Hidden Worthiness Read online

Normally, his first meeting with a woman, and her reaction to him, was the test by which he knew whether to express—or to feel—any interest in her. Women who showed curiosity or surprise but didn’t let his scars distract them, he considered. Women who gawked or stuttered, he did not. Nor did he consider women who avoided looking entirely, or who suppressed any reaction at all. That was the most false reaction of them all.

  He didn’t meet women for drinks unless they’d seen him and he knew they could hold a real conversation with him without obsessing about his face or obviously working not to. He didn’t expect love, but he did expect companionship.

  The urge to leave, to call Dre and have him bring the car around, pulled Donnie a few steps in that direction, but he locked his knees and stopped. She’d asked him. She’d gone to the trouble of finding his seat and leaving a note. She had to know what she was getting into, right?

  He looked up at the sparkling crystal monstrosity over his head. Meet me under the big tit, she’d written and made him laugh. He’d never heard that before, but he’d known at once what she meant.

  He’d been thinking about her since the gala. Tonight, watching her dance so beautifully, with so much grace and emotion, he could hardly help but imagine her body in his hands. That was dangerous business. All his sexual life, from practically his first wet dream, he’d been attracted to dancers, their grace and strength, their sleek, small bodies, their fluid limbs.

  Arianna Luciano was already sunk deeper into his head than most of his comares, the women he kept exclusive with for months at a time.

  He’d assumed that she was in a relationship with her partner, Julian Trewson, and tonight’s performance hadn’t convinced him he was wrong. The chemistry between them lit up the stage. Still stinging from Sonia’s rebuke last night, Donnie had felt a strong throb of jealousy, for the emotion even more than the woman. To have a woman look at him like that—but it was impossible. He didn’t consider love, didn’t dwell in fantasies, because no woman ever would, ever could look at him that way and mean it.

  If Arianna was not with Trewson, then she was an excellent actor, and that was dangerous business, too.

  “Mr. Gor—Donnie?”

  He turned at her voice, swinging to the left, and faced her directly. Every atom of his attention narrowed to her reaction. In that glimmer of a moment, he saw nothing at all of her but her face.

  Her eyes met his, then shifted away, taking in his scars. When she met his gaze again, she smiled. “Thank you for being here.”

  It was a near-perfect reaction, according to his mental scorecard. Acknowledgement without fascination. Still not sure what to think, but ready to consider the possibility that she might truly want to share a drink with him, he opened his focus and saw the rest of her.

  Her dark hair was down and loose, flowing over her shoulders and down her back. She’d removed her stage makeup and showed a fresh-faced, natural beauty. She had the kind of face Donnie thought of as ‘Italian’—strong-featured, almost regal. Large, light eyes, possibly grey, under dark, arched brows. A pointed chin, a shapely mouth made for smiling. A strong, aquiline nose.

  Her slight frame was dressed casually, in a flowing flowered skirt that nearly reached the floor, and a pale pink t-shirt, a bit loose, with a neckline that scooped and showed most of her perfect collarbones and the fair skin of her chest. On her feet, just peeking out beneath her skirt, was a pair of white sneakers.

  And she carried the roses he’d sent, cradling the open box in her arms.

  She glanced down at her own attire. “I’m sorry about my outfit. I didn’t think to bring anything better to wear.” She laughed, a soft, nervous titter. “Honestly, I wasn’t sure you’d be waiting.” Her arms tightened around the box of roses. “Thank you so much for these. They’re spectacular.”

  “You’re welcome. You know who I am? Really know?”

  “I do, yes. As much as I can know from what other people say.”

  He liked that answer. “And you’re free?”

  “I am.”

  “What about Trewson?”

  Now she laughed. “Julian? No. We’re best friends, but that’s it.”

  “You danced tonight like lovers.”

  “That’s the ballet, and we’re both good. But we’re just friends. Julian’s into big girls.”

  “Please?”

