CHAPTER SIX
THEYDIDNOT speak on the way to the ball. Francesca thought it was best for a wide variety of reasons.
She felt too close to tears. Not because of what he’d said. She didn’t mind a few mean comments said in the heat of the moment, especially if she could return the favor without a backhand to the face.
Strange how even an argument felt like freedom when there was no threat of physical violence tied to it.
What bothered her was not the argument, though. It was that she’d let her guard down. She’d been so thrilled to pick out her own dress, to look the way she wanted to look and like the outcome. She’d been excited enough, lulled by the past week enough to believe Aristide easy. That he would go along with her at all turns. That he would give her that indulgent smile and compliment her on her choices.
But he was a man, and she should have known better. Moods were perilous things and his had changed last night. She should have known it would continue to threaten like a storm until it broke.
She would just have to get to know him better. Then she would predict his moods better. Then she would say the right thing to ensure they didn’t have any more little blowups.
And you’ll be right back where you started.
Except Aristide had gotten angry—though she still didn’t understand why—and he’d yet to so much as grab her. She was not in physical danger here. He had given her that much. So she could learn how to...sail his tricky waters without feeling like she used to.
That was how she’d gotten this far in life with everything. It wouldn’t stop now. She didn’t have to forget herself, hide herself, be someone else to figure out how to deal with him. She could find balance.
That was the promise of a life without violence.
What was clear from his little outburst was that there was something that held him back from acting on any of his little innuendos, even when she offered. She did not know what it would be, but she would seek to get around it.
Because even angry at him, even hurt by his precarious mood, she wanted to know what it would be like to be swept away in the heat that swamped her any time Aristide was close. She wanted all the freedoms she could get.
Once she understood him better, she would.
The car came to a stop and she waited until Aristide came to her side and offered a hand to help her out of the car. She could already hear the low murmur of voices of people who were clearly recognizing him and anticipating the fact he’d brought his stolen bride.
He smiled down at her and camera flashes went off from outside the car. But she did know enough about him now to recognize some of the looks in his eyes. This one was blank, with absolutely no warmth behind it.
She slid her hand into his, warm to her chilled, and allowed him to pull her out into the evening. His smile dimmed a little at her hand, and he wrapped his hand fully around hers as if to warm it.
She tried to think of a time that anyone had ever tried to warm any part of her, particularly if they were irritated with her. And she was quite certain it had never once happened.
She blew out a breath as he drew her into the fray. She had to focus not on him right now, but on the situation. She was an old pro at acting and presenting exactly what she wanted to project.
But no one had ever been holding her hand while she had to project anything. Even the events she’d attended with Vale hadn’t included hand-holding. But she liked to think she’d learned something from being his fiancée while the press kept beating the Princess Carliz drum.
It didn’t matter what the reality was. It mattered what the story was.
She and Aristide were a story.
She just wished she felt the same sort of distance from Aristide that she had felt with Vale. They were both handsome, powerful men. Who looked quite a lot alike, in fact, so Francesca didn’t quite understand why it felt different. Only that it did. For her, anyway. She wasn’t sure what Aristide felt. Some attraction...maybe. But there was a simmering anger or frustration that went along with it that she did not understand.
“Perhaps, like usual, you are simply not good enough.”
She rolled her shoulders, willing her father’s voice away. She would damn well be good enough. She would turn around Aristide’s reputation quickly and easily. And he would have to be impressed by it. And her. Maybe then... He would act on what arced between them.
Aristide led her straight to Signora Gallo and greeted her with an enthusiasm she knew was forced, and the skeptical look on Signora Gallo’s face told Francesca the older woman knew it too.
The signora looked over at her, gave her an up-and-down perusal. Then sniffed. “Well, marriage agrees with you, I suppose.”
Which was a far cry from her usual greeting of feigned politeness: Do you even eat, dear?
The signora’s gaze turned to Aristide. “Not quite sure how you pulled off such a thing, or why, when everyone knows you’ve never kept an eye from wandering.”
Aristide kept that smile on his face. All charm and ease. A lie, she wanted to hiss at him just to see how he might react.
“That was all before I met mio angioletta. Why would my eye wander from a prize such as this?” He looked over at her, and Francesca wondered if anyone else noted that wry twist to his smile. “Who puts up with my wicked ways and encourages me to be better.”
“And I assume you encourage her to be worse.”
“Not worse,” Francesca corrected gently. “Aristide allows me to be myself. It’s...irresistible.”
