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“Well, she’d laughed at you,” Megan complained. “She deserved it.”
“This is new information,” Lily said, though Megan could tell from her tone that it wasn’t. Not to her. She’d wanted to pull it out of her hat, but he’d done it first.
“I had a different name then,” he said. “I was lucky to get chosen and to find steady work. I made money and took acting lessons when I could. But…”
Megan grabbed his hand and held it very tightly while he outlined to Lily the changes that had come about, that had forced him to leave the career before he was ready. “I grew out of the sample sizes for young men’s clothes.” He shrugged. “And I was going to move into adult clothing, perhaps even swimsuits—”
Here, he looked right at Lily and gave her a self-deprecating but knowing smile. Her lips tightened.
“Fan-flipping-tastic,” Megan murmured.
When he added the creepy designers and photographers and the one who finally made him flee to America, the entire audience was lapping up his trauma. And it was Lily who leaned forward and all but patted his knee. “I’m so sorry.” But then she leaned back. “Why didn’t you tell anyone about this before?”
“For the same reason others don’t. I felt ashamed. Especially as a man. I should have punched that guy. But he held the purse strings. And he was only the latest in a line of them—men and women—in that business. Power is their kink. They would have been happy to blackball me from every catwalk in the industry. I had to make sure I left first.”
“But you could have helped others.”
“Yes.” Megan had helped him get ready for this, too. “I regret that. I will be a lot louder about this in the future. I loved the people I met in my modeling career, but there were not enough gatekeepers, chaperones to keep everyone safe. My story is not the worst I’ve heard. And I’m going to start a fund to help anyone who’s been hurt in that world. Lawyer fees, relocation costs. Whatever they need.”
Megan knew what he was going to say and she still felt tears behind her eyes. Perhaps because she knew how much he meant it.
Alessandro had thrown Lily for a second, but there was still half the interview to go. “Take me to that moment, then,” she said. “When you got off the plane in America. Why Boston? Why not New York?”
He explained his connection to someone who had a spare room and how he’d loved the old city, its history, and its connections to Italy. He did his terrible Boston accent. The audience could even hear the crew laughing at him. He smiled through his lashes at Lily, and she glared at him. He was winning.
But she still had her ace. “What about your family?” she said.
“Yes, I have made wonderful friends here. On both coasts. I—”
“That’s nice, but that’s not what I meant. What about your parents?”
The Alessandro on the TV leaned back and gave her an enigmatic smile. The Alessandro on the couch squeezed Megan’s hand. She covered it with both hers and kissed his fingers.
“They are not in my life,” he said, keeping the smile on his face.
“That’s pretty hard on you, don’t you think?”
Alessandro let the beat stretch out between them before replying in the same tone, “Not anymore.”
“Our sources say you didn’t just leave home. You were thrown out. Is that true?”
“No.”
Lily wasn’t going to be distracted. “That your father is actually Leonardo Russo. The world-famous conductor.”
Alessandro shrugged.
“And your mother is Marilena Russo, who just took over from Yo-Yo Ma with the top-selling cello album sales in the world.”
“Good for her,” Alessandro said evenly.
“They’re at the top of their fields, and you’re at the top of yours. Why aren’t they in your life? Why did they throw you out?”
“You’ll have to ask them.”
“I’m asking you.”
“Yes, you are. And I am not answering you.”