  “You know—big girls. Curvy. Zaftig. Plus-size. Fat. Pick your adjective, he likes big girls. He says he fondles skinny girls for his job, so fucking them on his off hours is too much like work.” She blushed hard then, maybe because of her coarse language, but Donnie liked that. It spoke to a level of ease.

  He didn’t like the idea of Trewson fondling Arianna, but it was certainly an apt verb for their performance tonight. “And you?”

  Her grin was sly and enchanting. “I’m not into big girls, no.”

  She’d made him laugh again. “Are you into anyone?”

  “Well, it’s a bit too early in the date to know for sure.”

  None of his alerts had yet gone off. As she’d been in those few brief minutes at the gala, Arianna was spirited and friendly, with a fizziness to her humor he found charming—and unusual.

  He took a step closer; there was little more than another step between them. “Have you asked me on a date, Arianna?”

  Her eyes traveled the full terrain of his face and returned to his gaze. He saw no revulsion there. “I guess that depends on you. Are you free?”

  “I am.”

  Her smile opened wide. “Then I could eat. But I need a minute to find someone to help me get my beautiful roses in water.”

  “Bring them along. We’ll find you a vase.” Donnie held out his hand, and Arianna, this delightful little ballerina, set an elegant, long-fingered hand in his.

  ~oOo~

  There was still a kiss of the day’s summery warmth in the cool night air, and Donnie had Dre drive them to a hotel on the river, one of the better hotels in the city, with a little Italian café that had elegant seating on a convertible deck. Donnie was known to the staff here, and he and Arianna were led at once to one of the best tables, a cozy booth right on the edge of the deck. The lighting was low enough that he didn’t notice any of the other diners react to his face as they followed the host to their table. Good. He could forget and be himself, maybe.

  Arianna sighed happily and turned to the view. The river glittered with light cast by the buildings on its banks.

  “Thank you,” he said to the server as they were seated. Donnie took the seat that put his left side to the rest of the restaurant.

  “Of course, Mr. Goretti. May I bring you cocktails to begin your evening?”

  Donnie turned to Arianna. “If I order a bottle of wine, will you drink it with me?”

  She smiled. “I thought you were a whiskey man.”

  “Scotch. But I like a lot of things. Will you? And do you have a preference?”

  “I will, and no. I trust you.”

  And he trusted the chef here. “Ask Daniel to send out his best recommendation for a night after the ballet.” He nodded at the box resting on the back of the booth, near Arianna’s head. “And we’d like a vase for these, please.”

  The server bobbed his head. “Of course, Mr. Goretti. Right away, sir.”

  Arianna watched him go and turned back to Donnie. “You can just ask for a vase? How do you know they have one?”

  “It’s a hotel. They’ll have a vase. And if they don’t, they’ll find one.”

  “People just do whatever you want them to?”

  He shrugged. “Usually.”

  She laughed and opened her menu. “That must be cool. I spend my days getting ordered around.” They perused their menus for a moment, and then she cleared her throat. “Um, this is embarrassing, but there aren’t any prices here. I don’t think I can afford this place.”

  Donnie peered over his menu at her. “You thought you were paying?”

  “Well, yeah. I asked you out, remember?”


  She had; he remembered. A first in his experience. “I do remember. But you’re not paying, Arianna.” He had no doubt that this restaurant was too expensive for her credit card to bear, but he wouldn’t have tolerated her paying in any case.

  Her big eyes narrowed, and Donnie expected her to make a totally ineffective protest. Instead, her expression opened again, and she said, “Thank you. My friends call me Ari.”

  “Is that what you want me to call you?”

  Before she could answer, the server was back with a bottle of red and two glasses. Another server came around, cradling a large crystal vase half-filled with water in one arm and carrying folding service table in the other. She set up the table, put the vase on it, and held her hands out. Arianna handed her the box, and she began arranging the roses.

  “I’m not sure how I’ll get those home now,” Arianna muttered, watching.

  “We’ll work it out. Don’t worry.”

  Their server presented the bottle of wine to Donnie, laying it over his arm. “The chef sends out this Montepulciano. Bold and fruit-forward, an excellent complement to a late, light meal on a fresh summer night. If you’d like a heavier meal, he has another recommendation.”

