Her voice was so innocent that I had a hard time fighting the urge to laugh. It was like I had caught her doing something naughty but fun. Then the urge faded, and my mind started going in a few different directions. She pushed on with her explanation, maybe noticing the look on my face or the change in my mood.
“After Spataro took me, I started to hear them. I think they came out of fear. Perhaps they’re thoughts that somehow took on personalities. I’m not even sure if it’s anything, really. I just assumed everyone hears thoughts. It’s just that some of us give them personalities. Or…what if itisour ancestors, their way of directing us? If so, one of mine was real sassy.”
After a minute or two, she called my name. I had somehow gotten lost in the fact that my wife not only felt uncommon things, saw uncommon things, but was also hearing things. The “uncommon” on the latter was still out to jury. When I was able to focus on her, her lips were pinched.
“You look worried,” she said.
“I am. A little.”
Her mouth twitched. “What made you ask in the first place?” She swung the topic of conversation back to me. “You can’t hear my thoughts, can you?”
She was being altogether serious.
“I know we have an unusual connection, baby, but it hasn’t gone that far. I can usually read the thoughts on your face or feel your moods. Same as you.”
“All right.” She nodded. “Why ask me in the first place then?”
“I was asking because I had heard someone call my name that night in the snow. That’s why I got out of the car in the first place. I told you this. You came to stand in the window right before I heard it. You called me to you. But as I stood there and watched, I heard a voice—well, it wasn’t even a voice.”
This was going to be hard to describe, but I would to the best of my ability.
“The voice was just there—if that makes sense. I heard it, but it didn’t sound like anyone or anything. The voice was inside of my head. After things went quiet, a peace I had never felt before settled over my bones. It almost made me feel—” I paused for a second, thinking this through. “I had made a deal for the beginning of something, and the rest was up to me.”
She nodded but said nothing else, giving me the time to go at my own speed with this.
“Three simple words came to me.She is yours.I spent the rest of the night filling in all of the possibilities.She is yoursto protect.She is yoursto love.She is yoursto honor. Those three words held so much meaning. The experience changed me. One night, and we hadn’t even touched yet.”
She still hadn’t spoken, but I could see the wheels spinning in her head. She wouldn’t speak, not unless I asked her a question first. I did, but she was attempting to piece this together—maybe wondering why I was telling her this all of a sudden.
“I am telling you this now, Scarlett Rose Fausti, because I see the deep hurt in your eyes when you remember. How I sent you to Paris without me. How I almost fucked up the most important thing in my life—marrying you.”
I forced the emotion down so the rest of the words could come forward without a struggle.
“There’s no telling what else I’ll do, Scarlett. I’m a man. But that’s all I am. Only a man. I’ve cried for you. I’ve bled for you. My heart knows what it means to be stuck in my throat as I stand there, my hands damp from anxiety, waiting for you to perform. I’ve been drenched in sweat in the middle of making love to you, my heart so close to bursting that I could’ve sworn I had climbed the highest mountain.
“Human.Umano.With a beast inside of me that will die to see you safe—but he can still die, Scarlett. He will die with me, when it’s time. Then he’ll come back, a savage ready to ravage anyone or anything that means you harm, even worlds away. I’ve already set my mind to it.”
I took her hand and placed it over my heart.
“No matter what I do—you need to remember too.You are mine. Death can’t even take that away from me. Those words aremine. I’ve claimed them since that night in the snow. All mine. You alone. Even if you don’t remember, Scarlett Fausti, I do.
“No,” I said, taking a firmer grip on her arms. “Don’t stop looking at me now. When we were apart, I remembered that every fucking second of the day—those three words saw me through because I knew. That wasn’t the end. It never would be.
“When I was close to making the biggest mistake of my life, I still remembered, and those three words drove me back to you like the strongest fucking current I’ve ever known.She is yourskeeps my heart beating.She is yoursgives meaning to my life.She is yourskeeps me steady.Lei è tuaalways sends my heart back to yours.”
I went to kiss her, but she stopped me with a hand to my chest. “No,” she whispered. “Don’t stop looking at me now.”
“I can look at you forever. My beginning, middle, and end.”
Her eyes gazed into mine, fair to dark, day to night, so deep that I could almost feel her swimming in them. “Is that all you want to do? Look at me?”
“If it’s all we ever had, it would be enough.”
She sighed, a soft, sweet sound. She rose onto her toes, keeping her eyes on mine, and pressed her lips against my heart. “Lei è tuanon importa cosa,” she murmured.
She is yoursno matter what.
We decided the city could wait. We didn’t emerge until that night, after the stars had come out to play, and she seemed to glow brighter than all of the lights in Paris.
