Page 47 of My Dark Fairy Tale
I’d seen how he looked at me when I came out in the dress that morning, and I knew he wouldn’t try very hard to resist.
I smiled as I thought about it, opening my palms to get the sun on as much of my skin as I could. The scent of gardenia, freesia, and honeysuckle from the garden was undercut by the woody notes of herbs.
Minutes later, Raffa was still nowhere to be found, so I decided to walk the grounds myself. The patio edged a fragrant garden filled with the faint hum of fat bumblebees hovering between stalks of lavender and white-faced gardenias. I followed the flagstone path through the maze of plants toward the sound of trickling water and found a fountain with a small cupid spitting water from its pursed mouth.
I trailed my fingertips in the cool water for a brief reprieve from the July heat, feeling so at peace it was hard to believe my surroundings were real.
The sound of harsh yelling reminded me they were.
I straightened, hesitating, before following the sound of the angry voice toward some kind of industrial warehouse to the left of the main wine-tasting building. The voice grew clear, shouting in a way that conveyed anger but also a contrary desire to be quiet.
I hovered behind a line of cypress trees separating most of the garden from the behind-the-scenes setting of the vineyard, peeking between the gap.
“Calmati!” Raffa’s voice found me before my eyes found him; he was facing away from me and toward the man who had been yelling. “Che cazzo fai?Do you want the entire staff to hear you, Wyatt?”
The man in question switched to British-accented English, but his posture remained on guard, a finger raised like a weapon at Raffa.
“This is not how we do business, Romano.”
Raffa cocked his head. “This is howwedo business in Italia. This is howIexpect things to go,capisci? I command and you obey. There is no other option.”
“There is always another option,” Wyatt retorted, but his anger had transformed into something closer to agitation and a healthy dose of fear.
“You do not want another option,” Raffa murmured so quietly I almost couldn’t hear him.
I gasped when he uncoiled like a snake, striking out to grab Wyatt by his shirtfront to push him up against the stone wall. If I had stumbled upon them just then, I might have thought they were lovers for how closely they stood, but I knew, after Galasso, that closeness could be used for intimidation too.
I couldn’t hear what he said then, catching only the low timbre of his voice like a bass note to the cicadas’ song as they nested above me.
It should have been alarming to see him so cold, so absolute in his totalitarianism. He was obviously not a businessman afraid to get his hands dirty by confronting his misbehaving staff. My father would have forbidden me to see him anymore after a scene like this, always wary of men’s anger.
But it was yet another thing I had no true experience with that I found curiously arousing. The cold snap of his voice like a whip. The power of his body unleashing quick and lethal.
It spoke of a masculinity and rare power that I hadn’t seen in any of my university classmates back home. A kind of virility, like he could take care of himself andmeif he was called on to do so.
It made me feel safe and just slightly afraid of what that voice could make me do if that tone was leveled in my direction.
“Guinevere.”
My head snapped to my left, where Raffa was standing at the entrance to the path with his arms crossed—muscles coiled like rope beneath his skin, visible under the thin knit of his shirt—staring at me like I was a naughty child.
“Were you eavesdropping,cerbiatta?” he asked me.
I pursed my lips. “Is it eavesdropping if there is yelling? I could hardlynotlisten.”
“Faccia tosta,” he said with a click of his tongue. “Come here.”
“What does that mean?”
“‘Cheeky.’ Now, come here.”
I paused a moment, only because it was part of the game I was coming to understand we both liked to play. It made me feel bold even when I acquiesced to him.
I walked on my toes until I was a foot away from him, grinning slyly. “Are your ears still ringing, old man? You need me closer to hear what I have to say?”
“I need you closer,” he said with a mock snarl, lashing out the way he had done to the Brit, but only to reel me in with an arm around my waist so I was pressed belly to belly with him. “So I can kiss you.”
“If I don’t kiss you back, will you be angry with me like you were with that man?” I tested, not because I was afraid of him but because Iwasn’t.