  Donnie considered the label. At Nick’s side, and Bev’s, he’d learned more than how to earn and how to run the Pagano Brothers. He’d also learned how to enjoy the fruits of his labors. Ballet and opera, the symphony—that had all come naturally to him, long before he understood they were the pastimes of the rich and powerful. He’d grown up listening to and watching performances with his grandfather. But wine and food, cars and clothes, the way to comport himself like a powerful man and not some dumb dago who’d struck it big in the Powerball, that he’d learned from Nick—and from Bev.

  He wasn’t a connoisseur, or even an enthusiast; he didn’t follow which years were good years, and he didn’t have all the lingo down. Most of the enthusiast stuff was silly. But he knew how to taste a wine and what to look for, and he knew many of the key vineyards and their labels—and he trusted Daniel. This was a good wine. Assuming that Arianna wouldn’t eat a heavy meal, he nodded, and their server opened the bottle.

  Arianna watched as he performed the tasting ritual. Donnie felt self-conscious about the way his mouth worked, but he buried that and went on with the task. When he nodded again, accepting the wine, their server poured their glasses and set the bottle on the table. “We have two specials tonight, if you’re interested—a fish course and a risotto.”

  “What’s the fish?” Arianna asked.

  The waiter described the specials, and they each ordered one—the swordfish for Arianna and the tomato-basil risotto for Donnie, who’d spent the afternoon grazing the casseroles and finger foods at Bobbo’s wake. He wasn’t at all hungry, but he didn’t want to sit and watch Arianna eat. He wanted her to be comfortable.

  When the server left and they were finally alone again, she sipped her wine. “Oh, it’s good.”

  Donnie took a sip as well, carefully. He sometimes had difficulty drinking from certain glasses, when the size and shape of the mouth of the glass didn’t work well with the way his own mouth opened. His burns had gone down to the bone, and he didn’t have the muscle composition on the right side of his face to make his mouth work as it should. Several muscle grafts had failed. So he was simply careful.

  He smiled across the table at her. The orange roses now overwhelmed the side of the table. The blooms and their sweet scent dangled between them, making a slight screen between Arianna and the scarred side of Donnie’s face.

  “You never answered my question. Would you like me to call you Ari?”

  She returned his smile with one much prettier. “Actually, I like the way my full name sounds when you say it. I feel like that wine.”

  “Please?”

  “Sweet and ... elegant, I guess.” One graceful shoulder lifted. “Chosen.” She blushed and dropped her eyes. “Not that you’re choosing me. I just like how it sounds.”

  Donnie never asked women how they felt about the way he looked; there was no answer they could give that he’d trust. But he was sorely tempted to ask Arianna now. She honestly seemed unaffected by his scars—not blind to them, just not bothered. Maybe even more than that. If he could trust his perception, she seemed attracted to him. Not attracted to him despite his scars, or because of them, like a weird fetish. But simply attracted to him, who was scarred. His instincts screamed that it was impossible, but his senses promised that it was true. If only he could just ask her, and believe.

  “Arianna,” he said, wanting her eyes on him again.

  She looked up. Her embarrassment over what she’d said deepened the tint of her cheeks to a rosy glow.

  “Do you want to be chosen?”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “It can mean different things. It could mean we have our dinner and go into the hotel, and I book us a room for the night. I take you home in the morning, or earlier if you want, and we leave it at that. Or it could mean we spend more time together than that, that we date for a while.”

  Her collarbones lifted as she took in a deep breath. “You move fast. Our salad hasn’t even come yet.”

  He smiled. “Yes. I’m decisive. But I’m not the one who brought it up.”

  “Can I have dinner to think about it?”

  Before he answered, he studied her, looking for signs that she needed time to psych herself up to fuck him. All he saw was a young woman who seemed a little overwhelmed by the turn of events.

  His instincts screamed, and his senses made promises. So he said, “Of course,” and resolved to pay close attention during dinner to any clues she offered.

