“I don’t like it,” he said again, this time in English. He ran a finger under the thin strap of the slip, his finger warm and slightly calloused, letting it go with a soft pop against my skin. “Layers between us.”
“You’re upset about my slip?” I couldn’t see my face in that moment, but I felt the look of confusion that made my eyebrows draw down.
His tone was cool and his demeanor almost aloof. He had something on his mind. He wasn’t the type to keep it there for long when it came to me. But I could tell he thought I should know what he was upset about. Apparently, it was something other than the slip.
“Say it, Brando. Did I say something in my sleep?”
“Amante,” he said, tone ice cold.
“Lover?”
“More than one, Scarlett.”
“Wha—” Oh, what I had said to the FIAT girls. Italian lovers. Plural. Insinuating that I had more than one. I almost laughed at how ridiculous he was being, but there was a time to laugh with Brando and a time to take him seriously. He wasn’t being funny. Well, notha hafunny, at any rate. “Brando—”
He sat up, turning his back to me, putting his feet on the floor. Every one of his muscles was tense, the veins underneath his skin tightly coiled ropes, and the tick in his jaw jumped.
“I—I didn’t mean it that way,mio angelo.” I went to touch him, to put my hand against his back, but I could feel the heat radiating off his skin and decided to give him some space. “They were only words. Anyone who knows us knows the truth. You’re the only man I’ve ever been with.”
The situation with Romeo burdened him too, making him more susceptible to these sorts of moods. He couldn’t promise me what wasn’t his to give, he made that perfectly clear, but the thought of him leaving me to another man’s care, if something were to happen, ate at him like slow-moving acid.
Goosebumps rose on my arms when I remembered his face after Romeo had kissed me in Ireland and told him he was a much stronger man than him for leaving me in his care.
Since he couldn’t sleep, and probably didn’t want to think about that situation, he focused on one he felt he could control—Italian lovers. Plural.
I unwound my hair from the bun, and the strands swelled around my head in a wavy, tousled nimbus, smelling of melon and hints of eucalyptus. I slid out from behind him, my bare feet silent against the cool tiles, coming to stand in front of him.
Head down, he gazed at the floor, his lips set into a severe line. When I called his name, he looked up and I almost took a step back. I wasn’t prepared for the anger that glowed like heated coals. His eyes were so damn expressive. I could recite their meaning without having to study for the test.
“Is this what you want,mio marito?” My voice came out slow, easy, eager to please. I removed the slip, letting it fall from my fingers in a languid drop. “Nessun strato. Spoglio. A te.”No Layers. Bare. To you.
His eyes took in my body with cold appraisal, yet his raging fire was close to combustion. I breathed in and out, my chest rising and falling, my breasts yearning, almost burning for his touch. My body responded to him just from watching him watching me.“Toccami,”I whispered.Touch me.When he didn’t, I took his hand and slid it between my legs. My want for him was visible along my thighs, gleaming and slippery.“From a look. That’s all. There are nolovers. Only one. For me. You.”
He stood, towering over me, never more imposing as when he kept his rage locked up tight. He swelled with it. His body connected with mine, a solid and impenetrable figure, forcing me back, back, back, until my back hit the wall. He looked down at me for an uncountable amount of time, his breath soft and warm on my face. “What did I tell you,” he whispered, those eyes belying his tone. “What did I tell you, Scarlett? Before we were married?”
I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Not in that moment. This was not the time for some smart-ass remark or the wrong answer. It finally came to me. “You would be different with me. After we were married. I would be yours—in all the ways that count. More than before, when we were dating. You’d be more intense. We were it for each other—beginning, middle, end.”
“Right answer,” he said. “I’m the only man that has ever fucked you. The only man that ever will. You gave me a blood vow, something you can never take back, as I gave you my word.La mia parola è buona quanto il mio sangue.You’re mine. In all the ways that count and even those that don’t.”
Lothario and Bela had planned a dinner party out on the main terrace—voices started to rise, laugher came in bursts, and music tinkled in the background. Maggie Beautiful had decided to join us, but she stayed with my parents on Li Galli. She would never stay in a place that belonged to the Faustis. It went against her pride. Her voice carried then, requesting our whereabouts.
Brando leaned down a little closer, forcing my eyes down. He lifted the hand that I had put between my legs, still wet, and rubbed his fingers along his lips, then licked them.
“Get dressed,” he ordered. “The party’s already started.”
He left me alone in the room, disappearing into the bathroom to get dressed. I stared after him, coveting the heat between our bodies already.
Not for the first time, I realized that Marzio’s rage and the passion he had passed down was not what made the Fausti men dangerous to women. It was the addictive flavor of them on the tongue and in the blood. From that short interaction, my own addiction made me feel bereft of something vital. My fists curled, my heart thumped, my body cried out for the connection to race like lightning through my veins—this was his form of punishment.
I was strung out on his love, and he knew it.
* * *
I wasn’t in the mood to socialize, not after the scene in our room. Still, I put on a pleasant face and a soft lavender dress—one that Maggie Beautiful said reminded her of a Greek goddess—and worked the party.
In the beginning, Lothario took me by the arm and carted me along, my parents joining in every so often, to introduce me to a new face. It wasn’t a big affair, but it felt never ending.
Lunch had been served Italian style—family style—plates exchanged from one hand to another, discussions mostly about what we were going to do along the Almalfi Coast. Dinner was sit-down, and the monstrous table out on the terrace and the equally monstrous one inside on the other side of the glass were both filled to capacity.
