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I force myself to stop thinking about Pavone. It won’t help. I need all of my focus on Victor if I’m going to get through this in one piece.
“Shouldn’t you be mad at me?” I ask while I back away and pull the white dress off. “I humiliated you.”
“So you did.” Victor hangs up the white dress and passes a dark red one to me. This one has a flared skirt but a tight and low-cut top. “I’m very annoyed at myself for having allowed that to happen.”
“Annoyed,” I repeat, pulling on the new dress. It’s strapless, and I almost remove my bra out of habit. In the end, I slip out of the straps and tuck them underneath the dress’s neckline. “That’s all? Just… annoyed? I could’ve slit your throat, Victor, and no one would’ve found you for hours.”
“But you didn’t.” Victor walks around me, inspecting the dress from all angles. “I wonder whythatwas.”
I wonder why that was, too, sometimes. It would’ve been so much easier. “The same reason I didn’t shoot you the night with Al Ricci,” I tell him. I try to look at myself in the mirror, but my eyes are drawn to him as he moves.
“Was it?” Victor finally comes to a stop behind me. I crane my neck to look at him, but he redirects me to stare at the mirror. “I was right. You look good in this.” He strokes along my neck, my skin tingling in its wake. “A diamond necklace, I think. With a single red ruby accent.”
“You’re not in charge of dressing me for this,” I say, but my voice comes out breathless and a little wobbly. Why is his touch affecting me like this? I should want him to be far, far away from me, but instead I find myself wanting to lean against him and bask in the scent of his cologne. “I don’t have any diamond necklaces with ruby accents.” Like that’s really the issue here.
“I’m sure Pavone can afford to buy you one or ten,” Victor says as he delicately taps his fingers down my body. Every single tap feels like it’s sending jolts straight through me. “How is that going, by the way? Is Pavone bending to you like Santino does?”
I want to tell himyes, to make him think I’m doing better than I am. But the truth is, I can’t lie to him about this because I need his help. If I brag about how I have Pavone under my thumb, he might come up with the wrong kind of plan. I have to humble myself and admit that I have no control at all. “You know he’s not,” I mutter. At least with the reminder of Pavone, my body isn’t reacting so strongly to Victor’s touch.
“You made a mistake,” Victor answers softly, just before he kisses the nape of my neck. I gasp, anger and desire all melting together.
“It wasn’t a mistake to leave you,” I say, trying to pull away from him, but he tightens his grip on me.
“You made a mistake in how you handled Pavone.” Victor bites down on the spot he’d been kissing before. “You thought he would react like Santino, or Angelo. Like me.”
He’s not wrong. I underestimated Pavone. I didn’t expect him to touch me in front of my father. I didn’t expect him to rape me in front of my sister. I thought I’d be able to find leverage against him.
I’d overestimated myself.
It’s hard to focus my thoughts, though, with my body betraying me like it always does when Victor’s hands are on me. “Laugh it up,” I tell him sourly, “and don’t leave any marks on me. Fuck, Victor, are you trying to get me killed?”
He snorts but does stop working on the same spot. I check the mirror, but I don’t see any obvious discoloration.
I do see his hand snaking its way across my torso to settle on my stomach. “Not killed, no.”
He presses himself against my back, and I can feel his cock against my ass. Somehow, I manage not to react. Victor’s reflection in the mirror is just as blank. Anybody watching us right now would have no idea that anything was happening at all.
“You roped Santino and Angelo into your half-baked plan. I can’t do anything about Angelo, but I’d be loath to lose Santino simply because you didn’t have contingency plans.”
“Fuck you,” Angelo says from outside the dressing room, although he doesn’t sound too angry.
“So you do care about someone after all,” I muse aloud, a little surprised at the admission. “Or are you going to deny that, too, and say it’s all about the work?”
“I would hardly have participated in group sex, so many times, if I didn’t care at all,” he answers. “Speaking of. Put your hands on the mirror, Lucia.”
“What? No,” I say, still working my way through what he’s saying. Group sex. Caring. Does that mean he cares about me, too?
No, that’s preposterous. He doesn’t care about anyone… except Saint, apparently.
“Put your hands on the mirror, Lucia, and I’ll tell you how we’re going to stop the wedding.” He kisses the shell of my ear. “Unless you want to wear Pavone’s ring?”
Of course I don’t want to wear Pavone’s ring. I don’t want to be married to him. As little as I want to admit it, I’d rather Victor than Pavone after all. At least Victor doesn’t expect me to pretend to enjoy myself.
Even though I do enjoy myself, because Victor actually knows how to make my body react—whether I want it or not.
I’m not going to tell Victor that. I’ve already tied my fate to Angelo and Saint, and I’d made it clear Victor isn’t invited in our post-success life. I don’t think I could handle Victor forever either.
I put my hands on the mirror, trying to catch my breath, and I meet his eyes in the glass.
