Page 64 of Taming Seraphine

“What do you think?” Farfalla’s voice cuts through my thoughts.

I glance up from the phone to lock gazes with Seraphine and have to take a second look.

Her hair is now a tantalizing brown with tawny highlights that betray no trace of her previous blonde. It’s a stark contrast to her delicate porcelain features, which now appear sharper, seductive, sophisticated.

My breath hitches. Without meaning to, I close the distance between us for a closer look.

Her new eye color isn’t just brown. It’s a warm copper with flecks of gold that glimmer in the light. It’s like gazing into the depths of a fire and wanting to be consumed by the flames.

Damn it. This girl is turning me into a fucking poet. I need to stop looking at her, but I’m enthralled.

“Don’t tell me I can’t work miracles,” Farfalla says, his voice dousing the flames of my fascination.

I blink away the vision of her to regain focus. “You look older.”

Seraphine tilts her head, wanting me to elaborate.

Farfalla gasps. “You can’t say that to a lady!”

“It’s not...” I clear my throat. “It’s a compliment.”

The corners of Seraphine’s lips lift into the tiniest of smiles, twisting the frayed fibers of my heart. I shake my head and cast off the strange ache.

What does it matter if Seraphine only shows her happiness to Farfalla and the girl at Wonderland? She doesn’t need to get entangled with another killer. I’m a reminder of the life she needs to leave. As soon as she finds her brother and avenges her mother’s assault, I’ll set her free to start the life she deserves.

The drive across Beaumont to Queen’s Gardens is silent. Half the properties in the exclusive gated community are mansions hidden behind acres of land and tall trees. The smaller buildings assigned to staff and security are well within the gates, but far enough away to be hidden from the main house.

A man as paranoid as Frederic Cappello makes his non-essential employees live beyond his gates, and that’s where we’ll find Pietro Fiori.

I glance at Seraphine through the rearview mirror, trying to decipher what she’s thinking. She’s eerily calm for someone who is approaching the location of her captivity. It’s disturbing. Even if they only transported her in and out of the mansion at night, she should be feeling something.

“Are you alright?” I ask.

“I’m fine,” she replies, her voice emotionless and flat.

She isn’t, but I don’t know her well enough to decipher her blank state or lack of body language. I won’t push, either. At least not now, while I’m half distracted by driving.

Seraphine’s unpredictability is only charming when she’s half-naked over my lap and getting a well-deserved spanking.

“We lived in a house like this,” she says.

“You and your brother?”

She nods. “And Mom. She always told us Dad was away on business, but he had a second family. Do you think she knew?”

“Do you want the truth?”

“You’re going to say she must have known.”

“Frederic Capello was one of New Alderney’s most prominent businessmen. It would be impossible for her not to have known he was married.”

“Right,” she rasps.

We fall silent for several minutes, passing tall hedges, walls of conifers, and the ornate iron gates until we reach the outskirts of the Cappello estate. If there was something I could say to ease her mind, I would say it, but nothing could ever compensate for the torment she suffered after Capello’s betrayal.

As a small fleet of construction vans pass, it occurs to me to ask, “Was your mother’s house also in Queen’s Gardens?”

When she doesn’t reply, I glance at her through the rearview mirror again. Her eyes are closed, showcasing thick, black lashes and smokey lids, and her red lips pursed.

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