21. Ariah
— ? —
Ariah
The invitation has been sitting on my counter for three weeks, mocking me.
The Castellani Foundation gala - one of those society events that Naples’s old money treats like a religious obligation, the kind of evening where fortunes are measured by the weight of your diamonds and your worth is calculated by the lineage of your escort.
Pietro and I RSVP’d months ago, back when we were still pretending our marriage was intact, and now the separation sits unresolved between us, my name is all over the business news, and attending feels like walking into a lion’s den wearing a meat dress.
But not attending would be worse.
Not attending would be confirmation of every whispered rumor, every pitying glance, every poor thing, couldn’t handle the Grimaldi world speculation that’s been circulating since I left.
The Neapolitan elite would dine out on my absence for months. Did you hear? She couldn’t even show her face.
No. I didn’t claw my way back from the wreckage of my marriage to hide now.
So I put on my gown - navy blue, purchased before everything fell apart, still beautiful even if the circumstances have changed.
The fabric hugs my waist and flares at the hip, sophisticated without being showy. I do my own makeup because the twins’ preschool tuition takes priority over personal stylists these days, and I’ve always been better at it anyway. Winged liner. Red lip.
The kind of armor that looks like confidence even when it isn’t.
Piper watches me from the doorway, arms crossed, expression somewhere between impressed and concerned.
“You’re really doing this.”
“I’m really doing this.”
“You know they’re all going to be staring at you. Whispering.”
“They’ve been staring and whispering my entire marriage.” I adjust an earring, check the mirror one more time. “At least tonight I’ll give them something worth talking about.”
“That’s my girl.”
She hugs me before I leave - tight, fierce, the kind of hug that says I’ve got you without words.
The twins are already asleep in the bedroom, Rosa from Pietro’s household staying over to watch them (she practically begged when she heard Piper needed help, said she missed seeing the little ones, and I trust her more than I trust most of Pietro’s family).
I kiss them both on their foreheads, breathe in their baby-shampoo smell, remind myself why I’m doing all of this.
Then I get in the car and drive toward the lion’s den.
* * *
Pietro is waiting in the lobby of the venue when I arrive.
He’s in a tuxedo - classic, well-fitted, probably worth more than my car - and he looks good, which annoys me.
It would be easier if he’d let himself go, if grief or guilt had hollowed him out.
Instead he looks like Pietro always looks: composed, elegant, a little distant. The mask he wears in public.
Except tonight, when he sees me, the mask slips.
He goes completely still. I can actually see the breath leave his body - his shoulders drop slightly, his lips part, and for a moment he looks at me like he’s seeing something holy.
“Ariah.” My name comes out like a breath, like something fragile and precious. “You look…”
“Don’t.”
“I was going to say stunning.”
“I know what you were going to say.” I adjust my wrap, not meeting his eyes, because looking at him looking at me like that does things to my chest that I’m not ready to deal with. “Let’s just get through this.”
He offers his arm. After a moment of hesitation, I take it.
The ballroom is exactly what I expected - crystal chandeliers dripping light onto marble floors, white-gloved waiters circulating with champagne flutes, the cream of Neapolitan society dressed in their finest and pretending not to stare as Pietro and I enter together.
I can feel the weight of their attention, the way conversations pause mid-sentence and resume with a different energy as we pass, the calculation in every glance.
Is she back? Are they reconciling? Did you hear about the press release?
I straighten my spine. Lift my chin. Make eye contact with a countess who’s been looking down her nose at me since my wedding day, and I don’t look away first.
That’s right, I think. I’m still here. Deal with it.
We make our way through the crowd, stopping to greet the people who require greeting, exchanging pleasantries with the people who require pleasantries.
Pietro’s hand is warm on my arm, and more than once I catch him watching me - not possessively, exactly, but something close to it.
Protectively, maybe. Like he’s daring anyone to say something cruel.
“You’re doing that thing,” I murmur during a gap between conversations.
“What thing?”
“The hovering thing. The guard-dog thing.”
“I’m not hovering.”
“Your hand hasn’t left my arm in twenty minutes.”
