Footsteps (2 page)

Who the fuck cheated on that?

Maybe the same kind of person as one who
would run away with her lover and leave a husband and child alone
in her wake. Peter was right. Carlo had no business being surprised
at this kind of shit.

Maybe the blonde in the little white dress
was the reason this sparkly beauty had been storming heedless down
the hallway in the first place.

Auberon was finishing his remarks. Carlo
hadn’t heard a word of them. But he’d heard plenty of pompously
vague doubletalk in his time, so he could fill in the blanks. Now,
though, Auberon held his hand out toward his wife. Even from the
distance at which he was sitting, Carlo could see the dark look she
gave that hand before she reached out with one graceful arm,
adorned with a wide bracelet glinting with golden stones, and took
it.

Auberon pulled her forward and turned back
to the microphone. In his clipped, precise voice, he said “And, of
course, without my beautiful Sabina, I would not have succeeded
half so well in ways either material or meaningful. Thank you, my
darling.” As the audience applauded, Auberon put a possessive hand
on Sabina’s waist and kissed her cheek. She smiled stiffly.

Sabina, Carlo thought. Beautiful name.

~oOo~

In the reception area after the end of the
program, where the bar was again open and people were again
schmoozing, Carlo grabbed Peter’s arm.

“I’m heading out, man. I’ve had about as
much of this as I can take.”

“C’mon, Carlo. The good part’s finally
starting.” He gestured at a lovely, slim blonde in a slinky,
shimmery scarlet gown. “That’s Chloe. She’s here with a couple of
friends. I thought we’d go out, hit Port 99, maybe get a little
cozy. It’s time, bro. You’re all dressed up. Let’s get you back on
the hottie.”

“Not this time. I’m taking Trey home in the
morning. Pop’s big start-of-summer shindig, remember? I’ll be in
Quiet Cove next week. I thought you were coming out for the
weekend.”

“Might do.” He smirked. “Doesn’t mean I
can’t party tonight.”

“Well, it does mean that I can’t. I’ll see
you tomorrow. Or I won’t, whatever.” Carlo let go of Peter’s arm.
Peter shrugged and headed toward the slinky red dress. Carlo turned
toward the exit and freedom, loosening his black silk noose as he
went.

As he reached the door, stretching his arm
to the pressure bar, he was hit from behind by a solid force. He
stumbled forward, pitching toward the door. Regaining his feet, he
turned to see the man of the night himself, sidling to the next
door and pushing his way through, with no sign or word of apology,
a murderous expression darkening his brow.

Apparently, the entire Auberon family was
getting up close and personal with him this fine evening. Grumbling
under his breath about rude bazillionaires, Carlo pushed through
the door. Once outside in the noticeably cooler night air, he
fumbled in his pocket for the valet ticket.

A flash of sparkle caught his eye, and he
looked up to see Auberon and his wife—Sabina, her name was
Sabina—standing at a taxi. Her dress caught and returned the gleam
from the streetlights. It looked as if she had been getting into
the back seat of the cab and that Auberon had pulled her out. Now,
husband had wife’s arms in a death grip. She was obviously
struggling to get loose, and they were obviously arguing, but too
quietly to be heard.

The wide walkway and drive was moderately
populated with people waiting for their vehicles, and it seemed to
Carlo that everyone was watching the hostile scene play out. No one
was doing anything about it, however. Carlo tried to decide whether
anything should be done. A married couple fighting was not exactly
unusual, even if the couple was among the wealthiest and most
influential in the state. And even if the husband was dangerously
powerful.

So dangerously powerful that no one was
capturing this moment on their phones. Not even the reporter from
the local paper was getting footage of the scene.

Then Auberon yanked Sabina forward, away
from the cab, and she fell to her knees on the curb. She cried out
when her knees hit, and before Carlo had another thought, he was
striding toward them.

“Is there a problem here?” Why was that the
question that had leapt from his mouth? Why did people ask such a
stupid thing?
Of course
there was a problem. Sabina was
still on her knees, and Auberon was still yanking on her arm. Now,
Carlo was close enough to hear the danger in Auberon’s voice, even
if the words were too low yet to be made out.

But both husband and wife shook their heads.
Auberon smiled coolly. “Thank you for your concern—Carlo is it?
Carlo Pagano?”

“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.

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.