Page 32 of Lorenzo

I’m surprised to find it’s the same driver who brought me here from Boston.

Ernesto.

I’d recognize that thick neck anywhere. And his eyes that always seem to be watching me from the rearview mirror.

No. Not watching.

Studying.

“Have you been with Mr. Lorenzo long?” I ask his reflection in the rearview mirror. “I imagine you must drive a lot of his women around?”

I don’t know how that leaped out of me.

Seems I lost all sense of my usual Bostonian restraint since I came to this city of tease and temptation.

Though Lorenzo may not be consciously trying to tease or tempt me, he does so regardless.

Clarification. No teasing.

Only temptation.

And I hate that I’m falling into the trap of being tempted.

A man like Lorenzo is the last man I’d want to marry for real. He’s an egomaniac. A chauvinist.

A prig.

Yes. If he was Darcy living in Jane Austen’s era, the marriageable women flirting around him would call him a prig …

… but at the same time, they’d also fight one another with their satin slippers for the honor of being the chosen one he’d wed.

Go figure.

When the chauffeur doesn’t answer, I ask him again.

“Drive Mr. Ricci’s women around? That is something you should ask Mr. Lorenzo,” he snaps gruffly.

Frustrated, I fall back into the buttery soft leather seat.

How many other women have reclined against this same buttery soft seat, wondering the same exact question?

Once we arrive at Saks, Ernesto tells me to call when I’m “dolled up.”

“You must be Emily Ricci,” says a tall, handsome man as I enter the fancy department store.

He’s a fashionable man of the old style, judging by his jaunty Fedora hat and pocket square.

He kisses me on both cheeks in the French style, then steps back as if to take a more analytical look at me.

“It’s a genuine delight to meet you. Fresh from New England, I see.”

I stiffen. “Am I that obvious?”

“Not at all. I saw your wedding pictures in Manhattan Social,” he says as he walks me to an elevator. “We will begin the transformation.”

Transformation? Antoine’s attire and the way he speaks reminds me of some long ago daytime TV show. I can’t imagine a well-dressed, sophisticated man like Lorenzo hiring him.

Antoine escorts me into a room that feels borrowed from another era. It boasts ivory walls and a narrow catwalk that ends beneath an ornate chandelier.