“You don’t scare me, Scarlett Rose.” He seized my arm, not enough to hurt, but enough to get my attention. “The connection does. What we share runs deep.”
“Would you rather it be one-sided?”
“I’d rather it just be me who felt it.”
My eyes found his. “It worked out between them, you know. Despite their differences. Despite the backlash they faced from his parents. From society. This was their safe place, their secret place. It made all of the difference. For them to create roots that couldn’t be dislodged.”
Something in his eyes—was it pleading?—told me to look deeper, that perhaps coming from two different worlds was not the entire problem. What else could it be? If I asked him, there was no doubt that he’d answer with the blunt truth, but what then? Would the truth make him retreat behind his wall again?
I plunged ahead, not knowing, but vowing to make it right.
“After the storm had burnt itself out, they moved into town, but they always came back here to reconnect. After my grandfather passed away, he knew my grandmother would come here, and this is what she found.”
Their place, the place he loved to take her, immortalized through her flowers and his poetry. He had arranged it prior to his death. After hers, it was his law that whoever was next in line to receive this property had to take care of it, but not touch the integrity of it.”
“Do you feel safe here, Scarlett?”
“I feeltheirlove when I’m here. I feel safe in the abandoned house—the one we slept at. It feels like home to me.”You feel like home to me.
Feeling the shift in his mood, I steered the conversation in a different direction.
“You wanted to talk to me,” I said, my voice soft. “What about?”
“From now on, it’s just me and you.”
The misty rain had collected on his lashes, making them shine jet-black. He gazed at me, no humor, only intensity.
“You belong to me, Scarlett. Mine. Beginning. End.”
“Are you all mine, Brando Fausti?” I felt his answer, knew it before he had the chance to speak, but a part of me wanted to hear the words come from his mouth.
“Always.”
“All right,” I whispered.
“I have one condition.”
“No conditions.” I shook my head. “But you can ask.”
What a novel concept to a man like him.
“Dance for me again.”
He skipped over the question and went straight to the demand. This would be our give and take. But surrender came without regret this time, and the truth flowed like falling rain.
“I have always danced for you, I will always dance for you, for however long you want me to.”
Chapter Nineteen
Scarlett
Pnina Poésy, also known as my mother, orMati, once told me that those who have to strive to become what their hearts desire are not in jeopardy of ever taking advantage.
“They know what it is to suffer for their love.” Those who are born with the talent, though, are in the greatest jeopardy. “Although they have to work, they do not know what it is to yearn, and therefore they are subject to indifference, smugness, and they do not appreciate what they have.”
She said this to me because I was often flippant about my training. There was never an ounce of nervousness about what my body could do. Instinct told me I could do it, my body backed up the claim, and that which comes easy is just that.Easy.
My struggle always came in the darkness, when the hours spent doing what never had the power to complete me returned in painful, slow seconds.Is this it?I would think, my heart in panic.Is this all there is to life?The beating pulse in my purple and blue—bloodied—feet was a sad reminder that,yes,this is your entire life. And had been, for as far back as I could remember.
