I took the opportunity to redirect Corrado’s eyes by just leaving the room.
10
Corrado
Two days after I took the ride to Modica with Alcina, Tito Sala invited a woman named Rosa to the pistachio orchard to meet me.
She spoke very little English, and as we walked, she moved her hips closer to mine, smiling shyly as she bumped me every so often. It wasn’t her eyes that had mine, though. It was the angry woman who was named after a sorceress in a poem that had me looking over my shoulder every so often.
It fucking unnerved me when she was too far away. I kept my eyes on her at all times. There was still a bounty on her head, and even if I were to order Silvio to call it off, he might agree to my face but go behind my back until she was found.
Even though Silvio and I were friendly, tension ran high between us after my grandfather said he would give me his blessing to run thefamiglia. If Silvio knew how I felt about Alcina, he might do it just to spite and weaken me.
“Your family is very powerful, I hear,” Rosa said, smiling at me. She touched her neck. “You will buy me jewelry?”
“I’m a poor farmer in America,” I said. “I have nothing.”
That was far from the truth.
Rosa stopped walking. After a few steps, I did, too. She picked up a second later, walking beside me again, but her hips were on the opposite side of the worn path, no longer bumping me.
I nodded to Rosa and her family when we came to the central villa, where her people waited for us to return from our walk. I kept walking until I was back in the orchard, straps around my neck, ready to fill my bucket. The sun had started to make its way to the horizon. I only had an hour or two left to work.
Even after it became dark, though, there would be some light still left. Red lava spilled from Mount Etna. It shot out, like a woman spewing curses from her mouth, and then ran down the side.
A bump stronger than anything Rosa had given me made my bucket rattle. Alcina stormed passed me, and when I called her name, she turned around, walking backwards. She lifted her arms. “Mi scusi,” she said, her tone as fired up as the fucking volcano.
The group of women she walked with turned their heads at her tone. The men kept looking between us, trying to mind their business but not.
We could have an audience. I’d taking a fucking bow once this was over.
I grabbed her by the arm when she turned her back on me. She tried to yank it out of my hold, but I held on, dragging her toward a more secluded area. A manicured grove with a manmade path through the trees, which were evenly spaced. Not balanced on crooked lava rock.
As soon as I let her go, she went to storm off, cursing me in Sicilian as she did, waving her hands wildly in the air.
Before she could get far, I grabbed her by the shoulders, turning her around, her back slamming against a pistachio tree when she tried to move away from me.
Her eyes rose up to meet mine in defiance when I put both arms around her waist, locking her in. Her chest heaved like she’d run a marathon. Her breath washed over my face. Her fingers were curled into fists at her sides.
If I stared into her eyes for too long, my angel eyes, she fucking possessed me. My mouth slammed against hers, and her hands fisted into my hair, her leg coming up to wrap around mine. I ran my hand under her dress, feeling her hot skin against my palm as I cupped her ass.
All of a sudden, this woman was both the center of my world and the bane of my existence. A vice and a visceral need. She was stubborn and willful. Fucking wild, like she was made from the moon, and that madness moved through my blood like nothing ever had before.
It was one of those warring things that were total opposites but couldn’t live without each other. I never wanted to have her, but I was desperate to keep her.
She moaned into my mouth, her hands fisting in my shirt, and then she pushed me away as hard as she could. She couldn’t move me with physical strength alone, but when she said the word, “No!” I took a step back.
Her hand trembled as she set it over her mouth. She shook her head. “What is going on between us? I don’t understand it. I don’t know you, but somehow I have known you my entire life. I know you have come to drag me back to hell, and you probably will, but I do not mind the thought of going with you. Because when you kiss me, when youtouchme, you take me to heaven, too.”
She stared at me for a minute, and then she shook her head and lifted both hands. “But I cannot do this. I cannot be envious when you walk with another woman. I cannot think about you with her and want to claw her eyes out. Yours, too! The thought of you marrying that—thatwoman burns me deeper than the lava on that mountain.” She flung a hand toward it.
“You are notmineto keep, Corrado Alessandro Capitani, but my soul tells me you are! You aremine. But how can I keep you, when it will start nothing but trouble? Not just for me, but for you.”
She went to run away from me, but just as she could push me back with one word, I could stop her with one, too.
“Alcina,” I said.
She stopped, keeping her back to me.
