“Calmati,” he said into my ear. His breathing came out ragged and hot. His tone warned me that he wasn’t messing around.
The sweat from his chest soaked into my shirt. The coolness of it touched my skin. I concentrated on that for a while until I went limp.
“He did not touch her!” Nino was saying, seeing the look on Brando’s face.
“No,” I said. “But I’ll touch him again if…!”
Brando pulled me in even tighter, shutting me up. Charlotte gave me a death glare, the cease-fire definitely over, and then told me in Slovenian that she regretted trusting me.
Out of all the words she had ever thrown at me over the years, those stung the worst. Trust me? What about her own betrayal, makingmelook like the loon here? Okay, so perhaps I gave enough reason for it, but the three of us—Charlotte, her husband, and me—knew why. I had gone to battle for her honor.
And she was mad atme! Never wanted to speak tomeagain!
She and I started arguing in a mixture of Slovenian, Spanish, and French, with some real unsavory English curses mixed in. Brando sighed in my ear, backing us out of the situation, the two dogs following. Rachel was, thankfully, asleep in her stroller.
Travis’s voice floated toward us, calm for all that. “We need to talk, Charlotte.”
“See!” She almost spewed fire and went to come afterme. For once, Travis manned up and grabbed his wife.
It belatedly dawned on me that Charlotte didn’t want to rock the boat with Travis because she didn’t want him to leave her—if she kept quiet, nothing was wrong.
I wondered if she even had the nerve to fire the nanny! At least my mother had fired the first ballet teacher—I swallowed that thought down, sharp ice fragments making me bleed all over again.
My parents, along with Mitch and Violet, were standing out on the porch, eyes narrowed. Eunice was inside with the kids. Delilah and Sampson ran to my father, their true north, and sat on each side of him. He patted their heads in a congenial way, not all that conscious of doing it. His eyes were trained on me. Tears welled in my mother’s eyes.
“Scarlett,” Brando whispered in my ear. “I’m putting you down.”
Translated, that meant,Don’t try it again.I’m too quick for you.
I huffed at him. Whose side was he on?
“What happened out there, lil’ darlin’?” my father asked.
I looked at my mother. “You know damn well what happened.”
“Mind your tongue,” my father said in a tone that made me feel five years old all over again.
Brando stood next to me, almost vibrating; he had never heard my father speak to me that way. He usually didn’t—not since I was little. But he had changed after the heart attack, and he knew I was close to popping the lid on the forbidden subject.
Then realization hit me square in the chest…
“Oh,” I said, turning to look at him, cheeks aflame. “She talked toyou.” I had asked her if she confided in my mother, never in my wildest dreams considering that she’d spoken to my father about her situation.
I couldn’t understand Charlotte’s train of thought, or comprehendwhyshe chose to speak tohim. Nor did I have the energy to. But keeping hush-hush was congruous to our family dynamics.
My mother looked between us but kept silent. I almost snorted.
What’s new? I thought. Unless it had to do with me or my career, she ignored, ignored, ignored. How fucked-up this all was.
I went to storm around my father, but he stopped me with a hand to my arm. He wasn’t hurting me, but he was letting me know that he meant business.
“Now listen to me, lil’ girl,” he said, keeping his voice low. “You can’t go around dictating what happens in other peoples’ marriages. That’s between two people. A husband and a wife.” He became quiet for a moment, staring at me. I refused to break first, not on this. “Keep your nose out of it, Scarlett Rose. Are we clear?”
“Crystal,” I said. “You don’t have to worry about me speaking another word on the matter,Daddy.”
Brando put a warm hand to my lower back, urging me forward. When my father noticed, he released the grip he had on my arm. I moved out of Brando’s reach as we walked toward the room.
Once there, I flung my suitcase out of the closet, preparing to leave. Brando watched, his back to one of the four posters of the bed.
