Chapter 12 Diantha #3
“I don’t need to know anything else. I trust you.
” My voice wavers on that last syllable and my palms are suddenly slick with sweat.
I drag them down the front of my jeans and try again, straightening my spine.
“You said this would also help with my mom, so…I trust you. I think you understand how important she is to me. But fair warning, I’m not…
” God, how do I explain this? This feeling I cart around like a vestigial limb?
This sensation that pulls me deep into myself?
I try my best. “I’m difficult. I don’t mean to be, but I don’t have any siblings and I don’t have a lot of friends and…
” Why am I saying all of this? Wrap it up, Diantha.
“I’ll try to do what you need, but if I say or do the wrong thing, you’ve been warned. I’m very far from perfect.”
Orfeo stubs out the last of his cigarette in an ashtray poised on the windowsill before pulling the window shut.
With his back to me and his hands in his pockets, he says, “Perfection is a human obsession. To optimize endlessly with the hopes of spinning meaning out of this universe like gold from straw. It’s a fool’s errand.
You are not human and you are not a fool, so put that out of your head.
Your bullish nature, it’s part of whatever you are… ”
He turns to face me, his gaze fierce—like a commander speaking to his army.
It pins me to the couch, stills my trembling legs.
“Do you think I am easy? That I have a lot of friends? I am here in this country, alone. I’ve been here for five years, which is a nanosecond in my life.
I miss my home. I miss my coterie. I miss my language. I am lonely and angry, Diantha.”
I tighten my grip on the stem of my wineglass. Same, I think. But the only person who ever made me feel like I had a homeland is gone forever.
“Okay.” I nod. “We’re in this together.”
“Okay.” He blows out all the air in his lungs. “Good. Shall you do a fashion show for me, then?”
“Here we go,” I announce, poking my head out of the bathroom. Orfeo’s leaning back against the kitchen island, arms crossed over his chest.
“Finally. I was afraid I might have to come in and extract you from my toilet.”
I roll my eyes. “No judgment, please. I’m broke. Generationally. My mother left me with nothing but nightmares and that hunk of metal in your driveway. These dresses are all I have.”
His eyes twinkle with amusement as he places a hand over his heart. “I promise. I will contain my snobbish Italian nature.”
“Thank you.” I step out from behind the bathroom door in the brown, chiffon dress I wore to my mother’s funeral. “Ta da.” I’m sure I look deeply unappealing. A strategic move.
Orfeo narrows his eyes and looks me over so thoroughly I’m not sure if I should be flattered or scared. “You are objectively beautiful, but this dress…” He shakes his head. “It is horrible.”
I change into the black tube dress, quickly swapping my earrings for a pair of gold hoops and a gold wristwatch. “Is this better?”
Orfeo frowns at me. Then, he licks his lips, pushes off the island, and crosses the room toward me.
“Mmm.” He runs a hand back and forth over his jaw. He drags his teeth over his bottom lip and the light glints off the length of his fangs. “You must change.”
“What?! Seriously? I look great.”
“Yes,” he growls. “Divine.”
“And I thought you wanted me to look good.”
“I want you to look beautiful, but not so beautiful that I spend the entire evening choke-slamming demons.” Orfeo’s close enough now that I can feel the heat radiating off his bare chest. No wonder he’s always stripping down.
A few seconds this close and my face is already heating. “You look like a goddess.”
“Really?” I roll my eyes. “Don’t sound so pissed about it.”
“No, I mean you literally look like a goddess. Like Diana or Artemis. Go try on that other dress.” He must sense my hesitation because he drops his chin to his chest and flutters his lashes at me. “Don’t tell me it’s sexier than this.”
“No, it’s just…” I attempt a look of innocence. “You said you have something in my size.”
Orfeo tents his eyebrows, lips turning down into a look of faux annoyance. “I suppose you have sung for your supper.”
He circles back toward the living room, ducking under the stairs to pull open a closet door, exposing a frighteningly organized, color-coded closet.
White T-shirts turn into gray T-shirts turn into perfectly draped jeans.
The entire left side is seemingly dedicated to women’s clothing. “I have a dress I think you’ll like.”
“Do I want to know where you got all of this stuff?”
“Nothing stranger than being a Roman vampire, I assure you.” He arches his brows at me. “You know, many women forget their clothing after a night of passion.”
The sentence makes me horny, jealous, and disgusted. Impressive. “Awesome,” I deadpan. “And you brought this all down from New York with you?”
“When I moved here, I brought my belongings.” He hands over a black dress hanging from a satin hanger and shoos me back into the bathroom.
As much as I want to hate him for his freak-ass one-night stand dress collection, I can’t because this dress fits me like it was made for me.
The black fabric drapes perfectly over my chest, nipping in at my waist before flowing down over my hips in dove-tailed layers that move like water when I walk across the bathroom.
The fabric separates for a moment, then joins together again, only letting a flash of my thick thighs escape.
I grab my black leather belt from my jeans and wrap it around my waist, cinching the fabric in tight. Even better.
I slide my feet back into my high heels and step out of the bathroom.
“Good?” I ask.
His eyes light up, a smile working its way over his features. “Spectacular. Perfection.”
Orfeo opts for a perfectly tailored black suit with no shirt underneath the jacket. Just a triangle of bare, oiled skin. Standing next to each other in the mirror, we look like the Trojan Mr. I trust his word and I trust his strength.
He looks deep into my eyes as he says, “And I promise I will not let you die, Diantha.”