A/N: Thank you guys so much for the lovely reviews, I'm sorry about the delays with getting chapters out - life is chaotic at the moment, but I'm very much still going ahead with this story!
"Buona, buona," Pavi praised, scooting over in the car so that she could sit beside him...but not so much that her thigh wasn't pressed tightly against his once she got the door shut.
It was absurd given the fact that the seat on which they sat could comfortably fit at least three, but she said nothing on the matter. In truth, she was still desperately trying to collect herself. The car was moving forward before she regained her senses and noticed how Pavi's eyes kept flickering between her face and the portfolio with keen interest.
"I designed something for you last night," she said slowly.
Lowering the portfolio to her knees, tightly pressed together in her stupid pencil skirt, she opened it up. Any confidence she'd garnered over the course of the night before was fast waning under the weight of both his vague threat, and his piercing eyes. Even the grin he gave in response to her words made her feel uneasy rather than reassured. Opening it with hands that only just threatened to tremble, and she flipped through the pieces of paper until she got to the one that was now inescapably familiar. Plucking it out, she handed it to Pavi.
Accepting it without hesitation, he now didn't even spare her a glance, eyes glued to the page intently as much of his near-whimsical facade was dropped in favour of inspecting her work. It didn't surprise her much - there was little he took so seriously as his own image. Now, though, Zena watched him just as intensely as he'd been eyeing her not a moment before, searching his eyes and his body language for any trace of disapproval.
"What is this?"
Was it just her imagination, or did the thick Italian accent suddenly sound just a little less prominent? The slip made his voice sound lower. She shook off the thought, instead forcing her attention to what he pointed to at the back of the coat.
"Panels," she forced out dumbly, before forcing some semblance of coherency into her mind "Er - different coloured cut-out panels of fabric. Sheer fabric, but with a sheen to it. It's meant to imitate stained glass. That's why the coat is so long - the ones towards the bottom should catch the light and look like one big stained glass window when the sun catches it."
"But the ones towards the top, they won't-a catch it, will they? Not while I wear it - which is rather the point here, no?"
"You could wear something white beneath it," she pointed out.
It was only after she'd spoken that she winced, realising it came out a little less than the respectful, borderline ass-kissing tone she usually kept to with the Largos as a rule.
"Or," she added quickly "Those panels could be dyed more vividly. I'm sure lights could be fitted beneath, but that runs the risk of being a bit-"
"Gaudy," he finished her sentence for her in a grumble.
"Yeah - I, yes, Mr La- uh, Pavi."
The look she received at that was a rueful one, but at least she'd self-corrected all the same. It was just a tricky line to walk, especially considering his dogged attempts at waving off any semblance of formality, and the fact that he'd honed their main topic of conversation down onto something she was actually passionate about.
"We will work on that," he finally said brightly.
Zena gave an uncomfortable smile, and she got the impression he took at least a little bit of joy from it.
"Now this," he said 'this' like there was an 'e' in it "Stained glass image…"
"It can be changed," she hastened to make clear "I did this one based on a photograph I saw - the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence."
She was painfully aware of her own stumbling over the Italian words before somebody who, if he did not come by it naturally, certainly did a very good job of making it appear so. Still, where she'd expected to find distaste or even mild disapproval, she instead discovered that he eyed her with a renewed sort of interest (which was saying a lot considering up 'til now he stared at her like she was a strange artefact in a museum), green eyes pinning her where she sat.
"Calma, bella, calma - the Pavi likes it...for this one."
"For this one?" she echoed faintly.
"You will make-a me two, yes? This one in red, and another in...oh, purple. Similar, but with the GeneCo tower on the back."
Her mind was already reeling with the amount of work that would take. The amount of money. The time. Christ, she was never going to sleep again.
"Won't it lose the effect if you go to two different events wearing such similar clothing?"
"I will wear them both in one night. One on the red carpet, the other at the after party," he said it as though it were obvious, like he was explaining basic common sense to a child.
"For what event?"
"Any event," he shrugged lazily "I'm somewhat spoiled for choice."
The smile he threw in at the end of that sentence might've seemed humble had it not been for, well, the man beneath it.
"Ah. Okay, then."
A silence slowly fell over them - one that threatened to be awkward, were it not for the fact that she doubted he was even capable of feeling awkward. A perk of owning the world. God help them if he became Mr Largo's heir, for there'd be no saving any of them then. The next time she managed to look at him, he was watching her entirely unabashed. His gaze did not let up when she met it, instead he only exaggerated his curiosity, tilting his head as he regarded her.
