Читать книгу Postcards From Rome - Maisey Yates - Страница 15

CHAPTER FIVE

FOR THE NEXT two hours, Esther was pulled, prodded, poked with pins and clucked at. Well and truly clucked at. As though this woman, Renzo’s stylist, was a chicken. And as though Esther was a naughty chick rather than a woman.

Renzo had left them to it, and she was thankful. Since the moment he had walked out, the other woman had begun stripping Esther’s clothes off her body and forcing new undergarments, new dresses and new shoes onto her.

Esther had never felt fabrics like this. She had never seen styles like this on her spare curves. She had been all about experiencing new things since she had left her home, but she hadn’t gotten around to the clothing and makeup. Or hair. That all required a disposable income that she simply didn’t possess. She was more concerned with keeping food in her belly. And clothing herself in the basics, rather than exploring the world of fashion.

But now she felt as though she had been well and truly educated in which colors looked best on her, which shapes best suited her figure. Of course, most of it had happened in abrupt Italian that Esther could understand only parts of, but still. She could see herself.

In fact, right at the moment, she couldn’t take her eyes off herself. She was wearing a dark green gown that had little cap sleeves and a plunging V neckline that showed off acres of skin around her neck and down farther. The kind of daring look that would never have been allowed in her family home.

The skirt was long, falling all the way down to the tops of the most beautiful pair of shoes Esther had ever seen. Of course, they were also the tallest pair of shoes she had ever worn, and she had serious doubts about her ability to walk in them.

Somewhere in the middle of the clothing frenzy, two men had arrived to work on her hair and makeup. And work they had. Her hair was tamed into a sleek, black curtain, a good half a foot cut off the near-unmanageable length.

Her eyes, which she had always thought were almost comically large, didn’t look comical now. Though, they still looked large. They had been rimmed with black liner, the corners of her eyes highlighted with gold. They had brushed something onto her cheeks, too, making them glow. And her lips... A bit of pale, burnished orange gloss colored them, just slightly, highlighting them, just enough.

She looked like a stranger. She couldn’t see so many of the defining features of her face, not the way she usually did. Those dark circles that had permanent residence beneath her eyes were diminished, her nose somehow appearing more narrow, her cheeks a bit more hollow, thanks to a technique they had called contouring.

And then there was her body. She had never thought much about it. She didn’t have overly large breasts, and for convenience, she typically opted not to wear a bra, sticking to plain, high-necked tops in dark colors that she always hoped concealed enough.

Even though this gown still didn’t allow for a bra, it created an entirely different effect on her bustline than the simple cotton tank tops she preferred. Her breasts looked rounder, fuller, her waist a bit more dramatically curved, rather than straight up and down. The shape of the skirt enhanced the appearance of her hips, making her look like she almost had an hourglass figure.

It was strange to see herself this way. With all her attributes enhanced, rather than downplayed.

The bedroom door opened and she froze when Renzo walked in. She felt hideously exposed in a way that she never had before. Because for the first time in her life she was aware that she might look beautiful, and that there was a man who was most certainly beautiful looking her over. Appraising her as he might a work of art.

“Well,” he said, turning his focus to the team of people who had accomplished the effect, and away from her, “this is a very pleasant surprise.”

“She is a dream to dress,” Tierra said. “Everything fits so nicely. And that golden skin of hers allows her to pull off some very difficult colors.”

“You know all of that is lost on me,” he said. “However, I can see that she is beautiful.”

Warmth flooded her. Such a stupid thing. To feel affected by this charade. But she wasn’t entirely sure if she cared at all that it was a charade. What did it matter, really? Even playing a game like this was new. Feeling like she was the center—the focus—of male attention was something that she had scarcely gotten around to dreaming about.

She had been grappling with freedom. Both the cost of it and the gains. With who she wanted to be, apart from everything she’d been taught. Apart from the small rebellions she’d waged hidden in the mountains behind her house, listening to contraband music while reading forbidden books.

To find it especially appealing to link herself up to a man, even in a temporary way. But now, beneath Renzo’s black gaze, she found something deliciously enticing in it.

A swift, low kick of temptation hit her hard, making it difficult for her to breathe. And she couldn’t even quite work out what the temptation was. It reminded her of walking past the bakery down in the town she’d grown up adjacent to, and seeing a row of sweets that looked delicious. Treats she knew she wouldn’t be allowed to have.

That same feeling. Of wanting, feeling empty. Of that intense, unfair sense of deprivation that always followed.