The older woman studied Francesca for a long-drawn-out moment. “That is a gift,” she said carefully, almost reverently. But then her smile sharpened. “If it’s true.”
“That was the difference between my brother and me, naturally,” Aristide’s said, and Francesca wanted to groan. Because he should not bring up Vale if they wanted the stories to rehabilitate him. “I could see Francesca for who she truly is.”
The signora made a hmphing sort of noise. “And I suppose you are why your brother refused my invitation tonight?”
Aristide laughed, and it was only a tinge bitter. “Signora, were you trying to cause trouble with your invitations? For shame.”
She looked almost amused, but then she waved them away in her usual way of dismissal. Another group of people arriving for her to poke at.
“Did you really need to mention Vale?” Francesca whispered at him as they walked toward their table. “That little story will end up in print somewhere before the night is even through. We don’t have to make him look bad to make us look good.”
“Let him twist in the wind for once. He’s done it plenty to me.” Aristide plucked two flutes of champagne from a passing tray, handed her one.
“It seems to me you’ve done plenty to each other. Without ever once talking it through,” Francesca added, lifting the glass to her mouth and taking a sip.
He gave her a sharp look. “You do not know anything about my brother and me.”
A touchy subject. Her entire life she’d spent tiptoeing around touchy subjects, but something about Aristide made her want to touch everything. It didn’t matter she knew she shouldn’t put a fork in an electrical outlet—there was a desire to do so that was impossible to ignore.
“You’d be surprised what I know, having spent some time with both of you and watching how the two of you react to one another while your detestable father plucks the puppet strings.”
“You are my wife, Francesca. I believe that means you no longer get to take Vale’s side on anything.”
“It does not mean that, but even if it did, I’m not taking his side. Or yours.” She reached out and put her hand on his shoulder, wanting to comfort even as she wanted to poke. “I’m saying I think it’d behoove you both to talk. I know if I had a sibling to discuss my terrible—”
It was as if even thinking about mentioning her terrible childhood, the perpetrator of it appeared.
“Francesca,” her father greeted, his dark, hard gaze landing on the drink in her hand disapprovingly. “It seems you have weathered the events of the week quite well.” He did not say this kindly, even though he’d turned his gaze to Aristide and plastered that smile that fooled everyone on his face.
Francesca swallowed, her arm falling off Aristide’s shoulder. She had to fight the slight tremor that went through her. The abject fear, even knowing she was safe here in a crowd of people.
But not just here. She was free now, all the time, and still she felt pinned to the spot. Like one wrong move would be a disaster. Her throat clogged and her entire being iced straight through.
She had thought once she was free of her father, dealing with him would not feel this way. So much fear still pounding through her, even though she was free.
But Aristide’s hand over hers was one point of warmth in all this cold and she focused on that so she could find her voice.
“Allow me to introduce my husband, Aristide Bonaparte.” She knew her smile wasn’t right. It was too tight, too brittle. But she managed to curve her mouth as she gestured to Aristide next to her.
Bertini held out his hand for Aristide to shake. “I think we have quite a lot to talk about, young man.”
“Do we?” Aristide countered. He looked at the outstretched hand and very clearly and purposefully did not shake it. “I don’t think we have anything to discuss at all, Signor Campo. In fact, I think it best for all involved if I never see you again.” Aristide said this all with an easy smile, so easy and friendly it took Francesca a good beat or two to realize what he’d just said.
She should say something. Admonish him. They were in public. They should all pretend. But she could only stare up at him in wonder.
“I beg your pardon,” Bertini replied, clearly needing the same time Francesca had to understand what was happening.
Aristide leaned down, close to her father, but still with that pleasant smile on his face. “If I ever see you within eyeshot of my wife, you will regret it. If you need the threat specified and in writing, I’ll be sure to deliver it first thing in the morning.”
Bertini’s eyes narrowed. “You signed the marriage contract. You have paid me my fee. You do not get to—”
“I think you’ll find I get to do whatever I want, seeing as I paid your fee. And I won’t feel the need to destroy you, as long as I never see you in her orbit or mine again. Understood?”
Francesca watched as her father’s face mottled red. She felt the familiar ice of terror, and even Aristide’s hand in hers could not feel like a warm spot. The only thing keeping her upright and from scrambling away was knowing she was not going home with her father tonight. He could not hurt her.
Because she suddenly had this...protector. She did not understand where it came from. Surely Aristide didn’t know the full...extent of her father’s control from the few things she’d said. She had always been careful to keep it from everyone.
