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“Have you been talking about Sagrada’s hierarchy?” The dark eyes grow slowly.
“We were t-talking about Rafaella's wedding,” she stutters, evidently nervous about the possibility of having unintentionally denounced her friend. “S-she was just explaining to me w-why her fa-father is the one choosing the groom.”
“You can stop stuttering, Gabriella. There is no problem with Rafaella discussing La Santa hierarchy with you.” The girl's faceeases, and I stop our steps, stopping next to a high cocktail table. “Let's stay here for now.”
A waiter immediately stops beside us, and I ask for a whiskey and an orange juice. The drinks arrive in the blink of an eye and Gabriella drinks the juice so eagerly that I make a mental note to ask Luigia if there really aren't any oranges in the Cantina.
“I have another question,” she announces, and I can't stop myself from smiling when I see that she's learned how to dodge my ironic comments.
“Ask.”
“Why are there saints in your bathrooms?” I stop the glass halfway to my mouth, looking at the girl with so much surprise that I forget to hide the emotion on my face.
“What?”
“Saints. There are saints in your bathrooms. There was one in my room inSignoraAnna's wing and there is the same one in my room in yours.”
“There are no saints in our bathrooms.” She turns her head back and places the glass on the table next to her. “There are only in two bathrooms and apparently you were lucky twice.” Admiration spreads across Gabriella's face.
“Only two?”
“Only two.” She nods, thinking of something that her lips don't say.
“What saint is she?” She asks after almost a full minute, and I raise an eyebrow, indicating that this is an easy calculation to do. “La Santa,” she concludes.
“Yes.”
“What is her name?”
“She doesn't have one. She is simply La Santa.”
“And why is she only in these two bathrooms?”
“I have no idea. The mansion was built decades ago, some stories about it were lost when they stopped being told.”
“You're talkative today,” she comments, and I have to force myself to swallow the laugh that only Gabriella's absurd comments can make me want to do.
“Maybe I'm trying not to be such bad company,” I quip, and she clicks her tongue before pouting.
“As if you care” she responds to my irony in kind at the exact moment Massimo enters my field of vision.
I eliminate the distance between Gabriella and with just one step I bring my hand to her face. Her skin is as smooth as I remembered it from the morning I introduced her to the library, when she despaired that the time had come for me to take her life. A reaction so different from the one she had had, weeks before, when she practically embraced death, begged for it. When she had no instinct to deny the fact that her life was worthless.
Realizing that her perspective on herself had changed was a pleasant surprise. Gabriella has discovered some value in herself, and as close as we are now, it's impossible to stop the instinct to take hold of every drop of that value from growing.
I lean towards her, and she gets goose bumps, the small smile that takes over my lips when I put them to her ear isn’t fake.
“I care,” I whisper in her ear before just looking up at Massimo, who has his eyes fixed on Gabriella and me.
The man's face is red with fury, and his hands are clenched into violent fists. I let him see all the pleasure written on my face. The scent of roses infiltrating my nose feeds the feeling of powercoursing through my veins. When I lift my body enough to place my face against Gabriella's, the girl's breathing is uneven, her lips are parted, and her pupils dilate.
I lower my lips onto hers, kissing the corner of them, making sure that, from the angle we're at, Coppeline will look like I'm kissing her completely. I pull back to see Gabriella's flushed face and brush my thumb across her cheek before reaching my hand out to her.
“It's time for that dance, Gabriella.”
CHAPTER 36
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