Except, no one controlled her life now. If she wanted a cake, she could buy it and then she could eat it.

Which made her deeply conscious of the fact that if she wanted Renzo, she supposed she could have him, too.

But for the love of cake, she didn’t know what she would do with him. Or what he would do with her if she reached out and tried to get a taste.

She took a deep breath, craning her neck, straightening her shoulders and doing her best to make herself look even more statuesque. She didn’t know why. Maybe to inject herself with a little bit more pride, so she wasn’t just standing there being subjected to the judgment of every person in the room.

It was so strange being the center of attention like this. She wasn’t entirely certain she disliked it.

“That dress is spectacular. However, it is a bit too formal for dinner,” Renzo said, sitting down in one of the armchairs that were placed up against the back wall. “What else is there?”

“Oh,” Tierra said, turning around and facing the rack, pulling out a short, coral-colored dress that Esther had tried on earlier. “How about this?”

Renzo settled even deeper into the chair, his posture like that of a particularly jaded monarch. “Let’s see it.”

“Of course.”

Esther found herself being turned so that she was facing away from Renzo, and then she felt the zipper on the gown give. She gasped, then froze, not quite sure what she was supposed to do next. If she should protest the fact that she was being undressed in front of a man who was a stranger to her, or if that would ruin the charade.

And then it didn’t matter, because the green dress was pulling down at her feet, and her bare back and barely covered bottom were now fully exposed to Renzo.

“Very nice,” he said, his voice rough. “Part of the new wardrobe?”

She knew he meant the black pair of lace panties she was wearing, and she wanted to turn around and tell him off for making this even more uncomfortable. Except, then she would have to turn around. And expose herself even further, and she wasn’t going to do that. Instead, she decided that she would do her best to show him that she wasn’t so easily toyed with.

“Yes,” she said simply.

A few moments later the next dress was on and firmly in place. Then, she turned back to face Renzo, and her heart crawled up into her throat. Because as intense as he always looked, as much impact as those dark eyes always had on her, it was magnified now.

“Come closer,” he said, his tone hard-edged, the command clearly nonnegotiable.

She swallowed hard, taking one unsteady step toward where Renzo was sitting. His dark gaze flicked away from Esther, landing on the style team. “Leave us,” he said.

They did so, quickly and without a word. And when they were gone, it felt as though they had taken all the air out of the room with them.

“Do people always do what you ask?”

“Always,” he said. “Closer.”

She took another step toward him, trying to disguise the fact that her legs were shaking and that she had no idea how she was supposed to walk in heels that were tantamount to stilts.

He rested his elbow on the arm of the chair, propping his chin on his knuckles. “Of course, some people obey more quickly than others.”

“Did you want me to break an ankle? Because I guarantee you if I walk any faster I’m going to.”

He moved swiftly, his movements liquid, his grace making a mockery of her own uncertain clumsiness. He stood, reaching across the space between them and sweeping her up into his arms. Then he turned, depositing her in the chair he had occupied only a moment ago.

She pressed her hand to her heart, feeling the rapid flutter beneath her palm. Her throat was dry, her head feeling dizzy. Her body felt warm. As though she had been burned all over. His arms had been wrapped around her, her shoulder blades pressed up against that hard, broad expanse of his chest.

That was what stunned her most of all. Just how hard he was. There was no give in him at all. His body was as unbending as the rest of him.

He turned away from her, facing the rack of clothing and the stack of shoes that was beneath it. “If you cannot walk then you will not present a very convincing picture. We don’t want you to look as though you were only polished today.”

“Why? Why does it matter?”

“Because I associate with a very particular kind of woman. I do not need my parents thinking that I swooped in and corrupted some innocent, naive backpacker.”

It took her a moment to process that. She wondered if he really believed that she was naive and innocent. She was. It was just that he had never seemed particularly sold on that version of her.

“They would believe that?”

He laughed, not turning to look at her. “Oh, yes. Easily.” Then he bent, picking up a pair of bejeweled, flat shoes before facing her again. He moved back to where she was sitting, dropping to his knees before her and making a seeming mockery of her earlier thought that he was unbending.

“What are you—”

He said nothing. Instead, he reached out, curling his fingers around the back of her knee. The warmth shocked her. Flooded her. He let his fingertips drift all the way down the length of her calf, the touch slow, much too slow. Something about it, about that methodical movement, seemed to catch her at the site of their contact and spark through the rest of her. Reckless. Uncontrollable.

