“Well just the same—“
“No,” I interrupt again, displaying for the real Francesca the one of us—me or her mother—who’s in control here. “I’m confident that Madam Francesca will do business with me, no matter what I intend to do with my property after I’ve paid for it.” My gaze roves about the room, drinking in almost every set of eyes. I reach into my suit jacket pocket and pull out a pack of cigarettes, pop one between my lips and light it. And while Miz Ghita stares at me, appalled by my rude, disgusting gesture, I continue with the upper-hand, puffing happily on my cigarette. “But spare me the self-righteous spiel about how the Madam cares about the safety and health of her cyprians, or the pieces she sells in her showings—I’m not here to report her to some fucking underground Health Board, or write her establishment up on code violations. I don’t give a shit about the way Madam Francesca chooses to treat her slaves—I don’t give two fucks if she kills them, slowly, or if she feeds the leftovers to her dogs. I’m here, as I’ve said before, to do business with the Madam, and only the Madam.”
Silence falls over the room like a stifling blanket.
I take a long drag from my cigarette and then drop it in my whiskey glass.
Niklas
“Now,” I say to a snarling Emilio, “I’d like to get this business meeting underway, unless…you have anything else you’d like to add to further waste my and Madam Francesca’s time?” I motion my hand toward Nora and the other naked servant girl. “Shall we move this along?”
Without moving his head, Emilio looks to the fake Francesca. She nods at him, and then he turns back to me. Seconds later, he’s breaking apart the button on his dress pants.
Ah, OK so he wants to play dirty—literally. Too bad for Nora.
“I take it,” Emilio says, provoking me, sliding down his zipper, “you’re not the modest type.”
His cock is in his hand, I can tell without having to look directly at it.
I start to break apart the button on my dress pants, go as far as fitting my fingers around it, but then I stop. I look around the room at each and every person slowly, and then find Emilio’s eyes again.
“No,” I answer, “I’m not the modest type—but I have to warn you”—I look at his cock inquisitively, purse my mouth on one side and raise a brow, then look back up at his darkening expression—“you might regret it afterward.”
His face tightens and his Adam’s apple bounces in his throat.
I leave my cock in my pants and say, “But you’re not the one in this room I need to prove myself to. When I have Francesca Moretti’s full attention, when she and I are standing face to face, only then, and only for her will I play these fucking games to prove I am who I say I am.”
Emilio and Miz Ghita simultaneously look over at the fake Francesca sitting behind the desk—the nameless decoy still doesn’t take her eyes off me. The fake Francesca’s dainty shoulders rise and fall with a heavy breath. She stands from the chair and walks around the desk toward me. I remain seated as she approaches—a sign of disrespect that doesn’t go unnoticed.
“Aren’t you going to stand, Mr. Augustin,” Miz Ghita says from the loveseat, “so you can be face to face with the Madam?”
I smile darkly. “I will when the real Madam is the one standing in front of me.”
Three pairs of eyes—Emilio, Miz Ghita and the fake Francesca—bounce to and from one another in a nervous, stunned motion.
The fake Francesca tries to regain control of the moment; she tosses her head back elegantly and says with light laughter, “What an absurd accusation. You come here to my home, drink my whiskey, take up space in one of my showings by not bidding on anything, and I still agree to meet with you afterward, and now you call me an imposter?” She snarls and twirls her hand in front of her at the wrist. “I think your time is up here, Mr. Augustin. Mother, show him and his…companions to the door.”
She starts to walk away, but stops when I say, “I’ll only leave if the real Francesca tells me to.”
Emilio stands up, tucks himself back inside his pants, and moves toward me.
“It’s time you leave,” he insists, looking me in the eyes, unblinking, daring me to piss him off, which I hope I fucking do.
“Madam Francesca,” I call out, “if you want me to leave, all you have to do is say so and I’ll go quietly.”
Miz Ghita comes toward me now; her long black dress swishing about her hurried legs.