Only after some sweet persuasion on his part would she take a step back. “Are you sure?” She kissed his hand.
“Yeah, I’ll do it. It’s my responsibility. Get some sleep.”
She shook her head, tears glistening in her eyes, and scuttled toward her room.
I stopped him from cleaning up. It was an argument, but when I snapped, he went to get me the broom. He sensed that I was close to a breakdown. Once the mess was all cleaned up, we started toward our room.
Brando kept me pressed to his side, and I teetered a bit. At the landing of the steps, he stopped, back to the window. He opened his arms for me, and I went to him, wrapping my arms around his neck, my legs around his waist, like a spider monkey. That’s what he called me sometimes.
His eyes didn’t meet mine, looking instead toward the darkness leading to our room.
I closed my eyes, kissed his neck, tugged on his earlobe with my teeth, and then found his mouth, kissing him softly. “Let me wear you out,” I breathed. We both swayed toward exhaustion, but the high of the night had us in its clutches—we both needed the release.
He continued to look toward the shadows, his eyes not able to penetrate the void beyond. He couldn’t escape me, not the way he held me, so I forced him to meet my eye, holding his head in my hands, my fingers splayed like spider legs. “Is my beast afraid of the night?” I whispered.
“Your beast is only terrified of a night without you in it,” he whispered, his dark eyes glistening with pent-up emotion.
I rested my forehead against his. “My beast fears no one or nothing,” I said with conviction.
“Is that how you feel? You fear no one or nothing?”
I moved away from him. It sounded like he needed the confirmation. More than needed, he yearned for it. “No one or nothing, not when you’re beside me,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere without you. I made my choice.”
He nodded and started moving, whispering things in my ear that made me shiver. When we came to the threshold of our door, I told him to wait.
“Good night, Charlotte,” I said, wriggling my fingers at her. She hid in the darkness, eavesdropping like the rodent she was.
She began to curse me in Spanish, but before things could get too heated, Brando shut the door behind us with a softclick.
Chapter Eleven
Brando
Scarlett considered the last dance of the season to be one of the most important—equal to the first. She had told me that if the first was giving them a taste, the end was dessert. She hoped it lingered in their minds long after the curtain came down for the final time.
I couldn’t understand why I said it, knowing how important tonight was to her. Or, more precisely, why I chose that particular moment, an hour or so before she went on, to tell her that I’d be leaving in two weeks. It was time to lure Ettore out and finish our business once and for all. Then Nemours.
The plateau had finally been reached. It was now or never. Visions of a beating heart, healthy as can be, but with long black veins searching for a way in, haunted me. I needed to cut them all off before damage could be inflicted.
She gave me a stare that could crack ice and then turned her back on me. Her silence screamed,later,this is not over. She looked toward the mirror, refusing to look at or speak to me again. Basically, she sent me out to the audience to wait with everyone else. She couldn’t deal with what I had just said.
On the way to my seat, I gave a nod toward the security backstage—security put in place to keep an extra eye out for my wife. They were there to keep her from feeling too caged in, since Rocco’s men fringed the outskirts, but every ten minutes or so, they did a sweep and connected with the lead security person for an update.
A few dancers who were huddled together, all dressed in period costumes, spoke in low whispers as I passed.
“His father isLuciousFausti.”
One spoke too low for me to hear.
“No, that is Scarlett’s husband—don’t even try it. I doubt he would even stop to talk to you!”
Their giggles followed me, all the way out of the chaos of backstage, melting into the noises that came from a waiting audience. It was a packed house.
Scarlett’s family was in attendance, along with mine, and Violet, Mitch, and Mick. Even Eunice had come, bright-eyed and overly excited to see Scarlett like she hadn’t seen her in years—on stage and in a major production.
A few people who recognized me stopped to shake my hand. They had to tell me how brilliant my wife was, howjustremarkable, and that they had seen the performance more than once because she was justthatmesmerizing. Talk usually turned to the technical side of things, someone seated next to them offering their opinion, and that’s when I moved along.
I didn’t get far before Everett stopped me, a subtle nod toward a line of men sitting on the opposite side of the aisle. He signed the word forpervert.
