Stella

I’m nervous. This is it: my first public appearance since the Hamptons. I turn my mask over in my hands, admiring the beadwork—all pearls and gold, to match the delicate strands woven into my hair, the choker at my throat, the clinging layers of metallic lace and silk that hug my every curve. Even my lip gloss has a gold-dust sheen.

A masked ball. I should be excited. Here’s a chance to hide in plain sight. To mingle with New York’s tipsy elite, in a setting ripe with intrigue and the promise of secrets. A hint here, a leading question there....

My fingers go to my neck. I can’t find it by touch any more, but I can see it when I push my curls aside: the yellow ghost of a bruise.

I can’t keep hiding forever. It’s been days since I’ve felt the sun on my face. Fresh air’s a distant memory—and that’s not all I’ve missed. Countess BeeBee’s skipped two major parties and a hell of a fashion show, complete with a hair-pulling fight that catapulted a model off the runway like a crowdsurfing rockstar. Her headlong flight made every gossip page but mine.

My knees go weak at the sound of footsteps in the hall. I steady myself against the dresser. Starkey won’t hurt me if I toe the line. I need to look him straight in the eye and tell him...tell him....

My skin crawls at the thought of telling him anything.

I need to call him Jeeves. Make him carry my purse. Eat off his plate. Show him I’m not afraid.

Tomorrow, maybe. Tonight—

There’s a rap at the door. My heart sinks.

“Come in.”

“Sorry to intrude.” Starkey doesn’t look sorry. He looks the same way he always does: like a killer playing butler. “The car’s outside.”

I could still beg off. Claim exhaustion, illness, an irrational fear of masks. But things have been going well. Jack’s brought me to his bed every night since our early-morning hookup. He hasn’t come back to the idea of getting the birds their own room.

I pluck my mask off the dresser. My feet don’t want to move. One hesitant step leads to another, but I need to be bold. It’s easier when I glare into the distance and pretend it’s just me. Me, and me alone, in the penthouse I share with Jack. Only Jack. No one else. I raise my mask, and the feathers cut my peripheral vision to nothing. It hides Starkey’s reflection in the windows, the mirrors, the walls of the elevator.

He’s not there. I’m all alone.

“You’ll want to be on your guard tonight,” he says as he helps me into the car.

I shrink away, slamming the door behind me. Maybe he won’t get in. Jack’ll be at the ball—what do I need with a babysitter? I could tap on the glass, wave the driver on. Maybe—

Starkey piles in. “That wasn’t a threat.” The car starts moving and I’m trapped. “Gunnarsson has questions. He’s been asking about, well....” He clears his throat. “The unpleasantness. In the Hamptons.”

The unpleasantness. That’s one way to put it. “What does he know?”

“There’s talk of a stalker. And an angry bodyguard.”

I bob my head in acknowledgement. That much was bound to get out. “And my friend—”

“Hasn’t come up.”

So Linda’s safe. My shoulders sag, heavy with relief. “I can handle a few awkward questions.”

Starkey eyes me skeptically. “Magnus can be an impulsive man. That’s all.”

“Impulsive. Right. Thanks.” I turn my back on him as far as my seat belt will allow, and watch the lights of the city thin out. We’re headed north—Scarsdale, maybe. Homey suburbs give way to grand estates, which seem to increase in size as the traffic tapers off. At last, we turn down a green, tree-lined drive, wending round an artificial lake. The manor at the end is enormous. With every window lit, it reminds me of the Titanic, sailing across a grassy ocean.

I don’t wait for Starkey to let me out. He might try to impart more words of wisdom, and I’m not sure my nerves can take it. If I can just get to Jack—he has to be somewhere nearby. I half-expect him to be waiting, just that side of the double doors, but it’s Magnus who hails me, waving from the grand staircase.

He’s not wearing a mask, but I raise mine. Too late to hide my identity, but my fear is no one’s business but my own. I saunter up, casual as can be. Mary appears, to my eternal gratitude, sweeping ahead of Magnus to grasp my hand.

“Thought you’d never get here! Where’ve you been?”

“Oh, you know....” Hiding from the world. “And Alicia?”

“In the garden, I think. Exploring the hedge maze.”

“Lost, more like.” Magnus insinuates himself between us, nearly crushing Mary’s toe. She turns her head away, but not fast enough to hide the sudden fire in her eyes, the furious curl of her lip.

“Glad you could make it,” he says, sounding anything but. “What do you think of the place?”

I make a show of drinking it in. “Elegant. Floral. Very, ah...Gilded Age.”

“So, corrupt, with a veneer of sophistication?”

