“Yes.” There was a threat in the way Auberon conveyed his knowledge of Carlo’s identity, and Carlo understood it.
“My wife tripped as she was getting into her cab. But she’s fine.” Auberon turned to his wife. “Right, Bina? You’re fine?”
Sabina cast her eyes past her husband and met Carlo’s. In that look, he read a plea to drop it before he made things worse for her. Then she said, “Yes. I’m a little clumsy in this dress. But I’m perfectly fine. Thank you.”
Definitely not an Australian accent. The rich, rounded vowels and rolled Rs of a native Spanish speaker.
While it was true that he was dressed like Bruce Wayne, he was not Batman, and she didn’t want help. So Carlo nodded and stepped back. As Auberon handed his wife into the cab and shut the door, a valet took Carlo’s ticket and trotted off to get his car.
When the cab drove away, Auberon nodded curtly at Carlo and went back into the theater. Carlo read a fresh, more pointed warning in that single bob of James Auberon’s head.
~oOo~
Carlo unlocked the door to his loft and went in. The main space was brightly lit, and Natalie was curled up on the sofa along the windows, reading on her tablet. As he dropped his keys in the stoneware bowl on the credenza near the door, she stood and stretched.
Elsa, their big Leonberger, rose lazily from her bed near the kitchen, stretched, yawned, and padded heavily over, tail wagging. He ruffled her mammoth head, and she lay down at his feet.
“You’re home early, aren’t you?” Natalie walked over, and he kissed her cheek.
“I guess. Not my thing. You know that.” He shrugged out of his jacket and toed off his shoes.
“What is your thing, exactly?”
“This weekend is closer to it. You sure you don’t want to join us?”
“Nope. I have plans with Paul.”
“Paul is…wait, don’t tell me…he’s the teacher?”
“Yep. Fifth grade. I like him.”
“Well, good then. How’s my boy?” Natalie had been Trey’s nanny from even before Jenny had run off. Since then, though, she’d practically moved in.
“Impish as ever. Over dinner, I got a long story about sharks in the waters off the coast. He was told about this by his Uncle Joey, of course. I think the thought of maybe getting eaten by Jaws made him more excited about the weekend, not less.”
Carlo laughed. Trey would be four at the end of the summer. He was hyper-verbal and completely fearless. He kept Carlo and Nat on their toes nonstop.
“Elsa had her walk?”
Natalie gave him an affectionately irritated look. “No. I made her hang her furry thunder-butt over the balcony and drop her load on Mrs. Murphy’s potted plants down below. Of course she’s had her walk.”
Laughing harder, he bent down and kissed Nat’s round cheek again. “Thanks for tonight.” Normally, Carlo was home in the evenings, and Nat could go out and live her own life.
“Of course. I’ll see you when you get back.”
“Yep. Have fun with your teacher.”
She turned and gave him a saucy wink. “Oh, I plan to.”
After Natalie left, Carlo stripped off his socks, his fancy shirt, and then his plain white t-shirt. Barefoot and bare-chested, he took a deep breath and imagined the black-tie chains falling away. He went to the fridge and got himself a beer, then walked across the wide room to the sliding doors that led to the balcony.
His building was perched on the banks of the Providence River, and he had a great view of the city from out here. The night had picked up a coastal chill off the bay, but to Carlo the cool over his bare skin felt cleansing.
His mood was dark, bordering on black. The whole night had been a trial. He was not good at being randomly friendly to strangers, and he was worse at being friendly to assholes because they had something he wanted. He felt downright dirty about that. But he’d wanted to go out on his own. He’d wanted to free himself of the corporate prison and do things his way. He’d convinced Pete to jump with him. And now they needed to find a way to make their way. Designing beautiful buildings was only worthwhile if somebody then wanted to build them.
And he had a son to take care of.
Maybe he should have done what his father had wanted—still wanted. Maybe he should have stayed in Quiet Cove and taken over Pagano & Sons Construction. Security. Stability.
But that was fraught, too. The strings that came with Pagano & Sons had nasty barbs on the ends. What he wanted was not to be beholden, not to anyone.
So he’d find a way to make nice with highborn lowlifes like Anderson Temple. And James Auberon. And try to tell himself that he wasn’t getting tied up in their strings.
Though a man who beat his wife was the worst kind of man, and Carlo had a pretty clear picture now of James Auberon, Community Paragon, as that kind of man. How the fuck was he supposed to make nice with that?
Auberon had known his name. Well, it was a well-known name in Providence. In all the Northeast, really. He hadn’t had much to do with that notoriety personally. In fact, it was a hindrance at least half the time. But Carlo supposed it could be good for business if James Auberon respected his family name.