She fought the urge to squirm in her seat. To do something to diffuse the strange energy that she was infused with. But she didn’t want to betray herself. To betray that his touch made her feel anything.

He grabbed hold of the heel on her shoe and pulled it off slowly, those searching fingertips dragging along the bottom of her foot then as he removed the shoe.

She shivered. She couldn’t help it.

He looked up then and a strange, knowing smile tilted the corner of his lips upward. It was the knowing that bothered her more than anything else. Because she was confused. Lost in a sea of swirling doubts and uncertainty, and he seemed to know exactly what she was feeling.

You do, too. You aren’t stupid.

She gritted her teeth. Maybe. She really wished she were a little bit more stupid. She had tried to be. From the first moment she had laid eyes on him, and he had looked back at her, she had done her very best to be mystified by what all of the feelings inside her meant.

She wasn’t going to give a name to them now. Not right now. Not when he was still touching her. Slipping the ornate flat shoe onto her foot, then moving on to the next. He repeated those same motions there. His fingertips hot and certain on her skin as he traced a line down to her ankle, removing the next stiletto and setting it aside.

“A little bit like Cinderella,” she said, forcing the words through her dry throat.

Not that she’d been allowed to read fairy tales growing up, but a volume of them had been one of her very first smuggled titles.

“Except,” he said, putting the second shoe in place, then straightening, “I am not Prince Charming.”

“I didn’t think you were.”

“Good,” he returned. “As long as you don’t begin believing that I might be something I’m not.”

“Why would I? I’m actually not just a stupid backpacker. I already told you that my family situation was difficult.” She took a deep breath, trying to open up her lungs, trying to ease the tension in her chest. She wasn’t bringing up her family for him. She was bringing them up for her. To remind her exactly why being bound to someone—anyone—was exactly what she didn’t want.

She wanted freedom. She needed it. And this was a detour. She wouldn’t allow herself to become convinced it was anything else.

She would enjoy this. The beautiful clothes, the expertly styled hair. She would enjoy his home. And maybe she would even allow herself to enjoy the strange twisting sensation that appeared in her stomach whenever he walked into a room. Because it was new. Because it was different. Because it was something so far removed from where she had come from.

But that was all it was. It was all it would ever be.

“But now,” he said, looking down at her feet, “you will be able to walk into my parents’ home tonight without falling on your face. That, I think, will be a much nicer effect.”

He stood completely and held his hand out. She hesitated, because she knew that touching him again would reignite that burning sensation in the pit of her stomach she had when he’d touched her leg. But resisting would only reveal herself more. And she didn’t want to do that.

And—she had to admit—she had perversely enjoyed it. Even though she knew it could never come to anything. Even though she knew there was nothing she could do beyond enjoying it as it was, as the start of a flame and nothing more, she sort of wanted to.

And so, she reached out, her fingertips brushing his palm. Then, his hand enveloped hers completely, and she found herself being pulled to her feet with shocking ease. In fact, he pulled her to her feet with such ease that she lost her footing, tipping forward and moving her hands up to brace herself, her palms pressing flat against that rock-hard chest.

He was so... He was so hot. And she could feel his heartbeat thundering beneath her touch. She hadn’t expected that. She wondered if it was normal for him. For his heart to beat so fast. For it to feel so pronounced.

And then she had to wonder if it was related to her. Because her own heartbeat was thundering out of control, like a boulder rolling down a hill. It wasn’t normal for her. It was because of him. And she couldn’t pretend otherwise, not even to herself.

Was that why? Was that why his heart was beating so fast? Because she was touching him? And if so, what did that mean?

It was that last question that had her pulling away from him as quickly as possible. She smoothed the front of her dress, doing her best to take care of any imaginary wrinkles that might be there, pouring her focus into that, because the alternative was looking at him.

“Yes,” he said, his voice hard, rough, infused with much less ease than seemed typical for him. “Tonight will go very well, I think.” And then he reached out, taking hold of her chin with his thumb and forefinger. He forced her to look at him, stealing that small respite she had attempted to take for herself. His eyes burned, and she wasn’t sure if she could still somehow sense his heartbeat, or if it was just her own, pounding heavily in her ears. “But you will have to find a way to keep yourself from flinching every time I touch you.”

Then, he dropped his hand, turning away from her and walking out of the room, leaving her alone. Leaving her to wonder if she had imagined that response in him because of the strength of her own reaction, or if—somehow—she had created movement in the mountain.