“I don't have it.” In comparison to his, my voice was lame, childish.
He waved his cigar. Then he lapsed into Italian I could understand, gambling on the fact that we were the only two with the language. He would know.
“You did not know my son was connected to Red?” He nodded toward Jane, who had been watching us with a pale face. Her father sat across from her, smoking a cigarette, a man with eyebrows and lashes so blonde that it made his hair seem orange.
I had noticed her but made a point to ignore it. Her father was in prison with Luca. Without me even directly looking at her when I first came in, Luca noticed the short exchange.
“This place brings people together,” he continued in Italian. I knew our entire conversation would take place in the language. “My son contemplated choosing her once. Though he refused the women I offered him.”
Of course, like he refused the money Luca had dangled in front of him. A rib full of meat to a starving lion. My husband had more integrity than to bite it, even when he was famished.
I turned toward him, breaking the connection between Jane and me. It was the first time I had met her eye. “He didn’t,” I snapped. Regret instantly flared inside of me. He was out to get a reaction, and I had served it to him on a platter.
“You did not know this.”
I refused to answer this time. He grinned.
“There is nothing you can do to trump me, Ballerina Girl. There was a time when I timed my enemy’s heartbeats to the moment I chose for them to die. I can hear your pulse as though it were my own.” He winked at me. “I can hear your thoughts as well. I know the direction of this conversation before you lead me down the road. But this is no matter.” He waved his hand, sending a cloud of smoke toward me.
“I know my son. He makes love to you while some romantic Italian ballad serenades you in the background. This is his surrender. When your bodies are at war, his is the victor over yours, no matter how hard you try to fight. Your body cannot win over his. He is your man. Your beast.
“Despite war or surrender, deeper than the flesh, he loves you as though you are the air that he breathes. Yet he can turn around and steal the heart from a man’s chest without a breath of hesitation.
“My son, he came from my seed. He has my build, my face, the power of my eyes. He was made from my blood and bone. A leader. All I have to do—” at this his voice went lower, became slower, and he rolled his tongue in a more sensual rhythm “—is speak to you and smile.” In the next moment, he came forward and snapped his fingers.
I blinked and moved back. The revolving eyes had hypnotized me. Even though his personality could be described as a serpent, his build was far from it. It was more like some confidant, lethal cat that only worried about finding a fat rump to take down.
“To my point. You are desperately in love with my son,” he continued in Italian. “You cannot see past his charms. You have an extreme dislike of me, and what has happened here? I caught you. He does not love Red, never has. However, love and obligation go together like this.”
Twisting his pointer and middle finger, one over the other, he lifted it to show me. Eyes closed, he took a puff of his cigar and then blew it out in a slow stream through his nose.
“My son has love for you, which also means obligation. With Red, not so. It is without strings. You have tethered him to you—a knot that cannot be undone, unless by the hand of God.”
The words he spoke were the truth.
Brando had never mentioned it to me, but why would he? And when did this contemplation happen, before we were married? Was that why he had hesitated to marry me? BecauseRedwas easy street, no strings attached, and I was the road less taken, full of strings and knots?
Something coiled way down deep in my belly, something that hissed and rattled and burned me from the inside out.
“My brother, he tells me what kind of woman you are.” He searched my face for a second. “I see this now. I like it.”
Of course, he did that on purpose, wanting to see how fired up words alone could make me. Clever, oh so fucking clever.
“I didn't come here for a lecture,” I said, attempting to keep my voice as cool as possible. Which wasn't cool at all. This man reverted me to five years old.
“You did not. However, I speak of what I want first. It is different in the bedroom. Pleasure comes first to the woman. Not at this table.” He knocked on it with his knuckle twice. “I come before you.”
“I came to see you, remember?”
“I have not forgotten, Rose.” He raised an eyebrow at me, disappearing behind a haze of smoke before reemerging. “This changes nothing.”
“Nothing,” I repeated.
“Time is precious. Tell me, daughter.”
Tell me,daughter.
Just like that, with a snap of his tongue, the words flowed out ofmymouth. “Deny my husband. If he ever comes to visit again, turn him away.”
