I’m not sure how many hours pass, but when the bedroom door opens I’m more wide awake than before. My gaze instantly lands on the shadowed figure entering the room and my already racing heart goes into double time at the knowledge it’s Tristano. I would recognize his silhouette in any setting.
My curiosity is piqued when he doesn’t approach me. Instead, he walks over to the window at the far end of the room and pushes aside the curtain to stare outside for a long while. Just as I’m about to call out to him, the sound of his phone vibrating has me clamping my lips.
Tristano answers and I briefly wonder if it’s considered eavesdropping if I didn’t intentionally place myself nearby to overhear his conversation.
“It’s late,” he says, “Is something wrong?”
He waits a second and then pinches the bridge of his nose. “I could do without the details concerning your sex life with my future sister-in-law, Rafael. For future reference, keep that shit to yourself.”
Of course I can’t hear what’s being said on the other line, but Tristano nods to himself here and there. “That’s a problem for a different day,” he says. “I have a more pressing one I want you to handle immediately.”
A pause and then, “Ugo Nardone, has your fiancée mentioned him?”
My entire body goes as stiff as a corpse. Hearing Tristano mention that evil son of a bitch stirs up the waves of nausea from earlier, but I remind myself that he said he’d take care of it, which is what I think is happening right now. Knowing Ugo will die soon helps smooth some of the tension from me.
But I won’t be completely at peace until he’s at the bottom of the ocean, preferably being eaten by sea creatures.
All the way from across the room I’m able to clearly hear Rafael’s curses as he shouts on the phone. Tristano pulls the device away from his ear until the yelling dies down.
“I’m assuming she has mentioned him then,” Tristano says. “What was the outcome? Really?” The tension in his shoulders loosens and they drop a little, and his rigid stance becomes more casual. “I amveryglad to hear it. I must say, Rafael, I have never been more proud.”
Tristano scoffs after a moment. “I meant that, but if you can’t take a compliment, then that’s your fucking problem. And yes, she told me.”
His gaze flickers over to me and I hold my breath to keep from moving. I’m pretty sure he can’t tell my eyes are only open just enough for me to peek at him through my lashes, but then again, not much gets past Tristano. It’s unlikely he’ll be upset if he discovers me spying on him, however, I don’t want him to censor his words just because I’m listening.
“I think it was your right,” he says, “yet I’m disappointed I wasn’t there.”
Rafael’s laughter reaches my ears at the same time that Tristano smiles. “Yes, the beast is still in its cage.”
He places his forearm on the window pane and then rests his forehead against his arm. “She wants something, but I don’t know what and it’s frustrating, Rafael. I need to know what happened all those years ago, and at the same time I can’t stop thinking about our father, which pisses me off to the point I could choke the life from her.”
After blowing out a sharp breath he says, “I won’t. Calm the fuck down. I haven’t gotten us to this point just to screw it up now. Tell Maximus that I’ll call you both tomorrow when I know what her end game is.”
He hangs up the phone and tosses it onto the nearby couch. I have the strongest urge to go to him, but I’m too scared. Not that I think he’ll reject me, but because I’m drawn to him like a magnet. And once I’m with him fully I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to separate from him.
I silently lecture myself and point out I’m a newly eighteen year old woman, as of a couple hours ago, and I have my whole life ahead of me. However, when I think of what that means or what it looks like, all I can see is a void of darkness waiting for me. I have no trajectory, nothing to push me in a certain direction, and no dreams to bring me happiness. Who I am and what I want are still two major questions I need to answer.
No, that’s not true; I want Tristano.
But I don’t want to get hurt.
Tristano eventually lifts his head and turns toward the bed, making it difficult for me to breathe. The air in my lungs halts completely when he walks over and looms just above me. I shut my eyes because I don’t think I can fool him otherwise and I force myself to inhale and exhale at a reasonable consistency, although it’s a struggle.
Just because I can’t see him, doesn’t mean I can’t feel him.
His energy, his commanding presence can be felt across the room. With a single look, this man can bring me to my knees or compel me to speak. Using my voice as much as I did earlier was strange. If such a thing is possible, I didn’t recognize it. Somehow I’d forgotten what I sounded like, the cadence of my voice, and the pitch as well. Talking to Tristano was almost natural at the end, despite my resistance in the beginning.
Even now I want to tell him something, anything that’ll take away the haunted look in his gaze whenever he mentions his mother.
Pure and unadulterated shock zooms through me when he climbs onto the bed, and that’s the only reason I remain still. Tristano surprises me further by running his fingers through the loose tendrils of my hair draped across the pillow. His proximity allows me to inhale the smell of him, a spicy, clean scent that’s pleasing to my senses. I inhale lungfuls of it greedily, just like I soak up the feel of his fingers in my hair.
I’ve never had a man touch me as though I was precious and valuable to him. It creates a hunger for something I didn’t know I wanted, but now that I do… How will I ever go back to that state of ignorance?
Do I even want to?
“I’m furious with you,ribelle,” Tristano says softly. If it weren’t for the tenderness in his voice I’d be tempted to pull away and confront him. “You came into my life and showed me things about myself that I didn’t know and don’t want to. Because now I can’t go back to the way everything was before.”
He traces the arch of my brows and then trails his index finger down my nose, his touch no lighter than a feather. It takes every ounce of determination within me to stay motionless when he outlines my mouth and the seam of my lips.