He means me. Starkey was wrong: he knows everything. Someone talked, and I’m finished, and this is a trap. I resist the urge to back away. “Impressively ornate.”

Magnus offers me his arm. “Think I saw Jack headed for the ballroom. Let me show you the way.”

All around us, there’s laughter, the clinking of glasses. Heels click and skirts swish. Conversation hums. Making a scene would be unthinkable. I have no choice but to lower my mask and accept. Magnus steers me through the crowd, smug as a toad.

Serene smile; icy silence. I can do this.

“Well, then. I hear you’re quite popular with the Hamptons crowd.” He pauses under the archway, clearly expecting a response.

“I have a friend here and there....” Jack’s nowhere to be seen. The ballroom’s boiling with activity, orchestra in full swing, couples wheeling and dipping on the dance floor. Magnus strolls us along the perimeter, agonizingly slow.

“A friend here and there, huh? That’s not what I heard.” When I don’t respond, he presses on. “I heard there’s no party too exclusive for Stella Rossi.”

“Exclusive? Bruno Eisenheim’s on a Monday night? You must be joking.”

Magnus steers me toward the dancers. “On the contrary. I heard it was quite the rarefied list.”

I’ve had it with this. “You heard wrong. Everyone was there.”

He spins me without warning, tumbling me into his arms. “But you—you have your...devoted admirers. Connections in all sorts of places.”

“Might’ve partied some, in my college days.” We’re attracting stares. Magnus is marching me around, out of time with the music, walking us into the paths of the dancers. I smile to hide my furious blush. “What about you? More of a city boy?”

“I’m a military man. No patience for yacht parties and drunken croquet.”

I bite back a laugh—not fast enough. Magnus dips me too fast and too deep. I totter on the edge of balance till he yanks me up by the belt.

“That funny?”

My head’s spinning. “Croquet.... Think it’s a prerequisite, to be honest—drunkenness, I mean. Otherwise, where’s the challenge?”

“Where, indeed?” Magnus twirls me again. When he reels me back in, his hand finds my ass. “You like to dance?”

“I’m not an expert.”

He’s practically grinding on me. The stares are getting hostile: this is supposed to be a waltz. “I’ll teach you. Take you every night, when you’re mine.” He leans in so close I can smell his breath: spearmint and prosecco. “You won’t have a moment for anything else.”

“Mind if I cut in?”

Oh—Jack! “You’re here!”

Magnus lets me go so abruptly I nearly collapse in Jack’s arms. He steadies me with a hand on my hip. “You all right?”

I smile and take his arm. “Couldn’t be better. Magnus and I were just bonding over our mutual disdain for croquet.”

“Is that so?” Jack’s got that storm cloud over his head again. If looks could kill, Magnus would be a smoldering heap on the parquet. “Follow.” He waltzes us off the dance floor and into a curtained alcove, sheltered from the crowd.

“He’s torn your dress.” Jack plucks at my waist, where the belt-loop’s ripped free, along with a thin strip of lace. “I should knock him on his ass.”

Much as I’d like to see that.... “It’s just a dress.”

Jack’s gone to that place again, that not-quite-there place. I can see it in his eyes. Feel it in the way he grips me too roughly, hands pawing at my face, my hair, my neck. One of my earrings catches on his finger and clatters to the ground. “I wanted to kill him just now. When he was tossing you around.”

“Good thing you didn’t; that might’ve been....” The words die in my throat. This is worse than before. Worse than I’ve seen him. Jack’s stroking my face like he’s hardly aware he’s doing it, destroying my carefully-applied makeup. There’s an unhealthy flush across his cheeks. I reach up and loosen his tie. “Calm down and breathe. You can take it out on me later.”

“Don’t say that....” He drops his head, resting his forehead on mine. “Can’t stand the thought of him...of you—a single mark on your skin, one hair out of place....” One hand wanders down my side, toying with the tear in my dress. “Want to put you back together.”

“You could ease up on my eyeliner....”

He lets out a long, uneven breath, stilling at last. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. It’s all right.” I run my thumb along his jawline. He leans into it, closing his eyes.

“It’s not supposed to be like this.”

“Like what?”

“All of it. I’m not....” He looks up suddenly, turning toward the curtain. “Wait.” Skirts swish by, somewhere close. The waltz finishes with a flourish and segues into a tango. Jack pulls the velvet aside and surveys the room. “Good. He’s gone.”

I take his arm and guide him to the padded bench that curves along the wall. “Sit with me. Tell me. What is it?”

“Too late—that’s what it is. Too late, and it’s been too late, since—since.... This was a mistake.” He’s reaching for me again, cradling my head in both hands. I feel like we’re doing our own dance in here, a dangerous one, where one misstep might—

“All a mistake.”