He stepped back into the loft and closed the slider. After he tossed his empty beer bottle, feeling cooler and freer, but no brighter, he went down the short hall and opened the door to Trey’s room.
His son was sleeping, rolled up into a snug ball, his blue stuffed dinosaur shoved tightly under his chin. The room was illuminated by a domed nightlight, throwing a rotating, glowing blue starscape onto the ceiling and walls. Even in sleep, Trey’s world was in motion. Carlo bent down and kissed his tousled blond head.
He had to make his way and give his son a life. It was just the two of them.
~ 2 ~
Her torn gown discarded in a heap on the bedroom floor, Sabina Alonzo-Auberon sat on the toilet in her black-and-white marble bathroom and dabbed a wet washcloth over her bleeding knees.
She’d thought at first that something had been broken or chipped. Her right knee complained bitterly when she put weight on it, but sitting here on the toilet, the washcloth bunched in her hand, she’d pushed around thoroughly, and it didn’t feel worse than bruised. And bleeding.
She was a strong woman. She told herself every day that she was strong. But here she sat. On a toilet, cleaning up new wounds delivered unto her by the man she’d once loved. And there was no way out, as far as she could see. Not until he was done with her.
Why he wasn’t done with her, she had no idea.
“Here. Let me.”
She jumped; she hadn’t heard James come in. The insulation in this house was impeccable, and sound did not carry from one room to another at all. But she had expected him to be late, if he came home at all. He’d seemed to have found ample distraction at the event tonight.
That he was home so shortly after she was boded ill for her, she thought.
Wearing his pleated shirt and his pants, he walked into her capacious bathroom and gently took the washcloth from her hand. He tossed it into the sink and opened the mirrored cabinet on the wall. He took out a bottle of rubbing alcohol and then collected a few cotton balls from the jar on the counter. Squatting before her, he smiled.
He was a handsome man. Tall and lean, compact muscle clinging to his frame. He was forty-five, with no sign yet of grey in his auburn hair, and just enough creasing around his eyes and between his brows to give his face gravitas. His eyes were an arresting shade of green and had the remarkable ability to transform from kind to terrifying with a blink.
She’d fallen in love with and married the kind eyes. She lived with the terrifying.
Now, though, he smiled sweetly and turned up those terrifying eyes, and she took a slow, deep breath as he soaked a cotton ball in alcohol and pressed it against the open wound of her right knee. The sting was sharp, was actual pain, but she didn’t allow herself to flinch or even blink. She knew it would be easier if she did. What he wanted was the
flinch, the sign that he’d had an impact. He would press the point until he got it. That was the game he played.
That was what tonight had been. She’d grown used to his infidelity, and, in fact, she no longer cared. But he had not, until tonight, made public spectacle of his contempt for her. And his power over her. She had stopped reacting to his degradation of her in ways that satisfied him, and so he’d pressed the point until she’d reacted.
But the second time she’d found him with his hands up another woman’s dress tonight, she had been prepared, and she had reacted in a way that hadn’t satisfied him, simply walking away, leaving the theater. As a consequence, now she was sitting here with bloody knees, being tortured by the harsh drag of alcohol-soaked cotton over her abraded skin.
She wondered what he might have done if her Good Samaritan hadn’t interfered. Whatever it might have been, he would have gotten away with it. No one ever interfered with anything James Auberon did. He didn’t often make a public show of his dark side, but when he did, people let him. For the same reason that Sabina still lived with him, still wore the ten-carat canary diamond on her left ring finger. Because the power he wielded was vast, and his aim was true. Everyone knew it, and everyone let him have his will.
Until she was no longer his will, he would not release her. And though she was strong, she was not powerful. She could not fight him and survive, and so she withstood his will and waited for him to tire of the game. She used her strength for the waiting.
But tonight, someone had stopped him. A tall, dark, dashing stranger, looking stiff and uncomfortable in his tuxedo. James had said his name…Carlo. Carlo Pagano. Of those Paganos? There were a lot of Italians in Rhode Island, and most of them were just normal people. Sabina had lived in the States for years, most of her life, but she still felt somewhat flummoxed by the wide range of cultural identities. Maybe Pagano was the Italian version of Smith. But somehow, Sabina doubted it. The simple fact that the man had known who James was and had yet interfered indicated that he was accustomed to men who were intimidating.
Interesting. Perhaps that was why James had stopped. Perhaps a member of one of the largest crime families of New England had come to her rescue. That was the only kind of power that would have given her husband pause.
She smiled, then realized too late her mistake. James’s eerie expression of demonic tenderness—his eyes avid with malice, his smile sweet and loving—shifted and darkened, and he tossed the bloody, sodden cotton ball into the wastebasket.
