I’d lost my way; the three glasses of Champagne I’d downed didn’t really help either. This house was a maze, obviously built to impress and intimidate, and not so much as a place to feel comfortable and actually live in. At least I could not imagine ever feeling comfortable in a place like this, but maybe the almost life-sized paintings of Falcone had something to do with it as well. His haunting eyes seemed to follow me wherever I went.
I fumbled for my mobile in my purse and pulled it out, but hesitated. How embarrassing would it be if I called Anastasia or Trish and told them I’d actually managed to lose my way while looking for the ladies room? They wouldn’t let me hear the end of it. The atmosphere between us had been strained since my dance with Cosimo anyway. No need to give them any more ammunition against me.
Not for the first time I wished Talia were here. We’d laugh about this together, and she’d tease me about it for a long time, but never out of malice or schadenfreude. She wouldn’t use it against me when talking to other people.
I paused, realizing with sudden horror that I didn’t even trust my two best friends. I shook my head. This was the world I lived in. ‘You can’t walk around trusting people, not even your so-called friends’, that’s what Father always said. I’d always been reluctant to believe him. I put my phone back into my purse. There was no way I was going to call anyone.
Mother was out of the question anyway.
And Cosimo. No, I didn’t need another reason for it to be awkward between us. And he was as good as a stranger for me. I had an inkling that wouldn’t change until our wedding day and perhaps a long time after.
With a quiet sigh, I kept going. At some point I’d have to see something I recognized and find my way back to the party.
I turned another unfamiliar corner – they really looked all the same – when I spotted someone in the corridor only a few steps in front of me. Finally, someone might be able to point me in the right direction!
My elation turned to shock, then fear when I realized who I’d walked into.
Growl.
He didn’t move. Just stood there. It seemed as if he’d been in this corridor for a while already.
Waiting for a victim, perhaps, my overactive mind suggested helpfully.
But as much as I wanted to scoff inwardly at the idea, I had a feeling it wasn’t that far off. Fear and fascination battled in me, and I reminded myself that he wouldn’t touch me. My father was too important for Falcone, and that meant I was too. Maybe Growl was a merciless killer, barely more than a killing machine and monster, but he was definitely a clever monster or he wouldn’t have made it this far. And yet I hoped my bodyguards would come to find me soon. But had they even seen me leaving the party? They’d tried to give my friends and me room. Now I wished they hadn’t.
Growl’s eyes showed nothing as he watched me. The suit was too tight around his broad shoulders and the hint of black peeked out under his too white shirt. One of his many tattoos. I’d never seen them, but you couldn’t be part of society and not hear the stories. Even dressed up in a suit, masked like one of us, he couldn’t hide who he was. His tattoos showed, a small hint of the monster beneath the expensive attire. I wondered how he looked without the suit. Heat shot into my cheeks at the ridiculous thought. I’d definitely drunk too much alcohol.
The hint of a scowl crossed his face before it disappeared and I realized how long I’d been staring at him again, judging him. I probably hadn’t managed to hide my thoughts about him very well. A mistake that could ruin everything in our world. My parents had taught me better.
The door behind him, however, looked faintly familiar. It led to the main lobby. I didn’t move. Making my way back to the party meant going closer to him.
It was ridiculous. I wasn’t just anyone. And we weren’t just anywhere. He wouldn’t do anything. Even he had rules he was bind to and one of them was that I was off limits, just like all the girls from families like mine. No matter how much nonsense Anastasia talked, that statement of hers held true.
I squared my shoulders and took a few determined steps toward Growl. Closer to the party I reminded myself as my pulse quickened. For some reason this felt like a prowl to me. Growl was the hunter and I was the prey, which didn’t even make sense since he had hardly moved since my arrival in the corridor. Come to think of it, he had never spoken while I was near.
“I’m Cara,” I said in a rushed voice. Maybe if I could get him to talk, he wouldn’t seem so dangerous anymore, but he didn’t react, only watched me with an unreadable expression, and then the door behind him swung open, and my mother appeared.
Her eyes settled on me, then moved on to Growl, and her expression grew rigid.
“Cara, your father and I are looking for you. Come back to the party,” she said, completely ignoring the man in the corridor with us.
I nodded and rushed past Growl. His eyes, amber not dark as they’d seemed from afar, followed me but he remained silent. When I had my back to him, a thrill shot through my body and I had to stop myself from looking over my shoulder.
The moment Mother and I were out of the corridor and in the deserted hall, she grabbed my arm in a crushing grip. “What were you thinking being alone with that…that man,” she practically spat the last word. Her eyes were wide and almost frantic. “I can’t believe they let him in. He belongs in a cage in shackles, far away from anyone decent.”
