Chapter 3

Alessandria's POV

The car was black and long and quiet, and there was a glass wall between the back seat and the driver, which meant that no one could hear her if she screamed.

Alessandria pressed her back against the door and folded her hands in her lap and looked at everything except the man sitting beside her. The city outside the window was dark and wet from the storm that had followed her from her old life. The buildings were old and tall, with statues on the roofs and yellow lights in the windows, and the streets were narrow and shiny with rain. It looked like a real place. It felt like a real place. The leather under her legs was real. The cold glass against her shoulder was real. The smell of his cologne in the small space was real and it was making her head spin.

She pinched her arm. It hurt. She pinched it again, harder. It hurt more.

“Stop that.”

His voice was low and rough, and it made her stomach flip in a way she did not like. She looked at him and found him watching her with those dark eyes that saw too much.

She said, “Stop what?”

“You are hurting yourself,” he said. “Stop it.”

She did not know how he knew she was pinching herself. She hid her hands under her legs and said, “I was not hurting myself.”

“You were,” he said. “I can tell.”

She had no answer for that, so she looked at the window again. The city moved past her like a film, and she watched it and tried to think about nothing. But thinking about nothing was impossible when her mind was full of questions and her body was full of fear and the man beside her was so close that she could feel the heat coming off him.

She thought: He is so creepy. How does he know I was pinching myself? Is he watching me? Why is he watching me? He should be looking at the road. Or at his hands. Or at anything except me. Okay, do not look at him. Do not look at his face. Do not think about how his voice sounds like dark chocolate and cigarette smoke. Do not think about how his eyes look like they could see into your soul. Do not think about how his hands would feel if they were—

“Are you cold?” he asked.

His question cut through her thoughts like a knife. She shook her head. “No.”

“Your hands are shaking,” he said.

She looked down. Her hands were shaking. She put them under her legs again so he could not see. “I am not cold.”

“Then why are your hands shaking?” he asked.

She did not answer. She could not tell him the truth. She could not tell him that she was shaking because she was in a car with a man who was supposed to kill her, in a world that was not hers, and she had no idea how to get back to her life. She could not tell him that she was shaking because he was so close and he smelled like cedar and something sharp and she hated that she liked it. She could not tell him that she was shaking because his eyes had not left her face since they got in the car, and it was making her feel like a mouse under a cat’s paw.

He did not push her for an answer. He just looked at her with those dark eyes and said nothing. The car kept moving. The city kept passing. And Alessandria kept thinking: Why is he not asking me more questions? Why is he not threatening me? The book said he was going to kill Serafina on the wedding night. This is the wedding night. Why am I still alive? Maybe he is waiting until we are alone. Maybe he wants to do it in the bedroom. Maybe there is no knife in the bedroom and he is going to use his hands. Oh god. His hands. His hands are so big. His hands could cover my whole neck. His hands could cover my whole—

“We are here,” he said.

The car stopped. The door opened from the outside, and a man in a black suit stood there with his head bowed. Tiziano got out first, and then he turned and held out his hand to her.

She looked at his hand. She looked at his face. She did not want to touch him. She did not want to feel his warm, hard hand around hers again. But she also did not want to fall on her face in these stupid high heels in front of all these people, so she took his hand and let him help her out of the car.

The house was not a house. It was a castle. It had towers and balconies and windows that went on forever, and it sat on a hill above the city like a dark crown. The front door was three times her height, and it opened before they reached it, and inside there were more people than she had ever seen in one place. Guards in black suits. Servants in white. Men with hard faces and women with cold eyes. They all watched her like she was a bug that had crawled in from the rain.

Tiziano led her through the crowd and up a wide staircase. She kept her face blank and her mouth shut. She did not want to say anything that would give her away. She did not want anyone to know that she was not Serafina. She did not want anyone to know that she was scared out of her mind.

They stopped in front of a door at the end of a long hall. Tiziano opened it and stepped back. “This is your room,” he said.

She looked inside. The room was beautiful. The bed was huge, with white sheets and too many pillows. There were flowers on the table and a fire in the fireplace and a window that looked out at the black sea. She wanted to run inside and lock the door and never come out.

She said, “Thank you.”

She stepped inside. She turned to close the door. But he did not leave. He followed her inside and closed the door behind him, and the sound of it clicking shut was the loudest sound she had ever heard.

She looked at the door. She looked at him. She took a step back.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

He looked at her with those dark eyes and said, “I am staying.”

“You are staying?” she said. “Why?”

He did not answer. He walked to the chair in the corner and sat down and loosened his tie. He looked at her like she was a puzzle he was trying to solve. He said, “Go to sleep.”

She did not move. She did not know what to do. She thought: This is not how the book goes. In the book, he kills her. In the book, she dies on this night. So why is he sitting in the chair? Why is he not killing me? What does he want? And why does he keep looking at me like that? It is making me feel hot. It is making me feel things I should not be feeling. Stop it. Stop looking at him. Stop thinking about his tie. Stop thinking about his neck. Stop thinking about—

“You should change,” he said. “The dress looks heavy.”

She looked down at herself. The dress was heavy. She said, “I do not have anything to change into.”

He got up from the chair and walked to a wardrobe in the corner. He opened it and pulled out a white shirt. It was his shirt. It was soft and white and it smelled like him. He held it out to her and said, “Wear this.”

She took it from him. Her fingers brushed his, and she felt a shock that went all the way up her arm. She said, “Thank you.”

He nodded and went back to the chair. She looked at the shirt in her hands. She looked at him sitting in the chair with his tie loose and his eyes on her. She thought: He is giving me his shirt. He is not killing me. He is sitting in a chair and giving me his shirt and watching me like I am the most interesting thing he has ever seen. What is happening right now? This is not the book. This is not the story I read. This is something else.

She went into the bathroom to change. The bathroom was as big as her whole apartment, with white marble and gold taps and a mirror that showed her a face she did not recognize. She took off the wedding dress and folded it over a chair, and she put on his shirt, and it went down to her knees and it smelled like him and it was the softest thing she had ever worn.

She looked at herself in the mirror. The shirt was too big. Her hair was a mess. Her face was pale. But there was something in her eyes that she had not seen before. Something that looked like hope.

She came out of the bathroom, and he was still in the chair. His eyes found her immediately. She was wearing his shirt. It went down to her knees. It smelled like him. She felt naked and safe at the same time.

She climbed into the bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. She looked at him in the chair. She thought: Is he going to sleep? Is he going to watch me sleep? Does he sleep? Maybe he is a vampire. Maybe he is a demon. Maybe he is a monster who does not need sleep. Maybe he is going to wait until I am asleep and then he is going to kill me. But he gave me his shirt. Why would a murderer give me his shirt? Why would he care if I am cold? Why does he keep looking at me like he wants to eat me up?

He did not answer any of her questions. He just sat in the chair and watched her. And eventually her eyes got heavy, and she could not keep them open anymore. She fell asleep with the smell of him on her skin and the sound of his breathing in her ears.

And she did not know that he was listening to her dreams. She did not know that he heard every thought that crossed her sleeping mind, every confused image, every soft, scared wish. She did not know that he was smiling a smile that no one had ever seen before.

He sat in the chair all night. He did not sleep. He did not want to miss a single word.