Chapter One #2
‘You look beautiful,’ he said. Finally, a truth he could admit.
The vintage satin of her one-of-a-kind 1930’s wedding gown, like warm liquid underneath his palms. Slipping over her body, slick as oil, teasing his fingertips.
When he’d been sleeping rough on the streets of Rome in frigid winters, all he’d dreamt of was silk and softness.
Of warm perfumed bodies that would chase away the cold, make him forget the scent of rot and rubbish in the alleyways he’d kept to.
Leo pushed away the memory from that time long past. Focusing instead on Simone, because praising your bride’s appearance and giving her your undivided attention was the sort of thing you should do on her wedding day.
‘Thank you. You chose everything, after all.’
Her voice struck him, soft and low. A little more raw than normal. He’d heard her speak a thousand times and yet her tone in this moment shot right through his gut with the punch of an arrow.
From Cupid’s bow, some might say.
Not him.
Cupid be damned. He’d seen what love had done to his mother.
How she’d been robbed. First of her ideas, then of everything by his father who’d left them for a woman who could afford to fund him as he chased his stolen dreams. As he took Leo’s mother’s furniture designs and opened his own business selling her ideas as his own.
As he’d cast off his old life like a worn coat and started afresh with a new, wealthier woman.
‘I welcomed your involvement,’ he said, as they executed a spiral turn. He reeled her back in as he continued. ‘Some might even say, encouraged it.’
Simone’s body pressed against him, even closer than before.
They’d had some practice with a dance instructor to ensure they’d look seamless.
In those few, short classes everything had felt stiff.
Stilted. Yet something about today seemed to have transformed them both.
Leo noticed for the first time how Simone fit into his arms like a puzzle piece.
Her scent the citrus blossom of an Italian spring.
Perhaps it was a leftover from her bouquet of the same flowers?
Leo could almost close his eyes and imagine being immersed in it, so intoxicating and achingly familiar.
Instead he took a slight step back, to give them both distance.
‘Welcomed? Really? Mr Zanetti giving up his famed control? I don’t believe it for a second.’ She laughed, yet the sound was a little sharp, tinged with cynicism. He knew that sentiment well, being one of the greatest cynics of them all.
‘Surely marriage is all about compromise. My famed control wasn’t so tight that I didn’t offer you any choices.’
He’d been surprised at Simone’s strange disinterest in her dress or in any of the plans for the wedding itself. She’d allowed him to have the final decision on everything, including the stylist who did her hair and makeup for the day because, in Simone’s words, that’s what you do, Leo.
‘I’m sure each choice was offered through gritted teeth with a firm view on what you saw as the right one,’ she said. ‘Given that, it seemed easier to allow you to win from the beginning. I prefer to pick my battles. Because as you say, marriage is about compromise.’
There it was again, that spike of sensation at the realisation Simone could read him only too well.
When his engagement had been announced, the rumour mill ran riot at his ‘surprising’ choice of bride.
There’d been talk of him marrying just about every one of the many women who had graced his arm at one time or another in the past. Whether they’d been lovers or mere acquaintances, it didn’t matter.
Socialites, models, movie stars. All polished and perfect when they stepped out with him in public.
Never once any mention of the person who was at his side in all ways.
Simone Taylor.
As he’d explained in the inevitable media storm that followed, the woman who he’d worked with closely for two years as his executive assistant, knew him better than any living human on earth.
She was, therefore, a natural and inevitable choice.
Throw out talk of Simone keeping him ‘grounded’ and the press lapped up the story of love blossoming in the heady environment of the boardroom like stray cats to milk.
That was the story they’d presented to the world and everyone had believed it, even staff at Circolo who’d been surprisingly happy about the news. The truth was far more practical.
‘You allowed me? Did I get anything wrong?’ he asked.
Most of the time he wouldn’t have cared, because he knew his choices were right.
Even when he offered options, to give the illusion of choice to some of the few clients he still dealt with personally, they always went with his first selection.
As Simone had done. Yet with her, there was a strange sensation like a fishbone stuck in his gullet, that drove him to seek her answer.
