Page 39 of These Thin Lines

Before Aoife could say anything, Vi turned and fled. She stopped just outside the room and picked up her almost forgotten clutch. Then she quietly closed the door and leaned on it to take a moment to draw a breath and try to calm down. The voices inside the room, however, were not even remotely calm.

“…you did that on purpose, Frankie! You ruined that kid’s ball gown, as payback for whatever it is that happened in here!” The corners of Vi’s mouth lifted a touch as she splayed her hand across her heart. Her mentor, despite being run ragged and surely anxious about the opening, was as perceptive as ever.

But to her astonishment, Frankie’s voice held no trace of remorse.

“Sully, that kid needed to be taken down a peg. Always sticking her nose in other people’s business—”

“You know very well that’s not true!”

“So loyal, Sully. Remember what loyalty actually is when that blabbering klutz you’re so fond and protective of chases after my wife. If you think I haven’t noticed, you’re getting daft in your old age, my friend.”

Vi’s breath caught in her throat. Frankie knew. Frankie had known all along.

“Vi’s harmless crush has nothing to do with anything, Franziska. And you really shouldn’t be speaking to me about protecting your wife. We've had this conversation, and yet here we are.”

Something was hurled across the room and smashed into the door Vi was leaning against, startling her almost to death as she heard raining glass on the other side of it. Frankie must have thrown her tumbler. Vi didn’t want to stay around and find out. She pressed her clutch and the dripping camera to her chest and ran.

Her surroundings were imprinting themselves in her mind as she rushed through the villa. The high ceilings, the myriad of rooms, the high class of the attendees. Tears pricked the backs of her eyes. There was no way she’d be able to attend the ball now. Even if she could somehow find another camera, with her gown ruined, she’d be forced to abandon her role as one of Lilien Haus’ photographers, and she would start processing that as soon as she found the words to tell Chiara.

Frankie had also destroyed her simple joy at the fact that somewhere in this impressive building on the brilliant waters of Lago di Como, Chiara was looking for her, waiting for her. Vi tried to hug that thought to herself despite both her collarbone and her sternum feeling tender and battered.

* * *

Chiara was indeed waitingon the far side of the seemingly endless mansion. Pale, eyes shining with a strange kind of light Vi had never seen before, Chiara was a study of grace in motion. She was flitting from one model to the next, fixing something on each and every one of them. Vi’s hand holding the camera lifted of its own accord, and she realized what she was doing only when the sound of her pressing the no-longer-working shutter made Chiara turn around.

“You’re he—” She stopped mid-exclamation, and Vi looked at her with trepidation. She hoped that her body didn’t show bruises or anything else that would speak of the confrontation, because for the life of her, she had no idea how she would explain it. Belatedly, Vi realized that even if her face was still perfectly made up, her dress showed the carnage from her earlier encounter with Frankie, of her rage and vengefulness.

Chiara moved like a whirlwind then, abandoning a hapless model pretty much holding up her own gown, and Vi’s mind played the oldest trick in the book on her.

The speed, the determination, the play of light and shadows on that resolute face, wiped away the beauty and the habitual affection in those eyes, leaving only anger, and Vi shrunk. Simply drew into herself, the hand that wasn’t already holding the camera cradling it to her body. Belatedly, she realized what she had done. There was no fixing it. Her breaths were coming out as sobs, chest rising and falling fast, sweat covering her now cold and clammy skin.

Vi staggered into a room that looked like a large closet, away from prying eyes, sinking to the floor, her knees unable to hold her, the panic rising like bile in her throat. Would she throw up and allow that to be the final indignity on this day that was already full of embarrassment?

Then she lifted her unfocused eyes that had been darting from one thing to the next, to the next, only to catch sight of Chiara, who’d followed her in. She watched the color drain from her cheeks and the understanding dawn on her that she must have caused Vi’s panic attack to set in.

Chiara’s own eyes widened in shock, in pain, filling with tears, and now the heat of shame flushed Vi’s entire body, surely evaporating the remnants of vodka on her dress.

She turned away, trying to get up, to run, anywhere as long as it was away from here, because she couldn’t stand Chiara knowing, Chiara looking at her with this kind of dejected pity…

“Vi, please… I need to fix your dress.”

Was it the ‘please’, or was it the actual uttering of her name, her real name, the one she claimed, the one she so often hid behind, the one she so rarely heard pass Chiara’s lips that stopped her from struggling to get up?

She sensed more than saw Chiara approach, and she wanted to weep all over again, so careful, so gentle. The hands on her shoulders trembled, and Vi trembled with them.

“Vi, Vi, Vi…” Just her name, in that voice and the tears spilled in earnest now, the floodgates opening and only those two tender, strong hands held her together, kept her from breaking at the seams.

“Chiara!” Aoife’s arrival broke through the cocoon of safety, and Vi startled anew. “Frankie is drinking again—” Vi’s thoughts began to race in anticipation of what was to come, but Aoife waved off any further explanation, and Chiara’s expression didn’t change, as if Frankie was of no consequence at the moment.

Then Aoife spotted her, and her eyes softened. “Oh, kid, you’re here. Yes, good, now don’t cry, we will fix this somehow… Though, honestly, who the hell thought silver was a good color on you?”

The bluntness and the matter-of-fact delivery, so Aoife, so true to who she was, made Vi smile. When she caught the echo of that smile in Chiara’s eyes, she hiccuped a giggle, followed by another, until she was laughing. Both Aoife and Chiara watched her with concern, as both mirth and tears mingled on her face.

“Yeah, okay, I don’t deal well with waterworks.” Aoife’s aggrieved expression was so cute, so hilarious, Vi’s laughter only raised in pitch, and she hiccuped when she realized that she was probably smearing the remnants of her makeup on the now most certainly wrecked dress. “That other thing…” Aoife hesitated, shooting Chiara a quick look. “We will talk about that later, but now if this is all because of the gown—”

“Sully, stop.” As Vi tried to control her ragged breathing, Chiara crouched down next to her and carefully lifted her chin, running cool fingertips over her jaw. “Are you okay to come with me? Aoife will join us, and we will fix this, okay?” Vi watched her speak, but the words didn’t register with her as much as the movement of those patient lips forming them.

But then the fingers on her skin firmed a little, making her focus, making her blink away the remaining tears. “Do you understand me, Vi? Use your words, darling. Please.”

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