Page 2 of Cruel Heir

But then again, I expect the same from my husband. It’s the way things are, and I’ve never thought to question it. If my life comes with gilded bars around it, those bars at least keep me safe from those who would wish to harm me. It’s a trade—my freedom for my security, my independence for my comfort—and it’s one I’ve always been happy to make.

Reluctantly, I feel Mattias release my hand as another tall, well-dressed man approaches us at the edge of the dance floor. “I regret that I must pass you off to someone else,” he says with a faint smile, stepping back and inclining his head. “But I will be speaking to your father tomorrow morning, so perhaps we will see each other again soon.”

I nod, returning the smile. “If I’m free tonight, I’d love to dance with you again,” I tell him, and he chuckles.

“I don’t expect I’ll be able to snatch you away for even a moment. But I will look out for an opportunity, just in case.”

An hour later, my feet are beginning to hurt. I’ve been dancing with one man or another since Mattias brought me out to the floor, and I pause as the latest man to claim a dance spins me, taking a slow breath.

“Are you alright?” the man—Fazio, I think his name is—asks concernedly, and I nod.

“I just need to sit down for a moment, I think. A little water wouldn’t hurt, either.”

He steers me eagerly towards one of the chairs at the edge of the dance floor—gold Chiavari—and I sink into it with a sigh. “I’ll be back with some water in a moment,” Fazio promises, darting away without noticing the catering staff passing him by with a tray in hand.

On further inspection, as the black-and-white uniformed man gets closer, I see that it’s not water on his tray, but champagne. I sweep a glass off anyway, taking a delicate sip of it. I’ve never had champagne before, and I’m delighted by the way the bubbles burst over my tongue, the dry sweetness spreading through my mouth. I’malsostarving, and I snag a few hors d’oeuvres off of another passing tray, nibbling at them as I wait for Fazio to come back. They’re delicious—some kind of flaky pastry with soft cheese and spiced ground meat in one, and another that’s a flatbread with herbed cream cheese and a grilled shrimp atop it. It’s hardly a meal, but it will keep me from passing out until the end of the night when I can ask to have leftovers sent up to my room.

“Here you are!” Fazio reappears at my elbow, handing me the glass of water. “The champagne is delicious, isn’t it?”

I look at him sideways as I sip the water, nodding. He’s the youngest of the men who have danced and talked with me so far tonight—probably only a few years older than I am—and I find that I don’t prefer that as much as I would have thought. He seems immature, unlike Mattias and some of the other men that I’ve danced with, and I find myself hoping that my father willnottake Fazio up on his offer.

As the night wears on, I realize Mattias was right—there’s no chance that he’ll get another moment with me. I’m handed off to an increasingly dizzying parade of men, enough that their features start to blur together after a while, some of the names drifting out of my head. Aside from Mattias, there’s one older widower named Leonardo, who seemed pleasant and handsome enough—if a bit stiff in his manners—and a man called Alexis, who was probably in his late twenties, and had a similarly respectful air to the other two. No one would dare manhandle me in my father’s house, or touch me in any way that bordered on inappropriate, but I can feel the difference between the ones who treat me carefully, and those who look at me as if they can’t wait to own me for themselves. I try to remember the names of the ones who made me particularly uncomfortable, in the unlikely event that my fatherdoesask my opinion on any of them.

When I finally have a moment to escape, I snatch it. My feet are aching, the room is beginning to feel close and hot, and the mingled scents of so many different colognes and perfumes and warm bodies are beginning to give me a headache. When one dance ends and someone isn’t immediately there to claim me for another,instead of looking for Mattias, I give a longing glimpse towards the doors that lead out to the garden. I can’t deny that I’ve enjoyed the attention, but I’m eager for a moment to myself. I cut a quick path through the guests, trying to dodge anyone who might want my attention before they can speak to me, and slip outside into the cool night air.

