Chapter Eleven

Upper East Side, New York

Alessandra

Why are you standing here, in the dark, with a man you barely know with your entire family in the other room?

It was dangerous, exciting and a whole other host of emotions. I could not walk away, not when my hand still tingles from where he’d held me.

I eyed his cigarette. It looked small, harmless in his hand. I had never imagined what it would look like in mine but I was curious.

He must have noticed my expression for he pulled the cigarette out of his lips and handed it to me. Touching a man in certain ways had been a foreign notion to me.

We were shielded, protected from the ‘claws of men who would tarnish not only our reputation but our precious virginity’ which was a sell point for our Papa. Hand holding and cigarette sharing was blasphemy in my world.

I took the cigarette from him and he closely watched me as I brought it to my lips and inhaled. The coughing came instantaneously, chest and throat burning whilst my eyes watered.

Dark