Page 63 of His Two Hidden Masks

“I’ll tell him that being late is my fault,” I said over my shoulder.

“It’s fine,” she said. “Let them both wait.”

“Both?” I rolled my head back and groaned. “Is Roberto there, too?”

“Well, he was.” Lissa picked up another caramel from the one sample tray I’d left to share with Auntie Aurora and the rest of the dinner staff. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t want to tell you that, either.” She popped another candy in her mouth. “Look at me, can’t control myself. You are a master chocolatier and I have a problem.”

“You’re hilarious and thank you,” I said. As my world continued to crumble around me, the idea that Lissa could not resist my candies brought me so much joy. Just like Dylan. I smiled remembering how good he made me feel.

Specifically, his lips, his tongue, his perfectly fuckable cock. My body flushed at the memory of him parting my legs and pushing himself deep inside me. The way he had rocked back and forth. My temperature rose as I replayed the memory in my mind.

I took a deep breath. Naked daydreams of Dylan were fun, but not a real solution to any of my problems. Plus, I knew our time would end. He would leave Venice and our time together would be over.

I was a grown woman, having grown up sex with a beautiful man. I could do as I pleased. If my father knew of our rendezvous last night, what would he do, ground me? Take away my allowance?

Would it be mortifying to discuss my night of passion with Dylan at the glass studio? Absolutely. It would be unbearably embarrassing. The only good news was that I had lots of practice enduring embarrassment. I would survive this too.

I wove through the Andiamo dining room into the lobby of the Mia Sorella. I headed straight to the grand staircase. My father’s office was three floors up.

With every step, I reminded myself that I was not going to let anyone, including my father, make me feel bad for feeling good. Still, I hated feeling like a child being called to the principal’s office.

I knocked on the office door. No answer. I knocked again, annoyed. It was bad enough to be summoned, and now I felt ignored.

“Come in. Come in,” my father said, his deep voice muffled by the door.

Inside my father sat behind his heavy mahogany desk with Roberto at his side. They were hunched over, Roberto’s phone. My body tensed, fingernails curling into the palm of my hand.

How dare he? How dare Roberto show my father one of my most intimate moments? My pulse roared.

“Roberto.” I strode across the faded oriental carpet. “Put the phone down. Now.”

My father’s head snapped up, his blue eyes sparking, “Bella, what is wrong with you? Enough.”

Roberto looked up at me with sleepy, judgmental eyes. He shook his head.

“Relax. I am reviewing financials with your father. My laptop was acting up.” He sighed and put his phone in his suit coat pocket. My body pulsed with every heartbeat. Roberto was fucking with me, enjoying this slow torture.

“As I was explaining, Umberto,” Roberto said, moving to the other side of the desk, “I made modifications to the legalagreement that gives you more oversight after the acquisition. The legal team will have papers prepared for you to sign tonight.”

My father nodded.

“What kind of changes?” I asked, my rage bubbling very close to the surface. At least, I had stopped short of knocking the cell phone out of Roberto’s hands.

“This is none of your concern,” my father said, every word a slap. He stood. “Bella, please wait here for a moment.”

Roberto gave me a side-eye smile as he and my father stepped into the hall and closed the door behind them. Asshole, I thought, dropping into a red velvet chair across from my father’s desk. I picked at the fabric on the arm just as I had when I was a child.

Growing up, I was summoned to this room for a scolding or for weekly English lessons with my revolving team of American nannies. My father demanded private tutoring for us both. My mother refused, although her English was quite good.

The dark forest-green walls in my father’s office felt even more claustrophobic than I remembered. The room was large with shuttered windows that looked out into the campo.

My father demanded the windows stay closed at all times to protect his collection of old books and treasured artwork. There was a time when my family commissioned portraits from the finest Venetian painters. We weren’t loyal to any one artist, so the paintings all had slightly different styles, but they were all focused on one thing, our family.

Thinking about how my family was choosing Roberto over me, it seemed fucking ironic that some of my father’s treasured possessions were images of the people that he now seemed to value least.

The collection began with a portrait my father commissioned for my mother as an engagement gift. My parents stood on theveranda of our palazzo, side by side. My father stared into the distance, his blue eyes bright, his expression focused and strong.

My mother gazed up at him, her cheeks full and round, her lips curled in a sweet smile. She looked so young, so beautiful, so happy. I had never seen my mother look at my father like this. I wondered if the feeling had faded over time or if something had shifted between them. I assumed it was losing Sara.

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