I hadn’t thought of that. For the second time tonight, he came through for my wife.
“Scarlett is going to be all right?” He studied my face for a moment. “Your face has lost color.”
“Yeah,” I said, sighing. “She’s going to be okay. Sometimes when she eats things she normally doesn’t it upsets her stomach. She likes tea—with honey, lemon, and milk when it does.”
“Brando?”
Romeo jumped, the tea splashing over the sides, burning his hand. Scarlett had come up behind him and he hadn’t heard her.
“I need to speak to you. Alone,” she emphasized.
“I will—” Romeo nodded behind him toward the stairs. “Here.” He offered Scarlett the mug. “Perhaps this will settle your stomach, Sissy.”
She accepted it with thanks. As soon as he left us, the mug went over the side of the yacht, some of the tea splashing against my bare chest, carried on the wind.
I looked toward it, and then I was caught off guard. She charged me, her palms slamming against my chest. I caught her wrist a second before she slapped me across the face.
“How dare you!” she seethed, eyes colorless in the bleached light of the moon. “How fucking dare you!” She looked like an enraged goddess, with her face the color of white stone, her dark hair whipping in the wind, her temper as wild as her spirit.
I kept a firm grip on her arms. “You’re afraid of bleeding,” I said.
“This has nothing to do with that!” she hissed, trying to remove her arms from my hands. “I won’t try to hit you again.”
I nodded once, real slow, and then released her.
She came in closer, looking up at me with that defiant chin firm. “You will not treat me like property, Brando Piero Fausti! I am your wife! Am I your territory? You damn right I am! I’myours. But am I your property to give to someone else in your place? No, I won’t allow it. I will not allow you to play the hero and leave me behind.” She wasn’t even blinking. Her eyes were as hard as raw emeralds. She refused to cry.
“I see the way you look when Romeo makes me laugh. I hear you telling him my secrets, things you know about me. Like how to take care of me when I don’t feel good. The wheels are turning in your head, and I know where you’re headed. I’ve loved you too long not to.
“I willnotbe passed down. You areitfor me. No one else could ever—” Her voice broke and she cleared her throat, but her chin started to tremble. “There will be no one else. Not even to take care of me. There will not be a need for it, so you can just get that out of your thick head right now! You aremyonly husband and theonlyman for me. I amyoursalone!Solo tu!Do you understand me?”
She knew too much. A man couldn’t even have a private thought when she was around. These were uncertain times. If something were to happen to me, it put my heart at ease to know someone would look out for her.
When I knew she was through, I cleared my throat. “Yeah, my woman,” I said, voice firm, nodding once. I had no other words to answer the unanswerable. Except for the obvious. “I understand completely.”
Her trembling hands went to reach out, but they stopped midway. I reached out, but she yanked them back.
“No!” She shook her head and her hands balled into fists. “Give me your word. I am yours alone. No one else will ever take care of me.”
“You are mine alone. You belong to me. Always have. Always will.”
My answer was not good enough. We stared at each other for however fucking long—the goddess asking the human to vow a feat only her kind could deliver. She turned her back on me when the silence became too much, when the answer she sought never came, robe billowing in the salty breeze, leaving me alone with the boiling sea and the relentless tender scent of her skin, defying the ferocious strength of the wind.
Romeo was right. There was nothing like the scent of a woman.Mine. All mine.
I slid to the floor of the deck, turning my face up and closing my eyes.
The parade in Ireland starred in her nightmares, the different characters coming close to her face, alive and whispering secrets that she couldn’t remember come full consciousness. Her sudden viciousness made me wonder what she felt and why she had been hiding it from me.
* * *
After a week in Tenerife, our group was rife with turmoil and more divided than ever.
Rocco, Rosaria, and Abree kept to themselves, but were sundered amongst their own group.
Carmen and Dario spent their time together. Diego was the point of interest, but the wedding was still off. Carmen had agreed to stay in Italy so Dario could be close to Diego and she could go back to college, but that was the most she would agree to. Dario was one breath short of losing his mind.
Mitch and Valentina hardly spoke a word to each other. Violet and Mick were strained themselves, though there was no reason for it, except for Mitch being more disagreeable than usual.
