It made the choice to grovel, to self-destruct, to beg at his feet, just to keep him. He wanted my worship—he could have it. Every inch of my body, my mind, my soul. Just so long as he never shut me out of his world again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
PEREGRINE
The morning of the Autumnal Feast dawned clear and cold. It was the first of November, the day of All Saints and the Eve of the Remembrance of All Souls. The world was quiet, locked beneath a thick layer of frost. I rose from the bed in my office and dressed in the bathroom and went home. I hadn’t slept with my wife since that night in our bedroom when I’d let my guard fall.
Since I’d all but confessed I felt something for her against my own judgment. I should have bitten my tongue until it bled. I should have done anything but let my words out.
After she’d fallen asleep after that night with Merrick, I’d gone down to the studio and finished the statue I’d been working on since the day I introduced her to my family. Then I made arrangements for it to be brought upstairs to the room set aside for the last hours of the Autumnal Feast.
I stood in the pale morning light and studied what I’d made, breathless with its beauty. Then I locked the door and didn’t see my wife again for a week.
Now, after a week of separation, I’d returned to find the house quiet. I still hadn’t seen Rosalia as she’d locked herself into the bathroom off our room. In my home office, I put on a sleek, black suit with a matching shirt and slicked my hair back over my head. Then, I picked up my mask and fixed it to my face. It fit perfectly, the thin material melding to my skin.
I’d designed the mask to resemble the face of a marble angel, but the skin was sunk deep to reveal a skull. Like something grotesque from a graveyard. The thin material was painted to look like gray marble and it stopped just above my mouth, giving me the freedom to move my jaw.
I went to the mirror and an angel looked back at me. A monstrous angel. The stone eyes were cut out and through them I caught a glimpse of myself.
Burning with anger, coiled like a snake. I wanted Lia to see past my face, to finally see what I was.
I was no angel.
Downstairs, I heard the front door open and I knew the first guests were arriving. The house was cleaned and polished to perfection. The floors shone in the candlelight, the windows were draped in black velvet, my marble statues had been brought up to the main floor. They stood in every corner like sentinels, eyes blank and faces beautiful, their bodies draped in dark silk. Incense and herbs burned at the door. Drinks were set out beside discreet covered dishes if the guests wanted something extra after dinner.
I crossed the bedroom and pulled the window open. Down below, cars were pulling up the drive and guests were coming up the walkway. Cosimo Barone in a dark blue suit and a black, half mask and his wife, Lorenza in pale blue, her face covered by a Venetian mask. Lucien wouldn’t be here with Olivia being pregnant, but his brother, Duran, and his wife, Iris, walked up the drive in black and silver.
A black SUV pulled up and the door opened and Merrick Llwyd alighted, his suit black with red lining. He wore a crimson mask of the devil’s face. My blood stirred, hot and angry, in my veins. It didn’t make sense that I should hate him, but then I always had. He was the antithesis of me, so controlled and utilitarian. Without the emotion that I lived by, that poured from my hands and became the beautiful angels that filled the corners of my house and my mind.
The clock chimed.
It was time.
I entered the hallway, walking as silently as a shadow past the alcoves and down the stairs. The front hall was draped in velvet, the chandelier turned down low, and the floors shone beneath my feet as I moved to the ballroom. I always kept it locked, but tonight it was open and filled with food, drink, and people.
Cosimo appeared at my elbow as I entered the room. “An angel? Little on the nose?” he said.
I shrugged. “Better that than the devil.”
Cosimo studied me for a moment, his face serious. “The devil is an angel, Pretty Boy Calo, so maybe you don’t have to pick a side. Maybe you can have your cake and eat it too.”
I swallowed. “You heard?”
“I know Merrick slept with her,” he said, shrugging. “Everyone knows.”
Uncontrollable rage poured through my chest and gathered in my stomach, twisting my insides.
“He didn’t fuck her,” I snarled. “Is that what they all fucking think?”
Cosimo backed up a step. “Well, I heard he’s signing the alliance, so you must have fulfilled your end. Whatever you did together, you let him.”
My blood bubbled as my gaze skimmed the room. Did they all really think I’d handed over Rosalia in exchange for an alliance? That I was willing to use her like that?
“Fuck her in front of Merrick,” said Cosimo, clearly enjoying the look on my face. “That’ll swing the pendulum back to you. Tonight’s the night for that kind of shit.”
I froze, shocked by his words at first, but more surprised by the woman who had appeared in the doorway of the ballroom. Rosalia stood there looking like a wet dream, her body covered, and yet not covered at all.
Her dress was dark, Tyrian purple and it was made with a fabric that showed a trace of her bare skin beneath as she moved. The bodice clung to her like she’d just risen from the water, cut low so her breasts pushed up over the neckline. The skirt was a floaty material with a black overlay and it gathered at her hip leaving her left leg bare. On her thigh was a garter made of thin ropes of diamonds that disappeared into the darkness of her skirt.