‘You know perfectly well you didn’t. They don’t call you the Sultan of Style for nothing.’
He’d been called something else, in his youth in Rome.
The Handsome Viper. Sent in to ‘encourage’ small business owners to pay money for protection from imagined enemies, when the true enemy was him and those he worked with.
If they didn’t pay up? Then others in the gang would be unleashed.
In the end, his looks, size and the gang’s reputation got the job done and most capitulated.
Most…
He snorted. ‘The Sultan of Style’s a ridiculous title.’
There was that arched rise of her brow again.
That intense look that speared right through him once more.
Luckily he wasn’t so transparent with Simone that he couldn’t hide his greatest sins.
She might know a lot about him, but she didn’t know it all and he’d do everything in his power to keep it that way.
‘But it’s good for business and the press loves it. They love you.’
Her hand moved on his shoulder, almost a clench. Some quarters of the press had been unfair and unkind when he and Simone had become engaged in their reported whirlwind romance.
Plain Jane Marries Sultan of Style!
That’s what one tabloid had printed and others soon followed. Unimaginative sheep, all of them.
It wasn’t that Simone didn’t have style. She had one which an uncharitable commentator he would never speak to again, had unfairly termed ‘Funeral Director Chic’.
Leo preferred to say she was businesslike, with a minimalist aesthetic. Both were descriptions they’d tried seeding to the press but hadn’t caught on.
Yet it rankled, a bitter pill he railed against swallowing, especially since she’d politely refused most of his efforts to gift her designer fashion.
Though she had accepted a vintage item for their engagement dinner, when he’d told her it was a thrifty choice.
Still Simone didn’t seem to care about her appearance at all, or want to accept the offer of his credit card to facilitate some choices of her own.
What woman wouldn’t want to spend his money?
Most others of his acquaintance had and he’d enjoyed sharing it around.
He’d never forgotten the cold, hard life he’d come from on the streets, when a little softness might have made a difference.
And whilst he didn’t care what was printed about him, leaving that to his PR department, he still couldn’t help wondering whether Simone wasn’t so circumspect about the criticism of her.
‘I meant what I said.’
‘You’ve said lots of things.’
‘About you, being beautiful.’
Whilst they didn’t have that sort of relationship, Leo was still driven to repeat his praise.
Something about her seemed to light up then, in a way he’d never seen before.
Her grey eyes widening a fraction. Her gloss slicked lips, parting.
She didn’t seem so disinterested now. His heart rate kicked a little higher, as if a world of possibilities had begun to crack open when there were really none, aside from a continuing professional relationship.
‘Soon, everyone will see what I can,’ Leo said.
It was a promise, and one he’d been working assiduously towards.
The exclusive rights to their wedding had been sold to a popular lifestyle magazine with all proceeds donated to charity.
They’d see what Simone usually hid. What he glimpsed in this moment.
The way the ivory silk of her dress caressed her gentle curves.
The fabric sinuous and almost alive as she moved.
Her long golden hair not restrained in her usual bun or chignon, but swept back from her face by glittering combs.
Tumbling over her shoulders in thick, glossy waves like a forties movie star.
Add in the perfect lighting and a world-renowned photographer, and she’d finally be recognised for who she truly was.
Simone Zanetti. His beautiful wife.
She looked up at him, with a whisper of pink flushing her cheeks.
‘I— Thank you, Leo.’
‘My pleasure, amore mio.’ Given a few guests had been invited to join them on the dance floor he’d tried the words of affection out for size, in the perfect timbre. Loud enough for the people dancing around them to hear. Soft enough to seem intimate.
They’d had no bridal party for their wedding. No one but each other. For him, because he had no family worth inviting. For Simone, it seemed her position was the same.
He was aware of her parents, as he had been with any employee who held a position of trust and importance in his company.
She had a wealthy family in California. Her father was from the ivy league.
Her mother, a famed socialite. Her brother was a corporate lawyer.
She also had a younger sister, who hadn’t yet made her way in the world.