I stopped walking, but I didn't turn around.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
He came around to stand in front of me, his brow furrowed, his gaze dropping to the suitcase in my hand.
"Running away now?"
"How old are you? Still pulling this kind of stunt?"
I looked at him in silence.
His face was as handsome as ever, only the tenderness I'd once known was gone from his eyes. Whatever the snow had given back to me the night I dragged him out of it, this world had taken again.
"You deliberately ruined Camilla's coat, she didn't even hold it against you, and now you're the one throwing a tantrum?" He let out a cold laugh. "Have I been too good to you? Made you forget where you came from?"
Where I came from.
Those words made me grip the handle of the suitcase until my knuckles went white. A girl with no Family, no name behind her, no blood standing in a world where blood was everything.
"Say something!" His voice rose. "Who's this mute act for?"
I answered quietly, "I want to stay at the rental for a few days."
"The rental?"
His expression froze for an instant, then quickly settled back into that cold indifference the Morettis wore like a second skin.
"Fine. Let's see how long you can keep this up."
"Once you walk out that door, you'd better not come back."
"Spend the rest of your life in that filthy, run-down dump."
That last line drove into my heart like a knife.
My body trembled faintly. I pressed my thumb flat against the inside of my bare left wrist, the place where a woman claimed by a Family would wear its gold. I wore nothing there. I never had.
I said nothing and walked straight out the door.
Rain began to fall, striking my face, cold enough to cut to the bone.
As cold as the night I found him.
Slam.
The door crashed shut behind me.
Like a period stamped on the end of what we'd had.
Early the next morning, a sharp, insistent knocking woke me.
I dragged my exhausted body to the door and opened it. Lorenzo stood there.
Dressed in an immaculate black tuxedo, striking and handsome, the kind of man other men straightened up around without knowing why.
"Get ready. Put on a gown. I'm taking you to a banquet."
His tone wasn't as sharp as the day before, but it still carried that command that left no room for argument.
I shook my head.
"Stop being difficult." He said it impatiently. "It's a sit-down. Every Family that matters will be there, and men from every walk of life. As my woman, you should go and see a little of that world."
"So you'll stop letting your mind run wild all the time."
I still wanted to refuse, but he simply reached out and seized my wrist, his grip too strong to break free from. His thumb brushed once, absently, against the healed scar at his hairline, then dropped.
"Hurry up. The car's waiting downstairs."
A few minutes later, I had changed into the one gown of mine that still looked halfway presentable, and he took me down to the car.
The banquet was held on the top floor of a hotel the Families owned through three layers of clean paper.
The glare of the crystal chandeliers stung my eyes. The guests all around were dressed impeccably, laughing and murmuring low, every gesture full of grace and the quiet confidence of people who never had to fear anyone in the room. Or almost never.
I stood in a corner like an outsider who'd wandered into some other world, even my breathing out of place among them.
Lorenzo was quickly surrounded by several men, associates of the Family, their voices dropping when he drew near. He moved through them with ease, a polished smile in place, the successor everyone was measuring.
Now and then, he'd glance my way.
Before long, he took a phone call and told me hurriedly, "There's something I have to deal with. Stay here on your own for a bit."
He turned and left before I could answer.
I was about to find some out-of-the-way corner to sit in when a familiar voice rang out behind me.
"Well, if it isn't Serafina."
Camilla came sauntering up, a wineglass in hand, the corner of her mouth curling. The Salvatore heiress, promised to Lorenzo by a pact sealed between the two bloodlines before either of them was old enough to object.
Two young men from Family stock trailed behind her, hangers-on or admirers, most likely.
"What are you doing standing here all by yourself?"
I looked at her in silence, unwilling to get tangled up with her.
Seeing that I ignored her, she shook her head with feigned regret, and the smile came a half-beat too fast. "Lorenzo really is something. How could he just leave you here all alone?"
"Then again, a woman like you really doesn't belong at an occasion like this."
