Page 69 of Mafia and Protector
After paying, I gave Nancia a hug outside the store and thanked her for coming before hurrying home to get changed for the dance.
***
When I arrived home, I went straight up to our bedroom and found Jessica already in the shapeless black dress.
Noticing my gaze upon her, her cheeks tinged pink. “Oh, hi. I was wondering where you’d gotten to?”
“It won’t take me long to get ready. I just need to take a quick shower and it’ll only take me five minutes to get dressed in my tuxedo.” I set the box down on the bed and looked at her. “This is for you.”
“For me?” Jessica squeaked, her eyes widening. She just stood there, twisting her fingers as if unsure of what she should do next.
“You should open it,” I prompted.
“Now?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay,” she murmured, reaching for the box. She stroked the lilac ribbon before pulling the bow undone and lifting off the lid of the large box to reveal the lilac tissue paper. She opened the tissue carefully, as if not wanting to make the paper rustle too much, showing no reaction when the dress was revealed.
“I want you to wear this dress.”
She picked it up out of the box, allowing the folds to fall out as she held up the silky fabric. She gave the smallest shake of her head. “I…can’t.”
“You don’t like it?” For a second, a flicker of doubt crept into my mind.
“No, no, it’s lovely.”
“Why do you not want to wear it then?” I asked in confusion.
She hesitated before her voice came out quietly. “I…I don’t want people to look at me. I don’t want to draw attention to myself. I just want to fade into the background. I feel as though if people look too long…they might find out my secret.”
“You know you have nothing to be ashamed of, not ever,” I said, my voice firm. “What happened wasn’t your fault.”
“As if that matters,” she cried. “If people find out, some are bound to say it was my fault. They’ll say that I led on your father in some way and blame me.”
“But no one will ever find out about what happened. I’ve taken care of that, I promise you.”
Jessica still looked unsure.
“I want you to wear the dress, Jess.”
She stroked the soft fabric. “It’s my favorite color.”
“I know. That’s why I chose it.”
She remained silent.
“I remember the first time I saw you in lilac—you looked gorgeous.” Jessica blushed at my compliment. “At least try it on for me,” I persuaded her.
She removed the black dress, and I handed her the new one to put on. She stepped into it, pulling it up over her shoulders. It was a big improvement—simple yet elegant.
“My mother would never have allowed me to buy such a dress. She would think it too plain.”
“Too plain?” The idiosyncrasies of female dressing etiquette were completely beyond me, as demonstrated by my complete bewilderment at the dress store today.
“Yes. Mother would think that it does not sufficiently scream out my new status as a Santino wife, as the spouse of one of the wealthiest men in the Società. She prefers what she calls ‘power colors’—colors like gold, red, magenta, orange. She always said as I was already plain, I needed a bright color to improve my looks.”
“You’re anything but plain, Jess.”