She’d let Aristide in on how controlling he could be, but surely he didn’t understand...
Aristide pulled her away from her father. If anyone had been paying attention—and no doubt, some had—there was no missing the fact that something had occurred. Though Aristide had kept that pleasant smile on his face for the whole strange interaction, so many of the gossips would have a difficulty deciding what the issue was.
Francesca realized her teeth were chattering. What a silly reaction to nothing. Aristide led her to a little corner, somewhat hidden and shaded by some ridiculously overlarge plant. She leaned against the wall, trying to get a hold of herself.
Aristide took the champagne flute away from her, then took both her hands in between his. He rubbed warmth into them. This same man who’d been angry with her not an hour ago.
It was all just too much. So she focused on the current issue.
“You probably shouldn’t have refused to shake his hand,” she managed weakly. Even though she was glad of it.
“I will not abide bullies, Francesca.” He rubbed her hands between his, somewhat absently as he tracked Bertini’s movements throughout the large ballroom from their little corner. All the way to the exit. Like her father was leaving.
Because of what Aristide had said. Done. She found herself managing easier breaths, but she couldn’t stop staring at the man who’d just...stepped in and done something.
After a while, Aristide’s gaze came to land on her. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected—frustration, confusion, maybe even pity. But all she saw was a considering kind of searching in his gaze.
At first, she thought he’d say nothing and they could move on from this as though it had never happened. But after a few ticking minutes, as though he were waiting for her to get ahold of herself again, he spoke.
“My father could not care about anyone beyond himself enough to lift an actual physical finger to them. He much prefers mind games for his brand of cruelty, and that can cause fear, I suppose. But I have never felt the kind of fear I saw in your eyes when your father said your name.”
She wanted to cry. Had anyone been even the slightest bit concerned that she was afraid of her own father in her entire life? She didn’t think so. Granted, she’d learned early on to hide it lest the punishment be worse, but still. This was...too overwhelming.
“I will not abide it.” He said this softly, but like a vow. More serious than even the ones they had given each other on their wedding night.
She managed to blink back the moisture in her eyes. “Thank you,” she said thickly, but with feeling because... Never. Never had someone said anything like that to her. And this man might be her husband whom she was still trying to get to know. They might be friendly and have chemistry, but he was essentially...a stranger. Who wanted to keep her at arm’s length. He certainly didn’t owe her much.
He grunted, clearly uncomfortable with her raw gratitude. She wasn’t exactly comfortable with it either, but she was still shaky enough she couldn’t build back her defenses.
She really thought she would have been cured by freedom. It was lowering and frustrating to realize she wasn’t. And something akin to joy to know someone would step in anyway.
“Would you like to leave?” he asked her gently. This man who said no one had ever called him kind. Who had been so irritated with her choice of dress, and the fact she’d had the gall to say she wouldn’t mind being mussed by him that he’d called her a senseless virgin. Who was now...standing guard of her like some sort of shining knight.
He made no sense, but she wasn’t sure she made any sense either. She sucked in a deep breath and tried to settle all the things shifting around inside of her.
She managed to shake her head. “No, it’s better to stay until we can make an early exit look less about my father and more about...”
“Not being able to keep our hands off each other?”
“Yes. Precisely.” She gave a sharp nod and pushed herself off the wall. “We will dance and convince everyone we’re madly in love.”
Even if the word love tasted like ash in her mouth.
Aristide held Francesca gently in his arms as they moved to a slow, classical waltz. In direct contrast to last night, when she had felt like a strong, dangerous threat, tonight she felt...fragile.
He did not do fragile, because it made him feel like this. Unwieldy and wrong. Not in charge of his own fate, because the fate of the victim was more important.
And this all took him by such surprise, even knowing he hadn’t liked her tales of her controlling father. He’d known he wouldn’t like Bertini Campo, but then he’d seen her reaction to her father.
All her commentary, her even looks, all her strength, it had crumbled under the gaze of one man. Her own father. And he had seen true fear there in her eyes.
And for a second, he’d seen himself as a boy. Not with his father, because Milo Bonaparte had been a strange figure in his life. A complete nonentity for twelve years, and then a sudden target, but even as a young man reeling from his new place in the world, he had always known Milo’s barbs—even the ones aimed at Aristide—were meant for Valentino.
And so his crumble had come at the hands of his own brother, his best friend, who’d called him a liar at the lowest point he could remember. Who had promised they would never really be brothers. All because it didn’t fit in with his neat version of what the world was.
