“Give it back!” I went to snatch at it again.
He refused. So I jumped on his back, holding on like an octopus. (Part of it was that I didn’t want him to leave me in the water alone.) But it was like trying to stop a rolling boulder in its downward path—useless to even try. He carted us both toward shore, reading the book as we went. Loudly.
“‘But I—'” he made his voice sound breathy “—‘I don’t know how to please you, Mercutio!’Shera exclaimed. She gazed down at his impressive length—impressive!” He added in a voice more like his own. Then he started to laugh so hard that we both shook. “His th-th-thunderous thighs could c-crack w-w-walnuts!”
“You aresowrong for this, Brando Fausti,” I muttered into his back, embarrassed that he knew I had been reading that.
Able to regain his breath, he continued on. “‘But you are what pleases me, Maggie Beautiful’—” He stopped dead. I could imagine his eyes flying over the page. “Hold up. That’s not her name,” he said almost to himself. “What happened to Shera?” He flipped the pages back and forth, realizing Maggie Beautiful had scratched out Shera’s name in her favorite spots and added hers, along with Luca instead of Mercutio.
“I tried to save you from it!” I almost screeched, not knowing whom to be more embarrassed for—me, because I had become so used to it that when I saw the pen marks, I ignored them, or Maggie Beautiful, because she had done it, or Brando. He was her son, after all. And she had been using the book to fulfill her fantasies, including his father in the whole torrid affair. “She did it before—before Aberto started coming around,” I added, lame even to my own ears.
I didn’t admit it out loud, but sometimes I wondered…if Luca returned, what would she do? Would she yearn to be with him again? A little voice in my mind whispered,yes, she would. She still pined after him, going as far as writing his name in romance novels. His name was in more than one.
Brando threw the book on shore as though it suddenly scorched his hands. It landed in a flurry of pages and white sand. “She’s nuts.Assolutamente noci!”
I smiled at this. It was true. She was.
“Do you really enjoy reading that—stuff?” He waved a hand toward the discarded romance, using a more pleasant word for the one he really wanted to use.
“It’s something to read. I prefer love stories with more meat to their bones.” He laughed at this and I flicked his ear. “But I didn’t really pack my things—my head was still fuzzy. Eunice packed practical, Violet sexy—this bikini, for example—and that was Maggie Beautiful’s contribution. The book. She knows I love to read. I’ve always enjoyed romance novels.”
“You don’t remember a lot from that time.” His comment came out pleasant enough, but there was an edge to it that he attempted to soften.
“I remember certain things, but not everything.Hey!” I realized that he was going for the deep end again.
“Stay with me, baby. We both have too much on our minds to be alone. I vow I won’t let anything happen to you.” He kissed my hands. “I did some recon work. All safe.”
“All right, but can we stay in the shallows? For now?”
“Waist deep.”
“Deal.” I kissed his neck. He was faintly salty but totally delicious.
“Tell me why you did it then.”
“Did…?”
“Allowed Rocco to touch you after you sent me away.”
Oh, the cause of his rage and me coming to my senses.It was still on his mind.
My heart fell and my stomach dipped. I felt as though I had missed an invisible step. Brando stopped moving and the water was quiet around us, anticipating my answer too. I wanted to see his face, to look him in the eye, so I moved around to his front, my legs still wrapped around his waist, my arms around his neck. My hat shielded us both from the glare of the sun. It was wide-brimmed and floppy, a red hibiscus pinned on the rim.
“I’ve bled for it.” He shrugged. “The truth. Because I can’t seem to stop bleeding.”
“That’s all I’m prepared to give you,” I whispered. I touched his cheek lightly, my hand wet, so cool against the warmth of his skin. A light dusting of black hair was starting to shadow his face. “I—I was so mad at you. Not for what happened. But for not wanting to give me another—another baby.”
“He wants them.”
I nodded. “That’s not why I let him do it though. He was there. It could’ve been Dario or Romeo or Donato. I wanted to—hurt you back.”
He rested his forehead against mine. “You did. And you do. I—”
“I know,” I said, kissing him. “You’re enough for me. We’re enough.”
“You would be a wonderful mother, Scarlett.”
His words hit me square in the heart and attached themselves like blood vessels. It took me quite a while to respond. I couldn’t get past the lump that formed in my throat. Brando watched my face while he explored the area, keeping me close.
