A Scandal Made At Midnight

Initially he’d been against the whole idea. Rossi hotels were the best in the world—the epitome of elegance, luxury, class. They did not need reinventing, and the last thing he wanted to do was to chase after a fleeting trend. The Rossi name was built on the idea of stable dependability; the world around might change, but its timeless elegance and luxury did not.

And yet, as he’d toured the New York hotel, he’d realised something needed to change. Rooms were empty. Guests were mainly octogenarians. The branding consultant, he’d been forced to concede reluctantly, might have had a point. He could turn around his family’s fortunes just as he’d done with their investments, but it might need a different approach.

What he realised was he didn’t want to change anything about the hotels—they were still timelessly stylish and luxurious, an oasis of peace in a bustling city. What he needed to do was simply change how they were perceived. Hence this party, along with several others over the next few weeks, each one at a different Rossi hotel, with him in attendance, showing how fun he was, which was, he knew, something of a joke. He wasn’t fun at all. He didn’t want to be. Fun was for layabouts and useless charmers, people who skated through life by other people’s hard work, tumbling in and out of love because they were led by their emotions, capricious as those could be, and caused pain and suffering in their wake. People like his father. That was not who he was at all, who he’d chosen to be, but for tonight, as well as for a few others, for expediency’s sake, the camera could lie.

He moved through the crowds, offering brief smiles to anyone whose eyes he met, stopping to make idle chitchat with whoever waylaid him. Several of the glossier gossip magazines were here, discreetly taking their paparazzi shots. Alessandro made sure to pause and pose as needed, his relaxed smile hiding his gritted teeth, the tension that was twanging through his whole body.

He hated parties. Hated them. Had despised them since he’d been about three years old and had been trotted out as a prop for his parents to show their marriage wasn’t the train wreck everyone knew it to be, paraded around like some sort of show monkey. Just the memory made an icy sweat prickle on the back of his neck, his stomach clench with remembered anxiety he’d long ago forced himself to move past. Their pathetic little stunt had never worked, but still they’d tried. Over and over again. It had given him a decided aversion to socialising of any kind...as well as marriage.

As he took a sip of champagne, he aimed a discreet glance at his watch. How long would he have to socialise, showing everyone the obvious—that Rossi hotels were the best in the world? And yes, they were fun.

‘Of course,’ the branding consultant had told him at that meeting, her smile a bit mischievous, ‘what you really need is a representative for the hotel—someone young and fun and cool who comes to all these parties.’ She’d given him a pertly expectant look, while Alessandro had merely stared back.

Was she implying she would be up for the job? He wasn’t about to hire some wannabe starlet to gush and gallivant about the hotel, however, whatever this well-meaning woman said. ‘I cannot imagine who that would be,’ he’d told her. ‘For the moment I’ll settle for a few judicious publicity shots.’

How many had they taken now? Eight, nine? Surely that was enough? He looked down at his watch again. He’d only been here for fifteen minutes. Unbelievable. He already felt both wired and exhausted by the attention, the chitchat, the speculation, the memories.

‘Here’s our little darling boy. Come here, Alessandro, and show everyone how much you love us.’

No matter how many obedient hugs and smiles he’d given, it had never been enough. His mother would drink herself into a stupor, his father would embark on another affair. And they would scream and rage at each other, with him always at the centre, being used.

He’d always vowed he would never let himself be so used again.

He pushed the memories away as he glanced around the ballroom, and it wasn’t until his gaze had skated over half the people that he realised who he was looking for. Her. That funny little woman with the purple eyes and the smile that wasn’t. He shook his head as if to clear it, and that was when he caught sight of the woman holding court in the centre of the room—and he wondered how he had ever missed her.

She was objectively gorgeous, first of all, with long, tumbling blonde hair, a figure that was both curvaceous and slender, encased in sparkling gauze that made her look like a mermaid, and an almost naked one at that, considering the nearly sheer gauze of her dress. But, beyond her obvious good looks, she had a mesmerising quality about her, something that made it hard to look away. He found himself taking a step towards her, and then another, intrigued by the way she held court in the middle of the room.

She was surrounded by a crowd of admirers, men as well as women, the men discreetly—or not—ogling her figure, the women simply wanting to be in her reflected radiance. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and her cerulean gaze met his for an instant, causing him to hesitate mid-stride. Her eyes widened and her smile curved with a catlike knowledge. She fluttered her eyelashes, but in a way that made it seem like a joke, like she was mocking herself—or him. He kept walking.

From the corner of his eye he saw a flash of violet as a small, svelte figure move quickly out of the way, sidling along the wall. He hesitated, almost turned, compelled by some deeper, instinctive desire to find that woman, as different as she was. To see her smile again.

Then he retrained his gaze on the Princess holding court in the middle of the ballroom. Focus, as he always did. He would not be guided by emotion but by reason, for here, surely, was the new face of Rossi Hotels.