Red. Erica Spindler

loved his mother, he wanted Giovanni to know. He wanted a father. He wanted his father.

      He would tell him. Today.

      Jack smiled to himself and imagined Giovanni’s face when he told him. Imagined his initial surprise, then his pleasure. He would clasp Jack to his chest, then announce to all that he had found his son.

      They would do things together. His father would show him how to do things, guy things. He would clap him on the shoulder in encouragement and approval, the way Jack had seen other fathers do to their sons.

      Giovanni probably didn’t like baseball or fishing or camping out, but that was okay. It didn’t matter what the two of them did together, it was only important that they be together. That finally, he have his father.

      A violent stream of Italian broke his reverie. Jack opened his eyes.

      “I do not work with amateurs!” Giovanni shouted, in English now, handing his camera to his assistant. He strode forward to face the object of his displeasure, a young model just off the foreign circuit. She cringed.

      “If you cannot give me what I want,” he demanded, gesturing broadly as was his way, “what good are you? If I have to ask you twice, you cost too much. There are many pretty faces, bella. If you want to be the face who works with Giovanni, then you give me what I ask for. Capisce?”

      “I’m sorry,” she whispered, wetting her lips. “I’ll try harder. I can do it. I know I can.”

      Giovanni lowered his voice and gently tipped her face up to his. He trailed his thumb across her damp lower lip. “That’s what I want, bella, vulnerable. Your eyes now, they tell me everything. Yes!”

      His assistant was beside him in a flash, handing him the camera. Giovanni began shooting immediately, alternating between shouting approval and insults.

      The model would be in tears later, Jack knew. She would be exhausted, wrung out. He had seen this scenario played out a hundred times before. She would cry and curse and swear she was getting out of the business. She would curse Giovanni, call him a son of a bitch who deserved to die. But the chromes would be good. Very good. A successful session with Giovanni could make a career.

      And later, she would trail adoringly after The Great One. And maybe, if The Great One was so inclined, she would do it with him.

      Jack cocked his head to the side, studying the photographer as he worked. Giovanni was handsome, with the look of the Italian aristocracy he was reputed to be descended from. He had high cheekbones and a broad forehead, a chiseled mouth that could be either giving or forbidding, a slash of dark eyebrows over piercing eyes, eyes so dark they were almost black. He wore his hair brushed straight back from his face, and while he worked, it would sometimes fall across his forehead. The photographer would sweep it back with an impatience, a leashed power, that Jack watched with awe. Indeed, everything about Giovanni seemed powerful; he emanated it in waves that both exhilarated and cowed everyone around him.

      Jack practiced being like Giovanni. At home he would stand in front of the mirror for hours, mimicking the older man’s gestures, his looks, the way he spoke. He would gaze at his own reflection, searching for the resemblances between them and despairing at the few he found: the shape of his face was wrong, more narrow and angular; his eyes weren’t dark and stormy, but the vivid blue of his mother’s; his hair, chestnut instead of black, wavy instead of straight. So he stared at his reflection and willed himself to grow as strong as his father, as powerful.

      He would make his father proud. He didn’t know how or when, but he would.

      Jack looked back at Giovanni. The photographer had wrapped for lunch; he was talking with the client and the ad agency’s art director. Everyone else was either eating or socializing. Giovanni never ate. He never socialized. He prowled and smoked cigarettes, he checked his equipment, he conferred with his assistants and drank the espresso he insisted on having whenever and wherever he was shooting.

      This would be his only opportunity to approach his father, Jack knew. If he missed it, it could be weeks, or longer, before he got another.

      As the art director and client walked away, leaving Giovanni alone, Jack jumped to his feet, excitement and stark terror clawing at his gut. He’d been waiting all his life for this day. He wasn’t going to blow it just because he was scared.

      He started across the studio toward the photographer, palms sweating, legs unsteady. He reached him and squared his shoulders. “Excuse me.”

      Giovanni turned slowly. He glared down at Jack, arching his eyebrows ever so slightly as if considering a pesky insect.

      Jack shifted under the man’s stare, panic turning his mouth to vinegar. “I…um…I—”

      Those dark eyebrows arched a fraction higher, and the man made a soft sound of impatience. “Well?”

      Jack shifted from one foot to the other, searching for the best way to start. He must have taken a fraction too long, because with a snort, Giovanni started to turn away.

      Jack’s heart stopped. He’d lost his chance! After all this time, all his waiting, he couldn’t just let him walk away! He grabbed the photographer’s arm. “Wait!”

      Giovanni stopped and looked back. Beneath his hand, Jack felt the photographer stiffen.

      “I just—” His throat closed over the words, and he cleared it. “I just wanted you to know that…you’re my…dad.”

      Giovanni said nothing. He simply continued to stare at Jack, his expression unchanging. To his horror, Jack felt tears prick his eyes. They gathered in his throat and chest, threatening to choke him.

      He fought them off, barely. “Did you…did you know that?”

      “Of course.” Giovanni frowned, his dark eyebrows lowering ominously. “Your mother and I have an arrangement.”

      An arrangement? His mother and Giovanni had…an arrangement? What did that mean? “I don’t…understand. You’re my father.”

      “I have a son. Carlo is my son.” Giovanni shook off Jack’s hand, turned and walked away.

      Jack stared after him, frozen to the spot, his world crashing in around his ears. Giovanni had already known about him. He had known all along.

      His father didn’t want him. He had never wanted him.

      Tears choked him. He thought of his dreams, his plans, thought of the hours he’d spent imagining them together as father and son, and a howl of pain and rage flew to his throat. He battled it back, fingers squeezed into tight fists.

      His father had another son—Carlo. A son he called his own, a son he wanted. Hatred and jealousy built inside Jack, stealing his hurt, his urge to cry. Carlo, Jack thought again, despising the sound of the name.

      Jack lifted his gaze. It landed on Giovanni, standing across the room, talking with a model. He set his jaw in determination. Giovanni would want him for his son. Someday, Jack promised himself. Someday, Giovanni would want him.

      8

      Someday, Giovanni would want him for his son.

      Jack’s promise to himself was never far from his mind. It burned bright and hot inside him, coloring each year that passed, years that transformed him from a trusting boy into a cocky, worldly-wise sixteen-year-old.

      That day, those words, shaped his life. They gave him direction, focus. He vowed he would prove himself worthy of his father’s love. He vowed he would show Giovanni what a great mistake he had made when he rejected him.

      At first, he hadn’t known how he would do it; he had only known the desire twisted in his gut so tightly, there were days he thought of nothing else. Then it had come to him. He would meet his father, and beat him, in his own arena.

      So while the other boys in his class at high school had involved themselves with sports and girls and parties, he had planned his future. He read everything he could about