Page 5 of Captive Bride: Armani
Feeling a little ashamed of myself for bolting from Armani’s office earlier, I point out, “I didn’t freeze up, Jules. It just seemed better to say nothing than to say the wrong thing. I need to think on it some more before I give him an answer. Besides, don’t you always say it’s a good move to leave a man hanging?”
She huffs as she finishes wrapping an elastic around the end of my braid.
“Sure. But this situation calls for action and decisiveness. You can’t afford to be wishy-washy with a guy like him. I mean, based on what you’ve told me about him, anyway,” she says. “You should have just screwed him right then and there on the desk.Iwould have.”
“Jules! You’re so scandalous!” I squeal, and then we both dissolve into giggles. “Seriously, though. I don’t think he’d be into that.”
I turn to face her and she rolls her eyes.
“Anyguy would be into that,” she insists. “Trust me.”
“Maybe,” I say. “But…I don’t know. He’s obsessed with propriety and decorum. I can’t see him doing anything so improper while he’s on the clock.”
“Well. You know what that means, then,” she says teasingly.
“No…?”
She laughs. “Someone like that, who’s buttoned up all the time? Never puts a toe out of line? He’s gotta be kinky as hell behind closed doors. I’d bet on it.”
My cheeks go hot. Juliana laughs again and pats the bed next to her and I climb up. She passes me my coffee and I sip at it as I mull over the situation.
Juliana doesn’t get it. She can sit here and make jokes all she wants, but she doesn’t really understand Armani, she’s just making assumptions. Not that I know him much better.
Sure, I’ve been around him long enough to know how he operates on a basic level. But he’s not exactly an open book. He’s distant and reserved and wears a perpetual—albeit sexy—poker face that is impossible to see behind. When he lets any emotion through, it’s because he wants you to see it, or to make you think that he does.
I also know that he’s a dangerous man, and nothing he did this morning fits his usual MO. So I can’t help but wonder what triggered his brazen proposition. Why me, why now?
Jules hands me the hairbrush and then slides down to the floor in front of me for her turn.
“I vote you go for it, balls out,” she says as I begin carefully working the brush through her dark, silky hair. “Just pull him aside the next time you’re at the winery and whisper in his ear that you’ve thought it over and you’re ready to let him own you. He’ll probably throw you over his shoulder and take you straight to his bedroom.”
“Pfft,not,” I scoff. “I can’t make it that easy for him. Besides, what if he doesn’t actually want me anymore once he has me? Maybe he just enjoys the chase.”
She pulls away from the brush and turns around to give me a wry look. “That ship has sailed, Candi. Him offering to move you in for six months? Not what I’d call playing chase. The gauntlet hath been thrown down.”
“I guess that’s true…”
“Of course it’s true! He wants you, you want him. Why all the hesitation? My God!” She shakes her head and takes a second to calm herself before saying, “Next time you see him, tell him you’re in. But with the caveat that you’ll only move into his place if you get to do it onyourterms. That puts some of the power back in your hands. Plus, it’ll make him respect you more if you’re assertive. You can’t let him have all the control right from the get-go.”
It’s pointless trying to argue with Jules. She’s highly opinionated, utterly unyielding, and she loves confrontation. Plus, she’s got the gift of coercion. And if none of that works, and youstilldon’t see things her way, she’s also totally relentless. Eventually, she’ll wear you down.
“Yeah…” I agree hesitantly, getting back to her hair. “I guess I have a lot to think about.”
Don’t get me wrong, Idorelish the idea of having some power over Armani Bellanti. And Jules is exactly the right person to tell me how to do it—after all, she was the one who first showed me how to stand up for myself, back in college. How to reclaim my personal power and wield it like a weapon. But the thing is, Armani is fucking intimidating. I don’t know if I can actually challenge him on the spot and then start throwing around demands.
She shakes her head, messing up the section I was brushing. “Candi. Seriously. Who taught you how to talk your way out of, or into, anything?Moi.”
I laugh. “I know. You did. I was just thinking about that.”
Growing up with what felt like a hundred older brothers, all of them Irish and short-tempered, I’d always been invisible. My dad treated his boys like the center of his universe, and only bothered with me or my mom when he felt it necessary to remind us of our role in the home—to clean, cook, and be generally agreeable. Lord help us if we had other ideas. Mom must have given up long before I was born, shrinking herself into a resigned shell of a woman, but at least she never played favorites with us kids.
Meanwhile, I learned from an early age to keep my head down, to be a good girl, to let my brothers bask in the attention. At school I’d put on a happy face, and I had my circle of friends, but I always felt like an outsider. Someone who could only fit in by mirroring everyone else. I could never be the real me. Except…I didn’t even know the real me. I spent so long playing the socially accepted, uber-likeable version of me that I wasn’t sure who I actually was.
But it was fine. Everything was going to be fine. One day I’d have my own place and my own life, and I’d figure myself out then. I just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other. And it was all going according to plan until I got to UCSF and met my new roommate.
Everything about Juliana had me in awe. She’d grown up in fancy boarding schools all over Europe, her wardrobe was beyond glamorous, and the girl literally ate caviar on toast for breakfast. Besides being posh, she also had a sardonic, sharp sense of humor that cracked me up. She was beautiful, magnetic, and surprisingly generous. And the confidence rolled off her in waves. She told me later that the second I walked through the door of our shared apartment in my holey jeans and ponytail, she’d decided I was going to be her pet project.
Soon, I got a taste of what it felt like to walk into a room at her side, showing off my new hair and makeup, wearing her designer clothes. I learned how to crash any social circle with charm and ease, which questions to ask, how to endear myself to people or simply skip out of an event early to leave people hungry for more.
