The moment Mother and I were out of the corridor and in the deserted hall, she grabbed my arm in a crushing grip. “What were you thinking being alone with that…that man,” she practically spat the last word. Her eyes were wide and frantic. “I can’t believe they let him in. He belongs in a cage in shackles, far away from anyone decent.”

Her nails dug into my arm.

“Mom, you’re hurting me.”

She released me and I finally recognized the emotion on her face. Not anger, but worry.

“I’m fine,” I said firmly. “I lost my way and came across…” I searched my mind for a name to call him other than Growl, which seemed like too much of a nickname to use around my mother, but came up empty-handed.

“Cara, you can’t go running around like that, without thinking about the consequences of your actions.”

“I was on my way to the ladies’ room. I wasn’t running around,” I said indignantly.

“Cosimo is a good match. Don’t go ruin it now.”

I blinked, unable to believe my ears. “That’s what you’re worried about.”

Mother took a deep breath and pressed her hand against my cheek. “I’m worried about you. But that includes your reputation. In this world, a woman is nothing without a good reputation. A man, that’s a different matter. They can do as they please and it’ll even help their reputation, but we are bound to different standards. We need to be everything they’re not. We need to make up for their failures. That’s what we’re meant for. We, you, need to be gentle and docile and virtuous. Men want everything they see. We should keep our desires firmly locked away, even if men can’t.”

It wasn’t the first time she’d said something like that to me, but the way she accentuated the word “desire” in her speech made me worry that she knew of my body’s reaction to Growl’s closeness.

She needn’t have worried though. My fear of that man, of everything he stood for and what he was capable of, trumped whatever small thrill of excitement my body might have felt around him.

Growl

I watched them leave the corridor. The door fell shut and I was alone again. Her vanilla scent still lingered in the air like an insistent flutter in my nose. Sweet. Girls like that always chose sweet scents. I didn’t understand why they’d want to appear even more fragile by smelling like a delicate flower.

I pulled at my collar. Too tight. And wrong. All wrong. The fabric against my scar, I hated it. The pressure, the crispness. Like a collar for a dog. This suit, this shirt, that wasn’t me. People never let me forget it.

The look on her mother’s face had reminded me why I hated events like this. People didn’t want me around. They wanted me to do their dirty work, and they enjoyed talking shit about me, but they didn’t want me near.

I didn’t give a fuck.

They were nothing to me.

I knew they watched me like a circus animal. I was the scandal of the evening. The sweet-smelling girl, too, had been watching me. Staring. I’d seen her and her friends observe me from across the ballroom.

But the sweet-smelling girl had surprised me. I knew her name. Of course. Falcone had talked about her father and her family too often in the last few weeks. Cara. She would soon learn how it felt to be fallen from grace.

She hadn’t run away screaming, even though we’d been alone in the corridor. She hadn’t even looked very scared. Yes, there had been fear; there always was, but there had also been curiosity—because I was a monster that they feared, and that fascinated them.

I didn’t care. She was just a girl. A society girl with a pretty dress and an even prettier face. I didn’t give a fuck about pretty. It meant nothing. It was fleeting, could be taken away in a heartbeat. Still, my eyes had sought her out several times that evening. I’d imagined ripping that pretty dress off her body, imagined running my not-worthy hands over her curves. But I’d forced my gaze away and left the ballroom before I could do something very stupid. She was someone I wasn’t meant to have. Someone I shouldn’t even imagine having. She was someone to admire from afar. And it was for the best.

Cara

That night, shortly after we returned home, Talia snuck into my room. I could make out her slender form in the dim light streaming in through the curtains. She perched on the edge of my bed. “Are you awake?”

I smiled. Perhaps she was still angry at me, but her curiosity won as usual. “No,” I whispered.

“Tell me everything,” she said as she stretched out beside me, her face so close I could smell her peppermint breath.

“It wasn’t half as exciting as you think, trust me. But you’d have loved the pretty dresses.”

“Something exciting must have happened. How was Falcone? Was he scary?”

“He was scary and creepy, but you know who was even scarier?”

She shook her head, holding her breath.

“Growl. I met him in the hallway.”

“Growl,” she repeated doubtfully. “Who’s that?”

“Falcone’s Enforcer. He’s tattooed all over and he can’t talk properly. He growls.”

“Really?” I could tell that she thought I was trying to pull her leg.

“Really.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“No,” I said, wishing I’d heard his voice. “He only stared at me. It was strange.”

“I wish I could have been there. Instead I got to watch TV all evening.”

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly, and touched her shoulder. “Perhaps next time you’ll be allowed to come.”

“I doubt it,” she muttered, then sat up. “I’d better go before Mother catches me.” She hopped out of bed and tiptoed toward the door. Before she left, she said, “By the way, your breath smells of alcohol.”

I threw a pillow at her, but she slipped out and it bounced off the door.

The excitement of the night still filled my body. There was no way I could fall asleep yet. Hesitantly, I slipped a hand under the covers and into my pajama bottoms. My fingers found the sweet spot between my legs, answering to the need that had called to me ever since I’d seen Growl. The cloak of darkness washed away my resistance and my worry of being caught. Even my mother’s words that echoed in my head weren’t able to stop me. “Be proper, be virtuous. This is sin.”

The image of that fearsome man had caused a sweet tingle in my core, and I was unable to resist. Wrong, my mind screamed, but I banished the thought until finally my body shuddered with release. It felt thrilling to imagine this dangerous man.

But seconds after, a familiar sense of being dirty washed over me. This was sin. Mother hadn’t stopped saying those words to me since the day she’d caught me touching myself two months ago. I’d not given in to my sinful needs since then, until tonight.

I took a deep breath, wishing my heart would stop racing. Wishing my body would stop reminding me of what I’d done.

Ever since Mother had caught me, there was a tension between us I could hardly stand. She avoided my eyes as I avoided hers. I was almost glad for my quickly approaching wedding so I’d finally escape Mother’s judgment. I still felt a wave of blatant shame wash over me when I remembered that day and the look of shock on my mother’s face. It hadn’t been the first time I’d touched myself, but it was the first time I’d really understood the wrongness of it. I’d sworn to myself back then to never let my body overrule my brain again, and now I’d broken that promise. In the protection of the night, I’d dared to let my fingers roam again, all because of a man whom I shouldn’t even think of, let alone fantasize about. Wrong.