  ~oOo~

  While they waited for their salad, and then ate it, they chatted lightly about the ballet. When Arianna understood that his knowledge of her profession was deep enough that he could follow most of her technical talk, she let herself go, and told lively stories about a near-disaster backstage with one of her costumes, and a tardy dancer in the corps during the second act. With only subtle prompting, she lost herself in an analysis of her performance and regaled him with descriptions of her preparations. Her voice was rich with passion and enthusiasm, and Donnie was charmed yet again.

  She’d been brilliant tonight, her dancing so evocative that the whole house had barely breathed. In her breathless recounting, he saw her see herself—she knew how good she’d been, and she embraced it. No unwarranted self-doubt, no artificial self-deprecation. It spoke of a strong will and a clear awareness of herself.

  He refilled their glasses, killing the bottle, and she stopped her bubbly stream of talk and had a sip. Then she laughed. “I’m sorry. I’m the worst—blah blah blah all about myself all night.”

  “Don’t be sorry. I was just thinking how refreshing it is to hear someone talk about their accomplishments with real pride.”

  She shrugged. “I know what I’m good at. I also know what I suck at.”

  “Such as?”

  “Usually, I’m not so good at conveying emotion. I’m a strong dancer, and I can make my body do anything I want it to, but the critique I get most often is that my dancing is cold. All body and no heart. I think that’s too harsh, but it’s not really wrong. I do struggle to get into my character. Usually when I’m dancing, I feel my body so keenly I it’s hard to be anybody but myself. Tonight, I don’t know ... I felt different. I really felt like Christine for a while there. Which is kind of funny, because I hate The Phantom. The story, anyway.”

  “You do? Why?”

  Their entrées came, and conversation stopped as their dishes were laid out and Donnie ordered another bottle of the Montepulciano. When they were alone again, he repeated, “Why do you hate The Phantom?”

  She had a bite of swordfish, and Donnie grinned as her eyes fluttered closed. “Oh God, this is so good!” She had another bite before she answered him. “It’s more the way people think about it that I hate. Everybody loves the Phantom, because boohoo, he’s
had a terrible life and never known love, he’s scarred and hideous and ashamed, and whatever. But he terrorizes Christine. He threatens to kill Raoul to force her to marry him. He kidnaps her. He’s a monster.”

  Donnie had gone still around the word ‘boohoo.’ His fork hovered over his risotto, and his senses were honed to a pinpoint on Arianna. Her snide words felt a bit too carelessly close to dark things inside him—and outside him as well.

  It wasn’t until Arianna stopped, and he didn’t fill in the space in their conversation, that it dawned on her what her words had touched. She gasped and set her fork down.

  Donnie felt what had to this point been an unexpectedly delightful evening crumble.

  “Donnie, I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

  On another night, with another woman, he might well have called a halt right here. But he wasn’t ready to give up tonight. He set his fork on his dish. There was possibly something encouraging in her utter lack of awareness. She hadn’t thought. His scars had not been foremost in her mind. She didn’t see a comparison between him and the Phantom of the Opera. At least not until she’d seen him see it.

  So he asked her the question he never asked a woman. “Do my scars bother you?”

  She didn’t answer right away. First, she looked at him, tipped her head to see around the spray of roses, and studied the right side of his face, a map of skin grafts and burn scars. No eyebrow, no eyelashes. Only the slightest hint of a nostril. An eye that opened ineffectively, pinched on one side like a teardrop, but could not make tears. Almost plasticine smoothness where his lips should be. The small lumpen mound that was what remained of his ear.

  “Only because it must have been incredibly painful, whatever happened to hurt you like that.”

  “I don’t want pity. Don’t feel sorry for me.”

  “Of course I’m sorry for you. I’m a human being, and I’m sorry when others feel pain. But it’s not pity. It’s compassion. I don’t want to know the person who wouldn’t feel sorry for your pain.” She reached across the table and hooked her fingers over his hand. He’d been so wrapped up in his own feelings of this moment that he hadn’t seen her move, and he jumped at her touch. “You want to know if I find you less attractive because of your scars, right?”