Were it anybody else, she would have levelled them with a "what the hell are you staring at?", but that wasn't exactly an option here. So she waited. He seemed to be very much aware of her dilemma, too, for he smirked just slightly and let the silence drag on for another few moments before he finally spoke.
"You are a strange one, signora, if you don't-a mind me saying."
She didn't have much a choice when it came to minding, did she?
"What makes you say that?" It was a question she wasn't entirely sure that she wanted answered.
At least, though, if she knew what about herself he seemed to find so amusing, she could do everything in her power to negate it.
"You have had no, ah…" he paused, gesturing vaguely to his person, and then his face with a flourish "…procedures done. Si?"
Shit. Well. Maybe not, then.
"Er…" she hesitated before sighing "Yeah. Well - no. I haven't."
"It's not completely unheard of," he gave a breezy chuckle "The Pavi doesn't mean to embarrass you, but it is…unique."
"I've been pretty lucky genetically," she replied.
"I can see that," he all but purred.
She could feel the way her face heated up at the comment, and she damn well hated it, looking away as he chuckled.
"But not even something elective, no? A nip here, a tuck there," he gestured here and there to her face as he spoke, the very tips of his fingers brushing her jaw and then her cheek.
"Are you calling me ugly?"
For the slightest second after she said it, she regretted it dearly. Surprise flitted across his 'borrowed' features for just a second, and then he broke out into a grin, letting loose a peal of ringing laughter as he clapped his hands together.
"Never, bella, never. I do have eyes. I'm just a perfectionist, you see? Always finding room for improvement."
Which was incredibly foreboding so far as working with him was concerned.
"Well, I hope my work lives up to your standards," she tried to drag the conversation back to that work, and away from the topic of how aesthetically pleasing her face was.
"From what you've shown me here, I'm sure it will," he slid the sketchpad back onto her lap "Now. Your father."
Something within Zena clamped up tight at his very abrupt, very specific, change of topic…as well as how his demeanour lost just a trace of its flair, his hands ceasing their dramatic gestures at every other word. Shit.
"What of him?"
"He was the subject of a repossession some years ago, was he not?"
The way he asked it all but dared her to lie.
"He was an idiot who smoked his way through two sets of lungs before buying a third that he couldn't afford," impatience crept into her tone, fuelled by her panic "I don't lose sleep over it, and I don't harbour any idiotic resentments towards GeneCo."
Another laugh spilled from him, but this one wasn't quite so high pitched and forced. No, this one was lower, realer, pittering out into a few quiet chuckles as he eyed her with undisguised delight.
"So cold! So practical. I'm impressed," he tugged on a lock of her hair and she resisted the urge to shrug him off, growing tired of being prodded and petted like she was a cat.
But she had a feeling the more she showed that it bothered her, the more he'd do it.
"It's common sense," she replied evenly.
"Mmm, modest too - but we can fix that," he said, more to himself than anybody else.
How he intended to do that, she didn't know. Nor did she really want to know. Had GeneCo developed a surgery for arrogance? It wouldn't surprise her. Not that it was needed much on this island. The car was slowing to a stop before she could get much clarification on that score, though, and Pavi's glance moved away from her as he leaned forward to peer at her apartment building through the tinted windows.
"This is where you live?"
"It is," she confirmed, not liking that he knew it.
"Well," he said, almost sourly "I can see where the modesty comes from. Not-a to worry, bella, by the time we're done here your life will look quite different."
He said it like it was a promise but she took it as a threat.
"Yes. Well. Thank you, Mr Largo," she didn't correct herself this time - it was all the power she had here, and it only earned her an eye-roll for her troubles "For the ride home and for your, uh, patronage."
The lips of the face that wasn't exactly his quirked just slightly upwards when she thanked him for the ride, but by some miracle he kept whatever dirty joke crossed his mind to himself. Zena reached for the handle to open the door, and then flinched when his hand shot out and enclosed around her wrist. The fear showed on her face, there was no way it didn't even if it didn't earn her an amused smile from him as he pulled her hand back as the driver got out of the car and opened the door for her. Pavi tutted at her apparent lack of refinement all the while, even as his smugness showed plainly on his face.
"Buona sera," he said lightly as she climbed out the car, giving him a shaky nod in return.
By some miracle, she managed not to run towards the front door of her building, excruciatingly aware of the eyes on her back right up until she was inside.