Burgess gave me a warm kiss on the cheek before he helped Eunice into her coat, and the pair trudged off into the snow to make arrangements for their wedding day. Eunice’s giggle meandered all the way down the street.
The house suddenly seemed empty, though Maggie Beautiful and Aberto were upstairs, along with more men, and the ones downstairs.
“No one can prepare you for how hard it is to be an adult,” I said, leaning over to pick up a few shards of glass.
I couldn’t even comprehend all that we had been through in a twenty-four-hour period, the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. We were back to high—Eunice had sacrificed her entire life to take care of my family and me. She deserved this.
She deserves this!I yelled at myself. I should be happy for her. No. I should be over the moon for her. But this change meant something else for me. I attempted to shove it to the back of the darkest closet where “too hard to deal with” things got shoved.
“Leave the mess, Scarlett.”
“No.”
“I said leave the mess.”
“No!” I picked up a shard too hard, being reckless in my hardheadedness, and the broken glass sliced right through my skin. A scar was still on the same hand from a shard that had cut me years ago, before I left for Paris.
“Fuck me,” he said, coming to take my hand. I tried to pull away, but he held tight. “You couldn’t leave the mess. If you’d just listen to me—for fucking once—this wouldn’t have happened.”
I shoved at him and a few droplets of blood stained his cream-colored Henley. “Say it, Brando! Just say it! You’ve been harboring the feelings ever since the ass said it. Let’s hear it.”Because dealing with your hard is better than dealing with my hard at the moment.
“That I’m the devil’s son? It’s the truth.” He took me by the arm and just about dragged me into the kitchen.
When cold water made contact with the slice, a hiss slipped from my lips. Blood started to turn the water red, and it moved around the stainless steel in whirls.
“I don’t think you’re going to need sutures,” he said, accessing the severity of the cut. “Or maybe a few butterfly stitches.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
“You’re not going to pass out, are you?”
“No,” I said, but it came out breathless.
He wasn’t convinced. His hold on me grew stronger.
I concentrated on getting one breath out at a time while he held my hand under the stream. After he turned off the water, the air seemed to sting the cut even more than the water had. Brando searched in the cupboards for bandages and antiseptic ointment.
“Upstairs, in our bathroom,” I told him. “The men have some in their bathrooms, too.”
He called Guido on the house system and told him to get them. While we waited, we were both silent.
Scott Stone had touched a nerve. Brando wasn’t the kind of man to coast through life on other people’s opinions. He had enemies and he had friends—enemies because he stood for something, friends because he was loyal enough to stand behind them come what may. His men would die for him. But neither friend nor foe’s opinion altered his life.
Except for one man.
Brando had always had an issue with Luca. I could never figure out if it was because he truly despised his own blood, or because he despised the fact that he couldn’t change who he was. Not because he didn’t want to be Brando Fausti, but because his father was the one who dictated his steps, no matter how hard he tried to separate himself.
It wasn’t uncommon for someone who knew Luca to compare the two and to go on and on about how much alike they were, and by all accounts, Luca wasn’t someone easily forgettable, because of his ruthless nature. I knew my husband’s heart as well as I knew my own. All that mattered to me was that he loved me—the rest made no difference to me.
“I don’t want to fight, Brando,” I whispered. I opened my eyes to find him watching me.
“Tell me what’s on your mind.”
“You.”
He came in close, closed his eyes, and kissed my forehead.
Guido came in, gave a whistle when he saw my hand, and then set the items out on the counter. A call came from downstairs and he left to investigate.
