“Wrong,” I repeated.
“Your hand—” She nodded toward it. Then she went in for the kill on her lashes. “It’s over your heart.”
I hadn’t realized I had placed it there. I didn’t respond, only watched as she finished up her work.
“What is it about makeup that fascinates you?” she asked after she was done with her face. She found her perfume and spritzed some on.
“It’s not makeup,” I said, clearing my throat. I must’ve swallowed some of the scent. “It’s you.”
“Me?” She reached for the traveling case she carried, about to slip on the bangle bracelets and watch I had given her as gifts from the private Fausti family jeweler.
I stopped her, taking one bracelet and slipping it on, followed by the watch, and then another bracelet. I fiddled with the jewelry for a second, my fingertips making contact with her skin.
“Me?” she asked again, but this time her voice came out softer. She had caught my mood and was curious.
“Tu,” I said, not meeting her eye.You.
“Is—” She stopped and placed her hand over mine, stopping me from turning the bracelet around her wrist. “It’s this place, isn’t it? The last time we were here—this feels a bit like déjà vu, doesn’t it? It’s almost coming full circle.”
“Yeah.”
I caught her grin. “I was worried last time, worried that you’d stop wanting me, remember? Because we couldn’t seem to get enough of each other.”
Her smile grew, but her eyes glazed over with tears.
“You had just asked me to marry you. Well, in your own way. I thought that if we kept it up, at that rate, we’d exhaust something. I wanted to be that way forever with you. Not able to leave without wanting to rush back to the bedroom, or just being immersed in the solitude of us and feel that nothing was missing. I was afraid of the same thing on our wedding night. I wanted our lives to stay that way forever. I never wanted you to stop feeling for me the way you did that day.”
I lifted her chin with my finger. “Has anything changed, Scarlett?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
We stood locked in silent battle. Something had changed—with her? I willed my eyes to dig even deeper into hers, and when things became too intense for her, she tucked a piece of hair behind her ear.
“You want me even more,” she said after she had put me through a few minutes of hell.
“You are a wicked creature, Scarlett Rose Fausti.” I took her by the arms and brought her mouth to mine.
“Three names,” she breathed against my lips. “But I’m no more wicked than you are, Brando Piero Fausti.”
I released her some to see the look on her face. She remembered the good times, but she hadn’t forgotten what had been done either. I had almost ruined the best thing to ever happen to me.
Just months before our wedding, I started to pull away from her. As easy as it was to blame Luca for persuading me that she was better off without me, I couldn’t. I was a man and responsible for my own mistakes.
I wrapped my arms around her, not allowing her to put space between us. “Do you ever hear voices?”
She had gone slack when I kissed her; she stiffened then. “Hear voices?Me?”
“Stop answering a question with a question.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What makes you ask?”
“Tell me, woman.”
“How do you know that I hear them?”
“I didn’t. Until just now.” My eyes narrowed in return. “Does this have anything to do with seeing ghosts? Are you hearing them now?”
“I—no! It’s just that.” She blew out a frustrated breath. “When people who want to kill us start coming around, I start to hear voices—I guess they’re my own? They range from scared, to snarky, to commanding.”
