Lack of a response had her turning on her heel, snatching her husband’s shirtsleeve and yanking him toward the door. The group hovering around the entrance to the kitchen hastily moved out of her way. She was a locomotive when she was in a temper.
Travis came back a moment later, and from the looks on the faces around, Charlotte waited for him right outside of the door. He took his son from my arms, and I froze when he put a hand on my shoulder. I could feel Brando’s dislike and the look on my mother’s face—suspicious.Would she think something of it? I would be powerless to stop that locomotive too, I thought.
“She doesn’t mean it,” Travis whispered before he squeezed my shoulder and then headed toward the stairs.
Father Zullo made a noise, indicating that the attention in the room needed be shifted toward him. He thanked Eunice with a pat on the hand after she delivered him a steaming cup of hot espresso and a cannolo. She had taken one from the box I had packed for Lothario to take home.
Father Zullo took a deep drink, almost gulping it down. “Ah, I do not mind being in the company of all you wonderful people.” He took another scalding drink. “However, ah, it is very late. I should perhaps council the couple before their wedding.” He gave them a pointed look. “You are still to be married?”
“Sì,” came their eager responses.
“You do that,” Brando said, taking my arm and almost lifting me up. “I need to speak to my wife in private.”
* * *
Rocco made what I thought was supposed to be a tête-à-tête between Brando and me a party instead.
Brando led me to the dining room, in search of privacy, but had motioned for Rocco to follow. Both of them stared at me with expectant looks.
“He told me he was in love with me!” I blurted. “When I was in Paris, while you were in the Coast Guard. B-before you came back for me.” This last part came out lame, much quieter than the first part of my declaration.
Brando leaned against the cabinet full of dishes, arms crossed, legs the same. Rocco sat on the stones before the fireplace, his arms on his knees, and his legs spread open. The expectant looks they both wore soon turned into incomprehension, and then incomprehension melted into wariness.
“Chi,bella?” Rocco asked, opening and closing his hands.
I didn’t like the way he askedwho. It was a simple enough word, but not when he said it in that particular way. Rocco’s tongue could move like a beautiful creature, until it reared up and struck you with a poisonous blow.Whobeing the recipient of the fangs. The two brothers were almost identical, by more than anything physical.
Still, I stood taller.What? Did I have to answer to two men now?
“Travis,” Brando answered for me.
We stared at each other for some time.
“That’s not why I wanted to talk to you, baby,” Brando said, breaking the silence.
“It’s not?” I felt for a seat at the table, throwing myself into it. I realized then how tired I was.
“No.” He took one knee in front of me. He took my hands in his. “I knew about Travis. That he came to see you in Paris.”
“You did?”
His lips twitched. He was trying not to laugh!
“Yeah. He told me.”
“When?”
“Right before he married Charlotte.”
“You didn’t tell me?” As soon as the words were out, I knew I shouldn’t have said them.
He used those same words against me. “You didn’t tell me.”
“I wanted to keep the peace,” I said in my defense. “He was marrying my sister. I didn’t need—” I lifted one shoulder and then let it fall.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, kissing my hands. “He told me what you told him in Paris—how you turned him down because you said there was only one man you could love.”
Of course. He had someone following me in Paris, reporting to him my every move. Except when it came to Nemours. That one had slipped past him because the man Brando had hired was too afraid of both sides to pick one.