He glances down, seeming surprised to find that this is true. “I can stop.”
“I didn’t say stop. I said you’re doing the thing.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. Almost a smile. “Noted.”
We survive the first hour. The second. I drink champagne that tastes like liquid gold and eat tiny appetizers that taste like nothing at all, and I smile until my face aches and I make small talk until my throat is dry.
This is the world I married into - glittering and hollow, obsessed with surface and allergic to substance.
I used to think I could learn to belong here. Now I just want to survive it.
Then Pietro leans close, his breath warm against my ear.
“Would you like to dance?”
I look at him, startled. We’ve been at dozens of events like this over the years, and we’ve never really danced - not like this.
There were obligatory turns at other people’s weddings, stiff and formal, dancing because it was expected.
But actual dancing, the kind where you hold each other close and move together because you want to, not because someone’s watching? Never.
“Now?”
“Unless you’d rather continue being stared at from a stationary position.”
He has a point. The whispers are getting louder, the glances bolder. A moving target is harder to hit.
I take his offered hand.
The music is a waltz - something classical, with a melody that soars and dips like breath.
Pietro leads me onto the floor and pulls me close, closer than propriety strictly demands, one hand warm on my waist and the other holding mine.
For a moment I’m too aware of everything - the heat of his palm through my dress, the way his shoulder feels under my other hand, the smell of his cologne (expensive, familiar, a scent I used to breathe in while falling asleep beside him).
“Everyone is watching,” I murmur.
“Let them watch.”
He moves with more confidence than I expected - someone must have taught him properly at some point, one of those private tutors that old-money families hire for their heirs, and I wonder why we never did this before.
Why we let six years of marriage pass without ever holding each other like this in public, without ever giving the watching world a reason to believe we were actually in love.
“I used to watch you at these things,” he says quietly, steering me through a turn. “Standing against the wall, looking like you’d rather be anywhere else. I always wanted to ask you to dance.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“I don’t know.” His jaw tightens. “I thought you’d say no. I thought it would make things awkward. I thought a hundred stupid things that made sense at the time and don’t make any sense now.”
“We’ve never danced like this,” I say, and I mean really danced - freely chosen, not obligatory, not for anyone else’s benefit. Just us, moving together because we wanted to. “Not once.”
“I know.”
The waltz swells, and he turns me, and for a moment I forget about the staring society matrons and the whispered speculations and the mess my life has become.
For a moment it’s just us, moving together, his hand steady on my waist, his eyes never leaving my face.
He looks at me like I’m the only person in the room - not with the distant politeness of the public Pietro, but with something rawer. Hungrier.
“I should have asked you every time,” he says. “Every gala, every party, every boring charity function. I should have danced with my wife.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because I was an idiot. Because I thought showing emotion in public was weakness. Because my mother told me…” He stops, shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter what she told me. I should have known better.”
The music continues. We continue. And something about the movement, the rhythm, the warmth of his hand on my waist - it breaks something loose in me. Some knot I didn’t know I was carrying.
“This is nice,” I admit, and it costs me something to say it. To give him anything.
“It is.”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
* * *
“There you are.”
The voice cuts through the music like a blade.
I turn to find my mother standing at the edge of the dance floor, my father a step behind her, both of them wearing expressions of carefully controlled displeasure.
My mother is in pale pink - her signature color, chosen because it photographs well and makes her look soft and approachable, which she definitely isn’t.
My father is in a dark suit, distinguished and disapproving.
“Mom. Dad.” I step back from Pietro, the spell broken. The music continues but we’ve stopped moving, become a stationary target again. “I didn’t know you were coming.”
“We weren’t going to miss the Castellani gala.” My mother’s smile doesn’t reach her eyes. Never does. “Though we certainly didn’t expect to see you here. Given the… circumstances.”
“What circumstances would those be?”
“Don’t be naive, Ariah.” My father’s voice is low, meant only for me, though I’m sure half the room is straining to hear.
“The whole room is talking about you. The separation, the press release, the spectacle you’ve made of your marriage.
We’ve had to field calls from half our social circle asking what’s going on. ”