Chapter Six
One year later…
Marco ducked as the comtessa threw a second glass at him, smirking just a little, though if he thought about it, there was nothing funny about the situation at all.
"You're a bastard, Bianchi," the comtessa snarled. "You think you can lead a woman on like this and not suffer the consequences?"
"I think that you're just very bad at listening to me when I tell you things," he said. "I told you up front that I had no interest in you beyond the physical.”
She shrieked high enough to break crystal, and there was no telling what she might have done if her friends hadn't dragged her off. The club's bartender, more than used to this scene, impassively slid Marco another drink. He was just taking a sip when Stefan, his head of security appeared.
"You cannot slip away from us like that, Your Highness," Stefan said reprovingly. "Did you hear that woman screaming earlier? I was afraid that you had gotten into some kind of brawl."
"Yes, that would have been terrible," Marco said, lying glibly. If Stefan knew half of what Marco did on a regular basis, he'd probably have a heart attack.
"Yes. So perhaps stay close and let me do my job."
"Of course, very right, Stefan," Marco said, slapping his bodyguard's shoulder. "What's next on the docket for the evening?"
Stefan shot him a disapproving look, but he'd stopped mentioning that that wasn't his job ages ago. "A film premiere. Red carpet. At least you are already dressed for it."
Marco glanced down at his tuxedo with amusement. Was he wearing the damn things more often these days? It was easier to simply wear them out.
"Sure, why not," he said with a yawn. "If it's too terrible, I will simply fall asleep in the theater."
As a matter of fact, Marco did not fall asleep in the theater. The film itself was amusing enough, a Hollywood romantic comedy about handsome people living in New York, but Marco was already losing interest until about fifteen minutes in.
He wasn't even looking at the screen when he heard a laugh that sent chills up his spine, right before a voice he recognized very well said, "Well, if that doesn't take the cake..."
Even after a year, Marco could still remember her soft laugh, her warm, husky voice. He remembered seeing her bare except for a domino mask in a secluded alcove, he remembered how she had thrown her head back with pleasure when she’d met her pleasure so fully and so beautifully he thought it had shaken the world.
He stared up at the screen, waiting impatiently for the speaker to appear again. It was her. It had to be. Same chestnut hair, the same bright blue eyes. Something about it was off, but he ignored the small voice at the back of his head. It was her. It had to be.
He would be lying to himself if he said that he had to reach back into his memory to find her. It felt that not a week went by when he didn't think of her. When things had become so troubled six months ago, Marco thought he must have remembered her every day, desperate to find a moment of calm in a world gone mad.
He watched her on the screen, hungry for a glimpse of her. She was the second lead, smart and funny, far more interesting than the lead herself. She stole the show, and Marco felt a sudden surge of possessiveness for the men in the audience who were falling in love with her now.
Marco knew with a nearly supernatural chill that she was in the theater with him somewhere. His Velvet, sweet and lovely and bold…she was so close that in a few hours, they might be in each other's arms again.
He watched the credits, but for some reason, when he found her name, there was a peculiar, flat feeling. Seanan was a lovely name, but it suited his Velvet oddly. In the dim theater, he looked up her name on his phone and realized that she had been in the movie for that premiere he had attended a year ago. It had to be her. There was no way this could be a coincidence.
She was easy to find in the crush afterwards. All he had to do was follow the laugh and find the flash of gorgeous chestnut. He walked up to her, his heart pounding like a blacksmith's hammer in his chest.
"Hello, Velvet," he said softly, and she turned to him.
"Excuse me," Seanan said with a smile. "I'm afraid that you have the advantage over me. Have we met?"
Marco could barely understand his own feelings at that point. He had expected to feel at least a little crushed if she didn't remember him. However, what he felt instead was a strange sense of relief.
Perhaps this wasn't her, or if it was her, he had simply fallen for a fantasy in the middle of a difficult time. He covered his confusion by leaning down to give her a soft kiss on the hand.
"I thought we had," he said with an elegant shrug. "I was at a movie premiere a year ago at Baldassare's estate. I thought I had recognized you from that time. Forgive me."
The actress shook her head with a slight smile. "There's every chance that we might have met then. I'm afraid that my sister had a difficult time that night, and I do not recall a great deal of that evening..."
Sister...
A shiver ran up Marco's spine. He was not a man who believed in fate, or at least, he had not been before this. There was a voice whispering inside his head, telling him yes. Telling him mine. Telling him go.
Outwardly, he only raised his eyebrows.
"I think I might know of your sister," he said blandly. "Perhaps I could speak with you privately later on?"
"Of course, signore," she said with a smile. "I'd be happy to do so."
***
Briony sighed as Eva wrapped her little fingers around a strand of her hair, tugging almost painfully hard.
"Oh my god, sweetie, don't you know that's attached," she said with a wince, and then she rolled her eyes. "What the hell am I saying. You're three months old. You probably think it tastes like candy...yup, here, give it back, you little monster."
She tugged her hair back out of Eva's chubby fist. Her daughter glared at her for a moment, and then with a lightning change of mood, smiled and laughed at her mother instead, waving her arms so enthusiastically that she nearly tumbled out of Briony's arms. Briony caught her again with a skill born of long practice.
"Yeah, yeah, it's a good thing you're cute," she grumbled, but when Eva rested her head against her mother's shoulder, Briony felt her irritation drain away as if it had never been there.
"Listen, you can snatch me bald if you want, just maybe hold back time, if you could? Make the next nine months really, really stretch out. Can you do that?"
She looked expectantly at Eva, but her daughter, dark haired and dark eyed, seemed to have no more answers than she did. Briony sighed.
It's fine. I still have nine months to figure out what to do. Nine months to figure out how to make sure that Eva gets taken care of while I get on to making a living.
She knew she was already fairly lucky. The university where she worked had an excellent maternity leave, and she had been able to take off as soon as Eva was born. What might happen when she had to go back to work was a mystery, but hopefully, it was one she could solve.
With her baby strapped to her chest and a bag of groceries in each hand, Briony thought all over again how her life had changed in the past year. If someone had asked her a year ago what was in her future, she might have shrugged and said that perhaps she would go back to school, or maybe she would have taken up a musical instrument. A baby had been nowhere in the mix.
Now that Eva was here, however, she couldn't imagine life without her, and as she walked along the sunny street, she tilted her face down to nuzzle her daughter's dark hair.
She would be lying if she said that she had never thought of Marco throughout that year, but she had done her best to put him out of her mind. Instead, she was more than occupied raising her very own lovely miracle, and as long as she could figure out what came after maternity leave, they were going to be just fine.
She noted with a hint of neighborly curiosity that there was a midnight blue Bentley parked in front of the building. The only person in the eight-apartment block who ever entertained visitors that wealthy was Angie, who seemed to enjoy a host of expensive boyfriends. The Bentley was new, though, and Briony hoped this one would prove to be the man of Angie's dreams.
She paused at the foot of the cement stairs, finally noticing that there was a man standing at the door. He wasn't one of her neighbors, and her mind flashed to the muggings that had been happening in the area. Surely it couldn't happen to her, not in the middle of the day with her baby on her...
Then the man turned, and Briony felt weak in the knees. No, there was no way. Sensing her mother's sudden tension, Eva sent up a thin howl.
"Briony? You okay?"
Angie had walked up behind her without her notice. Her neighbor carried her own shopping bags, and she looked up the stairs suspiciously at the man who was watching her impassively from the top.
"This guy giving you trouble or something, Briony?" Angie's tone promised trouble, and Briony finally managed to shake her head.
"No," she said faintly. "That's...that's Eva's daddy."