Her nails dug into my arm.
“Mom, you’re hurting me.”
She released me and I finally recognized the emotion on her face. Not anger, but worry.
“I’m fine,” I said firmly. “I lost my way and came across…” I searched my mind for a name to call him other than Growl, which seemed like too much of a nickname to use around my mother but came up empty-handed.
“Cara, you can’t go running around like that, without thinking about the consequences of your actions.”
“I was on her way to the ladies room. I wasn’t running around,” I said.
“Cosimo is a good match. Don’t go ruin it now.”
I blinked, unable to believe my ears. “That’s what you’re worried about.”
Mother took a deep breath and pressed her hand against my cheek. “I’m worried about you. But that includes your reputation. In this world, a woman is nothing without a good reputation. A man, that’s a different matter. They can do as they please and it’ll even help their reputation, but we are bound to different standards. We need to be everything they’re not. We need to make up for their failures. That’s what we’re meant for. We, you need to be gentle and docile and virtuous. Men want everything they see. We should keep our desires firmly locked away, even if men can’t.”
It wasn’t the first time she’d said something like that to me but the way she accentuated the word ‘desire’ in her speech made me worry that she knew of my body’s reaction to Growl’s closeness.
She needn’t have worried though. My fear of that man, of everything he stood for and of what he was capable of, trumped whatever small thrill of excitement my body might have felt around him.
Growl
Growl watched them leave the corridor. The door fell shut and he was alone again. Her vanilla scent still lingered in the air. Sweet. Girls like that always chose sweet scents. He didn’t understand why they’d try to appear even more harmless by smelling like a delicate flower.
He pulled at his collar. Too tight. The fabric against his scar, he hated it. This suit, this shirt, that wasn’t him.
The look on her mother’s face had reminded him why he hated events like this. People didn’t want him around. They wanted him to do their dirty work, and they enjoyed talking shit about him, but they didn’t want him near.
He didn’t give a fuck.
They were nothing to him.
He knew they watched him like a circus animal. He was the scandal of the evening. The sweet-smelling girl, too, had been watching him. He’d seen her and her friends observe him from across the ballroom.
But the sweet-smelling girl had surprised him. He knew her name. Of course. Falcone had talked about her father and her family too often in the last few weeks. Cara.
She hadn’t run away screaming, even though they’d been alone in the corridor. She hadn’t even looked very scared. Of course there had been fear; there always was, but there had also been curiosity. Because he was a monster that they feared and that fascinated them.
He didn’t care. She was just a girl. A society girl with a pretty dress and an even prettier face. He gave a fuck about pretty. It meant nothing. It was fleeting, could be taken away in a heartbeat. Still his eyes had sought her out several times that evening. He’d imagined ripping that pretty dress off her body, imagined running his not-worthy hands over her curves. Then he’d forced his gaze away and left the ballroom before he could do something very stupid. She was someone he wasn’t meant to have. Someone he shouldn’t even imagine having. She was someone to admire from afar. And it was for the best.
Cara
That day, shortly after we returned home and I lay in bed, my fingers found the sweet spot between my legs, answering to the need that had called to me ever since I’d seen Growl. The cloak of darkness washed away my resistance and my worry of being caught. Even my mother’s words that echoed in my head weren’t able to stop me. ‘Be proper, be virtuous. This is sin.’ The image of that fearsome man had caused a sweet tingle in my core, and I was unable to resist. Wrong, my mind screamed but I banished the thought until finally my body shuddered with release.
But seconds after, a familiar sense of being dirty washed over me. This was sin. Mother hadn’t stopped saying those words to me since the day she’d caught me touching myself two months ago. I’d not given in to my sinful needs since then, until tonight.
I took a deep breath, wishing my heart would stop racing. Wishing my body would stop reminding me of what I’d done.
Ever since Mother had caught me there was a tension between us I could hardly stand. She avoided my eyes as I avoided hers. I was almost glad for my quickly approaching wedding so I’d finally escape Mother’s judgement. I still felt a wave of blatant shame was over me when I remembered that day and the look of shock on my mother’s face. It hadn’t been the first time I’d touched myself but the first time I’d really understood the wrongness of it. I’d sworn to myself back then to never let my body overrule my brain again and now I’d broken that promise. In the protection of the night, I’d dared to let my fingers roam again, all because of a man whom I shouldn’t even think, let alone fantasize about. Wrong.
I was weak and a sinner but in the brief moments of pleasure I’d felt more alive than at any other point in my life.
