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my stomach; I realize I have a faint sprinkle
     of blood on what remains of my blue summer dress. But it isn’t my blood. It is the blood of the boy who led the assault on me. The boy who was punched
     so clinically by Marc.
    There was savagery there. I look at Roscarrick anew. This man may be an aristocrat,
     but he is also, what, primitive? No, not primitive. But certainly not entirely refined.
     I recall the rip in his jeans when I last met him, the dark, hard skin beneath; the
     glimpse of the animal inside the urban male. His very presence terrified these boys.
    I don’t know what I think.
    “Do you want to see a doctor, Alexandra?”
    My wits begin to reassemble.
    “No. I am . . . okay, I think. They didn’t . . . They didn’t get very far . . . You
     got here in time . . . but I don’t—”
    “How about the police? Would you like to go to the police?”
    I vacillate. Part of me wants to scream my anger from the top of Mount Vesuvius. Part
     of me wants to totally and immediately forget what just happened, because it was,
     of course, my own stupidity that got me into the situation in the first place. Wandering
     around the worst slums of a challenging city, a city known for its crime as well as
     its swooning beauty—wandering like some damn foolish girl, a naïve and silly Yank
     abroad.
    “Let me think about the police. I don’t know.”
    His smile is grave, even apologetic. I ask the real question: “But how . . . ?” I
     really need to know now. “ How did you find me? ”
    He nods, as if this is a very sensible question. Which it is.
    “Sorry, X, you must be confused. Since you came to see me in the palazzo—I have been
     thinking about you.”
    Is that a faint blush? No, it is not. But his normal certitude is momentarily flawed.
     Marc gestures away his own embarrassment.
    “Let me get you away from here, let you clean up, buy you lunch? Please. Then I will
     explain everything.”
    Who is Marc Roscarrick? What is happening?
    I don’t care. I don’t care . A very handsome young man has just saved me from my own stupidity, and from something
     worse—something I don’t care to relive right now—and he wants to help me. I am too
     weak to resist; I want to surrender.
    “Yes,” I say. “Please. I’d like to go home.”
    There is a tingle of silence. He nods, takes my hand and raises it to his lips, and
     he kisses it delicately. The silence between us lingers. I know I want him to kiss
     my hand again; just kiss it again  . . .

 
    C HAPTER S IX
    N O. I PULL my hand away as if I have been scalded. What risk am I taking? I don’t trust my desire.
     I am still shaking a little from the assault.
    I gesture at the blood on my dress.
    “I want to go back to my apartment.”
    “Of course, of course.” He nods attentively. “You must want to change. Come this way,
     X; my car is parked on Via Speranzella, just a few hundred meters.”
    I don’t know what I am expecting—a Maserati, a Bentley, a horse and carriage with
     a liveried footman?—but Marc’s car is a simple yet very expensive Mercedes sports
     car: subtle, chic, fast, new, dark silver-blue. A small luxury car for narrow, squalid
     streets.
    I get into the passenger seat. The car smells of him: clean and sophisticated, and
     also scented with that heavenly yet inscrutable bodywash, that remote cologne. And
     leather seats. The drive to Santa Lucia takes just a few minutes, from the slums to
     the boulevards, past the little bassi —the cell-like homes of the poor—to the neoclassical apartment blocks of newer Naples.
    The drive is almost wordless. I don’t know what to say. I am too wary, too upset.
     And all too attracted to Marc Roscarrick. My feelings are treacherous; I wonder if
     I am being betrayed by my own sexuality. Stop this, X. He is just a man .
    But a ruthlessly sexy man.
    As he navigates the mad Naples traffic, calmly steering between the Fiat Cinquecentos,
     Marc glances at the blood on his