is happening, my enflamed cake is doused thoroughly with whatever is inside fire extinguishers. I bet it’s not edible.
“What are you doing? Trying to burn the house down?”
“I’m making cake.”
“You’re making an unholy mess,” he says, looking around the room with a harried stare.
“Okay, so I haven’t done a lot of cleaning in my life, or cooking. I guess it is a mess, but I figured it was supposed to be?”
“You figured it was supposed to look like this?” He puts his hands on his hips and looks at me sternly. Mark’s stern stare is very different from Angelo’s. There’s warmth in it, always.
“I mean… I can clean up?”
“You can,” he says. “And you will.”
I smile to myself. I just lost my virginity a matter of hours ago, and he doesn’t know. I feel completely different, but apparently, I look the same on the outside. The last time we spoke, I was throwing myself at him like an idiot and subsequently being dragged off by Angelo.
"Are you okay?”
He asks the question like he just remembered all that too. He’s probably wondering what happened between Angelo and me.
I want to tell someone. Angelo already knows, and I have a feeling that Bobby will lose his shit. But I don’t want to just blurt it out randomly. It has to come up naturally in conversation.
“I’m sorry about… earlier,” I say, drawing the words out. “That was awkward. I won't do it again.”
“It’s okay,” Mark says, handing me a soapy cloth, and pointing at the counter. I try rubbing it over the mess, and I can’t say it helps much. It just makes it sort of smeary, which might be an improvement. I don’t know. I don’t really care. I’m just trying to tell him about the sex without telling him about the sex.
“Angelo was actually really good about it.”
“Was he? He’s not known for being really good about things.”
“Oh, he was good,” I say, putting suggestive inflection on the good. “He was really good. I know why you’re not interested in anybody else now.”
Mark doesn’t say anything. I wonder if he’s pissed off. I risk a glance at him and my heart sinks. He is not happy. He looks more serious than I’ve seen anybody look since I got to the house of Vitali.
