Page 74 of Secrets of the Brother
I held my hand to my burning face.
She pointed at me. “That is your last warning. Behave. Your father and I are trying to get this done thenice way, Bianca. Don’t make us getnasty. Now fix your face before joining us.”
She stormed out of the bathroom.
I turned to face the mirror. There was a faint scratch from where her diamond ring caught my cheekbone. With shaking hands, I opened the drawer where my mother kept extra makeup and picked up one of her compacts. I pressed some powder to my cheek, hiding the red handprint and scratch behind a layer of makeup.
Blinking away the unshed tears from my eyes, I took a deep breath and joined them in the entrance hall.
Nevio offered his arm. “You look even more beautiful.”
I caught my father’s glare. My mother must have told him about my outburst.
I forced a smile before placing my hand in the crook of his arm. “Thank you.”
I allowed him to usher me out into the frigid November evening. I stood on the marble staircase entrance to our home as we waited for the car to be brought around. The cold seeped through the thin leather soles of my high heels. I tensed my arms and legs as my body shook.
Both my father and Nevio had black wool overcoats on.
My mother had her mink fur coat.
I was the only one without a coat and yet no one seemed to notice or care.
When the car arrived, Nevio crossed around to the driver’s side and hopped into the back, leaving me to open my own door. My fingers were so frozen, they slipped on the handle twice before I finally opened it.
The moment I sat down, the tight corset pushed my breasts up even higher. I pulled my long hair over my shoulders to cover them as best I could.
As my father slipped behind the wheel and the car drove off into the night toward the Cavalieri villa, Nevio leaned over, his gaze on my breasts. “I cannot wait to show you off as my date to all the guests tonight.”
Oh God.
I was headed to the Cavalieri villa, Enzo’s family home… with a date.
I bit the inside of my cheek as sheer panic set in.
It was a Cavalieri engagement party.
There would probably be hundreds of people in attendance.
Maybe I would get lucky, and he wouldn’t even see me there.
CHAPTER19
ENZO
Iwas wrong to think the hypocrisy of the funeral could not be matched.
This was worse.
At least at the funeral there was a shallow veneer of social grace.
Those in attendance followed the custom of pretending the deceased was a decent person who would be missed. They offered the usual platitudes, all the while skillfully ignoring the nasty, inconvenient questions over how my wife had died.
There were no such niceties now.
Armed with the hard metal of righteous judgment forged in the fires of religious devotion, the guests in attendance showed their displeasure by just as skillfully aiming poison-tipped barbs at me.
It was nothing overt. My family was too powerful for an outright assault.