That moment might have changed his life, but there’d been an honesty in it. Finally. Valentino had chosen who he really wanted to be, and so Aristide had chosen the same. And maybe, maybe, Francesca wasn’t far off. They hadn’t talked since that moment. Not really. Perhaps there was more to it all, what with the fact they’d been boys, not men.
But Aristide was hardly going to throw himself at the brick wall of Valentino. He’d already spent too much time throwing himself at the brick wall of his mother.
Brick walls were hard and painful, and he saw no reason to indulge. He was not after his own destruction, or the destruction of anything else.
Still, he did not abide bullies, not because of his brother, of that moment Valentino had turned on him. It was the way his father used that moment of contention between brothers from then on out. Like a weapon against both of them. No, Aristide could not stomach those who wielded their power like a weapon—be it physically or with schemes—because that was the purview of his father. And he’d always counted his father one of the worst monsters he could imagine.
But a man who would inspire that kind of fear in his own daughter was far worse than cruel, distant fathers and soul friends turned blood enemies.
All of Francesca’s talk about being free now seemed...serious. Not the frivolous talk of a girl who’d had a slightly overbearing upbringing. But a woman who had escaped abuse. On her own terms, even if he’d stepped in and altered them a little.
She was changed to him now, and he did not know how to move forward. It was unfair, like being thrust back in time, to thirteen and lost and everyone he’d thought he could lean on crumbling under the weight of secrets come to light.
“You should probably not look as though you want to burn the place down while we dance,” Francesca murmured in his ear.
She was back to herself. Stiff-spined and determined. It rearranged everything inside of him, in new, uncomfortable ways he didn’t want. He felt clumsy, when he had known how to turn a woman about a ballroom almost as if he’d been born with the inherent talent.
He looked down at her and had to wonder if that crumbling he’d seen in her had simply been a mirage. Maybe he’d overreacted. “Did he lay a hand on you, Francesca?”
She inhaled sharply. “I’d rather not discuss him at the moment.”
“I know nothing of what a good father should be, but I certainly know one shouldn’t lay a hand to his daughter.”
She was stiff in his arms now, and he thought back to all her discussions of the kind of image they should portray. So he drew her closer, to hide that stiffness. Certainly not to comfort her.
“Your father never laid a hand on you?” she returned, looking up at him with challenge and irritation in her eyes. She had not wanted him to press the issue, but he found he could not drop it. Not for a better time.
He held her gaze. Maybe someone would see it as loving. He was only going for the truth. “No. He had his own weapons, but his hands were not one of them.”
She let out a shaky exhale, even as she kept that stubborn chin lifted. “I did not think seeing him would affect me, as I am no longer under his control. Unfortunately, that was not the case.” She straightened those shoulders, gave him that boardroom-businesswoman look that had no bearing when discussing abuse. “But I will get better at it.”
The fact she thought she should be better at it, when her father was the monster, twisted through him. He had seen the abuses of power and words and threats and control, not physical ones, and yet it all felt the same in the moment.
He had never once been able to convince his mother she was a victim, that she needed to escape. The fact Francesca had designed her own escape, even if he’d upended her plans a bit, awed him.
“We will not be anywhere he is, ever again. I will ensure it.” Perhaps he said it more forcefully than necessary. Perhaps his grip on her was tighter than it needed to be as they swayed in time with the other dancers.
But this was one thing he would ensure, no matter what. As a matter of...well, those lines he drew for himself. He was not virtuous, but he would not let people suffer at the hands of those more powerful.
She studied him then, a hint of vulnerability in the cast of her mouth. “I am not weak,” she said softly but with a resolute determination that twisted painfully inside of him.
Painfully enough, he was surprised to hear his own words emerge as gently as they did. “No, angioletta, that is never the word I would use to describe you.”
She was still studying him, brows drawn together. “I do not understand you, Aristide,” she said, almost on a whisper. And no doubt the lookers on would see a woman whispering sweet nothings to her husband.
So he lowered his mouth to her ear, being careful not to inhale the scent of her too deeply. “Let us not concern ourselves with understanding one another. Instead, we shall offer each other that which we need. A new reputation for me. Freedom for you.”
When he straightened, her gaze was steady. There was no more hint of vulnerability. There was that same look in her eye she’d had last night.
“I think you should kiss me,” she said, pressing closer to him. Sending twin reactions through him. The need to hold her tighter, press her closer. The need to stiffen and set her aside.
But she kept talking as she rested her forehead against his cheek while they swayed their way into another song. “There is a camera right there. It’s the perfect photo op.”