It’s late fall, and chilly at night. I shiver almost as soon as I step out onto the cobblestone path, but I keep walking anyway, wanting the privacy to collect myself. I feel more than a little overwhelmed by it all. Even though it’s felt good to have so many men eager to meet me, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being watched by someone in particular.

You’re being watched by everyone. I try to shrug off the creeping feeling that curls around my spine, brushing it off as ridiculous. There isn’t a pair of eyes in the room that isn’t mostly focused on me—that’s the purpose of the night. If it feels like someone is looking at me, it’s becauseeveryoneis.

I walk all the way to the fountain in the middle of the gardens—a marble statue of a woman draped in fluttering veils, standing in the midst of the water with carved fishes leaping all around her. Water spouts from her hands and the fishes’ mouths, splashing merrily, and I turn my face up towards the moon, taking a deep breath of the fresh, clean air. I can feel a bit of the cool spray of the water as it splashes into the pool of the fountain, and it feels good on my flushed skin. Good enough that I linger, hesitant to go back inside. My feet ache, and I think even I might have reached the limit of my ability to make small talk with men I barely know.

“Miss Fontana. Out in the gardens all alone without a chaperone? Scandalous.”

The voice behind me makes atsking sound, and I freeze. For a moment, I have the fantasy that it might be Mattias, here to sneak that moment that he promised to look out for, teasing me with more flirtatious banter. But I know before I even turn around that it’s not his voice. The accent isn’t as thick, or as rich. It’s the voice of someone who grew up elsewhere, whose Italian is muted by having beenraised around American accents, American voices. I’ve talked with more than a few men tonight who sound just like that.

But when I turn, the man in front of me is no one I know, and no one I’ve danced with or spoken to.

He’s tall and lean, with dark blond hair and deep blue eyes, almost black in the dim light of the garden. He’s handsome in a sharp, chiseled kind of way, and he’s standing casually in front of me, hands stuffed into his tailored suit pockets.

Something about him sets off an alarm within me, a sort of instinctive fear that I think all women have when faced with a potentially dangerous man. He hasn’t done anything threatening yet, nothing that would make me believe he intends me harm, but every sense I have is screaming at me to get away from him, to go back inside.

“If you want a dance,” I manage stiffly, trying to mask my fear, “then just give me a moment. You can find me as soon as I go back to the party.”

The man laughs, a low, dark sound that makes the hair on the back of my neck rise. “I’m not interested in a dance, Miss Fontana,” he murmurs. I feel the fear in my stomach harden into a tight knot, a chill washing over me that has nothing to do with the night air.

I draw myself up straighter, calling on every bit of poise and arrogance I possess as the daughter of Don Fontana, a man both respected and feared, the head of the Family. “It’s very rude that you seem to know who I am, and haven’t introduced yourself,” I tell him as haughtily as I can. “My father is willing to forgive some faults in a man who would truly cherish his daughter, but I can’t imagine that rudeness is one of them.”

Truthfully, I don’t think my father actually cares if anyonecherishesme. But it matters more what might make this man stand down.

He just chuckles again, his mouth quirking in a wry smirk. “I’ll introduce myself in time,Lucia. But for now—”

Fear takes over in that moment, when I hear the way he says my name, when I understand that this man wants something that has nothing at all to do with the party inside. He has no interest in thecareful steps of the social niceties that can lead a man from one dance with me to sayingI doin front of God and my father—one of whom is considerably more immediately terrifying than the other, as I understand it.

Whoever this man is, he’s here totakesomething from me.

I snatch up my skirt in my hands, preparing to dart around him. The moment I try, his hand snakes around my waist, pulling me in closer against his side as he backs me towards the fountain, his mouth close to my ear.

“Oh no, Lucia,” he murmurs, his breath warm against my skin, his hand firmly against the small of my back in a way that no other man tonight has dared to hold me. “You’re not going anywhere,principessa. Except for whereIchoose to take you.”

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