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For fuck’s sake. Maybe Castellani was right.
Compared to him, Iamgutter trash.
CHAPTER12
JULIAN
Sandro is frustratinglyabsent the next morning, and—thanks to recent changes in the staff, and Sandro’s blunt refusal to hire a new butler—I have to sit in the grand salon myself all morning, just in case I miss his entrance. At last, late in the morning, after I’ve played through almost my entire retinue of piano pieces, his dark-suited form appears in the doorway.
“What’s going on?” he calls suspiciously.
“Thereyou are at last.”
He comes into the room, and I breathe in his cologne. It’s the same one he’s worn since he first came back from Italy, musky and warm with notes of sandalwood.
“What’s going on?” he says again. “You only play piano when you’re feeling particularly pleased with yourself.”
I laugh at that. “I have news, my dearest brother. Come closer and let me whisper in your ear.”
He doesn’t like coming too close to me. He never has. Even when we were children he stayed away from me, although I often felt him following me through the grounds of Redwood Manor. I would turn around and find his dark eyes locked on mine, as if trying to read what was written in my soul.
But now his curiosity has been replaced with a more guarded attitude. He steps closer, keeping the piano between us, his eyes narrowing as he waits for my answer.
“On second thought,” I say, “perhaps we should go into the study.”
“Julian.” His tone is a warning.
He’s always soserious. I often try to joke around with him, but he stays solemn, the weight of the world crushing his shoulders. With a shrug, I say, “Last night a Bernardi tried to blackmail me. At least, I think that’s what he was trying to do.”
“Blackmail you?”
“Yes.” I keep my face deadpan. “With adreadfullyshameful sex tape. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to show my face in mixed company again.”
Sandro blinks a few times. “A Bernardi tried to blackmail you with a sex tape?”
“Yes.” I grin. “Can you imagine?”
Sandro doesn’t seem to find it as hilarious as I do, but he does relax a little. “Come,” he says, and stalks off. I scamper after him as he leads me to the study, where I close the door and lean against it as he sits at the desk and gives a cursory glance through the morning mail.
“We really need a new butler,” I remind him.
“The staff is perfectly adequate.” That’s the same reply he always gives. “Now, tell me what you have to tell me. I don’t have much time this morning, and less patience.”
“Last night the Bernardi Lion tried to fist me,” I begin. With a noise of frustration Sandro glares at me. “Wait,” I protest, “it’s important. He tried to, but I don’t think he could bring himself to do it. And then he told me the Bernardis wanted to make use of me.”
Sandro is a difficult man to read. Sometimes, when he’s very angry, I can smell the change in his body chemistry—it’s like a fever, and he burns off all the top notes of his cologne—but I don’t sense anything like that now.
“Why were you screwing around with the Bernardi Lion?” he asks.
“I didn’t know he was the Bernardi Lion at the time.”
“How could you not—“
“That’s not the point,” I go on, coming closer to the desk. “The point, dear brother, is that they want me to kill you.”
Sandro goes very still, and now I smell it, the sweet heat of his rising temper. “And why,” he finally manages, voice tight, “have you not tried to kill me yet?”
“That hurts,” I tell him. “YouknowI’d never do something like that.”
