Page 44 of Deal with the Devil
None of them see it.Hedoesn’t it, though he will soon.
I push my chair back and remove myself from the room. The clamor hushes as quickly as it began. Everybody at the table freezes as they notice I’m on my way out, though they don’t dare stop me.
The truth is, no one can. It’s already too late.
“She refuses to eat,” says Daniela, frowning. “We have tried everything. Earlier she shoved the tray out of my hands. Everything spilled to the ground.”
“It’s not optional,” I say simply. “She will eat the food that is served to her.”
“How? How will I make her?”
The maid throws her arms in the air, already at her wits’ end after only a few hours. We’re standing in the hallway on the second floor. I’ve just left the disaster that was family dinner behind and come upstairs to check on how Portia is faring with the staff.
It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours since she’s been at the Bellucci villa, and she’s already driven the staff insane.
She’s been locked away in one of the many guest bedrooms. The room has been secured in such a way to ensure escape is impossible, welded bars on the windows and extra locks installed on the doors, but otherwise the accommodations are nicer than most people would experience even at an expensive hotel.
None of that matters to Portia.
She has been stubborn and petulant every step of the way.
I’m told she has refused to eat anything she’s been served. She’s screamed at the staff and demanded to be released.
All behaviors that are unacceptable.
I sigh, my gaze shifting to the dark walnut door that belongs to Portia’s room.
“I’ll make sure she understands how things will be,” I say.
Daniela bows in gratitude and excuses herself to return to her other duties.
I use my ring of keys to let myself into Portia’s room, the lock disengaging with a heavy click.
The soft amber hue of early evening baths the room, the sheer curtains billowing faintly in the breeze. Heavy wooden furniture anchors the space—an ornate armoire carved with twisting vines and mythic beasts, a high four-poster bed dressedin layers of ivory linen and cream-stitched damask, and a sleek writing desk with clawed feet and a vase of flowers.
Tasteful, elegant Sicilian furnishings and decor.
It’s a contrast to the cold, hostile energy coming from the woman by the window.
Portia stands with one arm braced against the sill, her back partially to me, as though she’s spent the last hour staring at the olive groves and the darkening sky. When the door clicks shut behind me, her head snaps up. Her spine stiffens like she’s been struck by a bolt of electricity.
She’s still in the same clothes from earlier—cropped jeans that cling to her body, a gauzy white blouse rumpled and slightly sheer in the light, the curve of her shoulders visible. Her sandals are scuffed. Her bun messy and half undone, bangs and loose tendrils framing her oval face. She looks like she’s been through the ringer today.
Yet she’s still beautiful in a defiant sort of way.Hewould agree with me.
I twist the lock behind me. The metallicsnickof it turning cuts through the quiet like a warning shot.
She turns fully, facing me with narrowed eyes.
I let the silence settle, let it stretch between us like a wire drawn taut. It presses down on the room, heightening the tension that already lingers from earlier at the airport. She does her best to act unaffected, but I see small telltale signs—the tremor in her slender throat, the slight way her nostrils flare, how she curls her fingers into fists as if she believes it’ll make her seem tough.
It’s almost sort of…cute.
It almost sort of makes me understand what he sees in her.
But any similarities end there—I’m not so foolish as to sacrifice myself or my aspirations like he would or almost has.
No woman, no anything is worth such devotion. Nothing is more important than victory.
