“Why?” I shouted. “Why would you send this to that…bastard!”
“Bella,” he raised his empty hand and then went to touch me.
“Don’t call me that! Don’t touch me!” I put my hands up. “Why? Tell me why!”
“I have to,” he said quietly. “You are from where he is. The situation is too much of a coincidence not to be one. You claim my last name.”
“You lied to me, Rocco.”
He placed a warm hand on my shoulder, and his eyes were more serious than I had ever seen them. “I never lie. My word is as good as my blood, Scarlett.”
Brando was deathly quiet, watching, absorbing, and I realized how the little scene between Rocco and me must have looked to him. The look on his face, as still as stone, as vacant as death, made the reaction I had to him when he was in trouble start to vibrate with an intensity bordering on insane.
I had seen it before, but…when…when…when…
I looked down, trying to think. My eyes were drawn to his pant leg.He kept a knife there. He always had one when he went under. There or on his back.
In Paris!
“No, no, no, Brando!”
I lunged myself at him, colliding with the rock wall that was his chest. I took his shirt in both of my hands, the strain of my hold turning knuckles red.
Before he killed that man that was after me…
“Listen to me.” I tried to shake him, but it was a waste of time. “You have to listen to me,mio marito.”
I could feel the pulse of his blood, of his heart, under my hands, the finality of the decision he made pushing the rhythm below the surface. His hands wrapped around my arms, and I knew his intent before he acted on it, so I held on tighter, fiercer. He wouldn’t dislodge me without a fight.
In return, he squeezed, the pressure almost making me relegate my own hold. Regardless, his hands were occupied so I seized the moment.
The words came slowly to my mind but they ran from my mouth like the river of life. “I went back to Pienza, remember? After we went? I was so lonely without you. I didn’t want to tell you because I wanted a whole man! When we returned to Italy from Natchitoches, the loneliness I felt for you seemed to close in on me, more than before. And I felt comfortable there, in Pienza. I kept dreaming of it, so I went back. Do you remember the man that gave us the package, at the deli? He thought you were someone else, but he called your name. He gave me another package because he remembered me. Afterward, I went to a pottery store and almost bought them out. I needed something—I needed to do something for you. It’s all I could think about. I hated that you came home to an apartment. That you traveled all those miles and all I could offer you was…a temporary place.
“Then Rosaria Caffi found me in the street and she took me for a ride in her Ferrari. She told me that I was too thin, that you were making me that way with too much sex. I told her that if she was married to you, she wouldn’t mind either, but then she said she had a beast of her own, but he fed her pasta to make up for it. One thing led to another and she took me to the villa.” I swallowed then, trying to fight down the bile. “I fell in love with the idea of it. Everywhere I turned I could imagine us…there. Oh God. I wanted you to be proud of me. I wanted you to come home to a place you could be proud of, until it was time to really go home. I wanted to cook for you. To give you a place you could enjoy with me. When we had to go to Vultera, it wouldn’t be much of a drive. We wouldn’t have to fly. That’s all you do! I wanted you to break the surface…with me. And when the time comes that we can finally go home, we’ll have the new place for summers. Nothing more. That’s when Rocco—"
Brando tensed so hard when I said his name that I flinched. His hold became a vice grip. More pressure and he’d snap my bones in two like twigs.
“—found me. Rosaria told him where to find me. She knew…she knows something. We had dinner, that’s all. Just dinner. It wasn’t romantic.” I finished with a plea. “Oh, just look at him!”
Brando hadn’t looked at Rocco, not truly, not once. He couldn’t get past the demon whispering in his ear, blinding him with images that would probably haunt him for a long time to come.
I rose on my feet, putting my mouth to his neck. His pulse raced hard against my mouth. “Look at him, my husband.Please.Really look at him.”
“Is he hurting you,bella?” Rocco said, eyes narrowed, coming closer.
Brando’s pulse slowed, muscle memory to that eerily calm rhythm. When he was wild, he was out of control, dangerous, a man, but when he was this calm, the true beast rose from the surface and became so pragmatic that he was lethal. The itch to strike was so close that I felt it bone deep.
All I could do was shake my head, telling Rocco to keep his distance.
“Tell me who he is to you, Scarlett.”
I almost released a sob when my husband’s voice reached me. “No, not to me.To you.”
“Tell me, Scarlett.”
How could he not see it?My God, in the light, they shared a reflection with different-colored eyes.
“He’s the one who feeds Rosaria pasta. Rocco is her husband. He’s one of your three brothers,mio marito.”