“What was a mistake?”

“All of it. Everything. From the beginning. I—” He leans back, rapping his skull against the wall, once, twice, again. “Fuck was I thinking?”

“Don’t do that.” I pull him away from the wall, rubbing his back so he has to lean forward. “Don’t hurt yourself.”

He’s clenching his fists now, digging his nails into his palms. Maybe he needs the pain to come back to himself. I give him a minute, listening to the tango. It’s upbeat, almost cheerful. In another life, we might’ve danced to that. He’d have held me close, whispering promises instead of warnings.

“When you say this was a mistake,” I start carefully, “you mean me? Bringing me into your...deal?”

“No. Yes. Or...not just that. I don’t know.”

This is going nowhere. I give him a light shake. “What the hell happened to you?”

“Magnus is a monster.” Jack bares his teeth. One hand clutches my shoulder, pulling me close, only to push me away. There’s something amiss in the way he’s looking at me—looking through me. Something hollow, dazed. “Magnus...I’ve seen him do things. Things I can’t...things you can’t....”

“Don’t.”

“What did you do?” He’s practically snarling at me. I can see way too much of the whites of his eyes. “What did you do?”

“Me? This isn’t—”

His hand spasms on my shoulder, digging in hard enough to make a muscle jump in my back. “He knows something. Suspects something. He won’t stop—he never does. What did you do?”

This is getting out of hand. “No!—What did you do?”

He only clamps down harder. I jerk away, but it’s like fighting a vise. My arm’s going to sleep. It occurs to me to slap him, but I’m not sure what’s wrong with him. Violence might make it worse. I fill my lungs with air, rear back my head, and bark, “At ease, Sergeant!”

Jack drops his hands so suddenly his palms slap on his thighs. He clenches and unclenches them in his lap, breathing hard. The color drains from his face, and for a moment, I think he might pass out. “What’s with the demotion?” he ventures at last.

“Didn’t know your rank.”

“Sergeant Major.”

“Close enough.”

He makes a sound that might be a laugh. “Not really.” He’s losing focus again—I can feel it.

“Hey! None of that thousand-yard stare.” I tap him on the cheek twice, lightly. “Come on—eyes on me. You been drinking?”

“No....”

I’m not sure I believe him. “What happened?”

“That’s.... I’ve said too much already.”

“Then you might as well spit out the rest.” I tilt his face up, trying to force him to look at me. His eyes cut to the side. “You said it’s already too late. What is?”

“What did you find out? In the Hamptons?” His eyes harden. “I know something happened. Something you’re not telling me.”

It’s my turn to glance at the curtain. The dance is in full swing on the other side, the sound of music and chatter heavy in the air. “That you had leverage when you took over Blakemoor. That’s all. Nothing I hadn’t worked out for myself. Nothing that isn’t obvious.”

“Come here.” Jack gathers me into his arms. He’s still breathing hard. I can feel his heart racing. “Whatever you think you know, it’s worse. So much worse. You have to stop. Forget what you know.” A desperate note is creeping into his voice. “I’ll let you go. Get you a new identity. Anything you want.”

“I can’t just disappear.”

“With enough money—”

“That’s not the issue. I have family. With lives. Deep roots.” How the hell did we get here? I need to salvage this. “You’ve read my e-mail. Nonna’s going into hospice care. Mother’ll need me.”

“Then—then....”

“I’ll drop it right now. Stop asking questions. Don’t look at me like that.”

Jack’s slumped against the wall, every line of his body telegraphing despair.

“Listen: it’ll be fine. I’ll throw myself into your—into this lifestyle. Shopping with Alicia, spa days with Mary—all of it. It isn’t too late. We’ll chalk this up to a rocky start.”

He’s looking at me like I’ve lost my mind, but at least his eyes are back to normal.

“Hey. We’ll get started right now. Strut out there and tango till we drop. Feed each other weird goops on toast points. Make out like we were fucking in here. Okay?”

“I don’t know.” His voice is still hoarse, hollow. “Promise you’ll stop. Swear on that grandmother of yours.”

“You have my word.” I’m starting to hate lying to him. But he’s right: it is too late. If Magnus is half the monster Jack thinks he is, only the truth will end this.

“Then...let’s do this.” Jack helps me up. The color’s starting to return to his face. I reach up and fix his tie, where I left it crooked. Our eyes meet as I’m smoothing down his lapels, and my heart skips a beat. Maybe I can save him, too. If he’s not in too deep.

I lean up to kiss him. He fiddles with my hair, trying to right the mess he’s made. Together, we push back the curtain.