Page 66 of Ruthless Sin
She skips every reflective surface in Nonna’s kitchen. Today her eyes don’t drop. Her face holds and I watch it hold and her mouth is soft and her eyes are gray-green in the boutique light and I have been trying not to look at her mouth for weeks and I am looking at it now and the dress is not helping.
Marguerite stands at the corner of the three-panel mirror, hand on the frame, watching Mila. Sideways, through the glasses, memorizing her.
She speaks to the mirror.
“You are the third Santoro brother whose woman I have dressed in this room. I should start a loyalty program.”
The corner of Mila’s mouth moves.
Marguerite sees it too.
She turns and looks at me over the top of her glasses.
“Je ne savais pas,”she says, quiet. “I didn’t know. It was the first bolt I pulled. I don’t know why.”
She turns back to the mirror.
Her reading glasses slide down her nose toward Mila. “I dressed your mother. She would have liked this one.”
Mila’s face goes white.
Marguerite stops.
“Lucia Santoro,ma chère.” Her voice softens. “Forgive me. I meant Nico’s mother. I dressed her for years. Every Easter. Every Christmas. Her wedding dress, before that.”
She looks at Mila.
“She would have liked to see you in this color. She loved ochre. She liked the quiet ones.”
The color comes back to Mila’s face. Slow.
Her shoulders settle.
Mila looks at Marguerite in the mirror and nods once.
Marguerite nods back.
“I will wrap her. Stay where you are, Nico.”
I stay.
My hands are on my thighs. Marguerite disappears behind the curtain. Mila steps off the platform and turns and faces me fully for the first time since she went behind that curtain and I stand.
Fuck.
The ochre against her skin. The line of her waist. Her mouth.
“Krasivaya.” Beautiful.
She doesn’t answer.
Her shoulders rise and stay there. Her breath stops. I watch her chest go still with it, the ochre fabric not moving, and the space between us is four feet and it might as well be nothing. My hands are fists. My cock is against my zipper. I am not crossing it.
Marguerite returns.
Cream tissue paper in her hands. The dress folded in her arm.
“Out of it now,ma chère. I have it. Behind the curtain, please.”