“You like that? That’s good. I’m in the mood for some play.”
He wrapped his hand—its palm soft, its nails manicured—around her arm and yanked her up, then out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. Her knees protested strenuously, but she did not limp. When he slid the belt from his pants and shoved her to kneel at his feet, she didn’t cry out.
She used her strength for the waiting.
~oOo~
As always, James was up at dawn. As always, Sabina waited to sleep until he had left the bed.
As always, she was up by ten o’clock. In the bathroom, she finally finished tending to her sore knees. Once they were bandaged, she stood in the middle of her closet, undecided.
James hated for her to wear her robe outside of the bedroom. He thought it gauche. Normally, first thing in the morning, she dressed to work out, then showered after she had finished whatever workout was on the docket for the day. But she wasn’t going to yoga today. The thought of kneeling in child’s pose or attempting any asana whatsoever today made her wince. He wouldn’t like it if she skipped her workout, though, and today she wasn’t in the right frame of mind to resist him. After last night, she needed a quiet day.
Finally, she dressed for yoga. It wasn’t as if he followed her to the studio. He’d be leaving for the office soon enough, and he needn’t know she’d skipped. Selecting a long-sleeved top to cover the new marks on her arms, she combed her hair out with her fingers and tied it back in a ponytail, then went down to see what Gloria had done for breakfast. She was relieved that, though her legs were stiff, she could walk without limping.
~oOo~
Eggs Benedict with kale and tomato. Sabina kissed her housekeeper on the cheek. “Morning, Gloria.”
“Morning, missus. Tea or coffee this morning?”
Sabina was quite susceptible to caffeine but hated decaf. She took coffee when she needed extra energy. This morning, she needed extra calm. “Tea. Lemon zinger?”
Gloria nodded, and Sabina sat at the table, hoping that James would not be back from his run until after she’d eaten.
He had no need for her to eat with him—he usually worked at the table as he ate—but he had an absolute need to ensure that she had eaten. Gloria was supposed to keep track for him, and she did. Sabina didn’t try to make poor Gloria complicit in any of her small rebellions. She had a family to take care of, here in Providence and in Ecuador as well.
Though both women were native Spanish speakers, they never spoke together in their mother tongue. James did not speak Spanish, and he could not abide the thought that people were saying things he could not comprehend. At first, years ago, she and Gloria had spoken Spanish together when they were alone; Sabina had been thrilled to have a chance to speak her home language in her own home. Now, after almost thirty years away from Argentina, and more than fifteen years without family of her own, she was losing that important marker of her identity. But after one slip, an evening when, standing in the kitchen pouring a glass of wine as Gloria was pulling a roast from the oven, Sabina had mumbled something totally harmless about needing to pick up her dry cleaning the next day, James had been incensed. He had not believed her when she’d translated what she’d said.
Gloria had almost lost her job that night. Sabina had fought for her to keep it. She had won. She rarely won, but when she did, there was always a price. And James had taken his fee for his concession from her that night, once they were alone.
So she and Gloria no longer spoke Spanish together. Ever.
This morning, she’d only taken about three bites of her delicious breakfast when the terrace door opened, and James entered, soaked with sweat and breathless. He was smiling—a real smile, making his eyes light in a way that still gave her a small pang, but now one of loss rather than love. He was in an honestly good mood. That was good, as long as he stayed there. But if he lost it, that could portend a very difficult day. The higher his mood, the harder its fall.
He met her eyes, and his smile broadened. “Good morning, darling. You look rested.”
“I feel rested, thank you. A good run for you, yes?”
Coming over to stand behind her chair, he brushed her ponytail to the side and bent down to kiss the side of her neck. It was a tender, sweet gesture; there was a time, long past, when it would have made her moan. Now, she only made sure she didn’t flinch.
He reeked from his run, and the smear of his sweat on her skin turned her stomach. “Thank you for last night,” he purred in her ear. That was his way, the way he thought he balanced the scale. He did what he wanted to her, and then thanked her for it.
Bastard.
She inclined her head to acknowledge his thanks. Then he turned and washed his hands at the vegetable sink. “You have yoga today, right? And then, what? The hospital board meeting?”
“It’s Saturday. I have yoga, then the docents’ luncheon at one, and then the fitting.”
He froze and turned to glare at her over his shoulder. He hated to be corrected. But he’d been wrong. The hospital board meeting wasn’t until Tuesday. He worked seven days a week, and sometimes he forgot that people had weekends. No one who worked for him had a weekend, not if he was paying attention to them. And this was a holiday weekend. Three days. Once he figured that out, his mood would probably crash.
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