I would never lie to her, but I didn’t want a repeat of that situation either. And I was still so fucking mad at her—this could quickly escalate. Especially if she made the same sort of flippant remark she had then. She had a tongue like a lash. “I didn’t need her to make me feel like a man or remind me that I am one. Or even make me one. She was too late for that. When I was eight, one of the punks that came around for Maggie Beautiful made the mistake of calling me a boy—he was a rude son of a bitch in general. I told him to say it to my face again and then took out my baseball bat. I knew then. Even before then. Even if I had some growing to do.”
Soft laughter caught my attention. Two of Scarlett’s distant cousins—or were they married to her cousins?— made their way through the courtyard, heels clacking against stone as they whispered and giggled.
Scarlett barely glanced at them, until one of them smiled at me and waved. The other cousin made a comment that she could hear:“Dannazione.Lui sta bene.” Damn. He’s fine.
They were drunk, and from the playful tone of their voices, were messing around. Still, my wife’s mood flared, and the heat behind her eyes rose to volcanic temperatures.
I turned her to me and, cutting off another gasp, kissed her until she couldn’t breathe. “You’re not jealous of them,” I whispered on her lips after pulling back. “They’re jealous of you.Capisci?”
“I understand.” Her words came out slow, soft, as drunk as she was. To further prove my point, she swayed, staring up at me as though she saw me for the first time.
“Come,” I said, leading her to a bench underneath an arbor in front of the garden. Roses clung to the wooden grotto over our heads, perfuming the air. Bees buzzed around, every so often whizzing in and out of the leaves. Honeysuckle and lemon came to me from a distance, maybe even a hint of lavender. It grew wild in Italy.
She sighed as I sat her down and then took a seat next to her. “I’m not jealous,” she mumbled. “Not really. I just—” She let out a huge breath that was one hundred proof. “Hey! Areyoujealous? Is that why you want to pound every man that looks at me?”
I almost laughed at her tone—it was comical, compared with theaha!look on her face. “No.” I bit my lip, trying to stifle it. “I’m jealous of no man. You’re mine. My sword has clashed with a lot of other swords for that honor. I know how men think, though, and I don’t like it when they think things about my wife. It messes with my head.”
She made a gruff noise at this, almost a snort. I think she intended it for the “I know how men think” part of my comment, but since I tried to avoid a battle, I let it rest. “Besides,” I said, waving a hand, inadvertently shooing a bee off with it. “Trouble follows you wherever you go. Putting a stop to it before it starts is my only hope of survival.”
“Hmph!” She crossed her arms and stuck her nose up.
“Don’t get huffy with me,” I said, attempting to mimic the noise. “Tell me about the winery in France. Tell me who took you.”
She went to stand, but her head and legs must’ve had a difference of opinion. She sat back down, taking the same defensive stance as before. “How do you know thatanyonetook me?”
She was attempting to egg me on, knowing that I had someone following her back then, while she was in Paris. Her curiosity came when she wondered why I hadn’t brought it up before.
“Tell me, Scarlett.”
To her credit, she played along. I listened to her story without interrupting, and only made an agreeable noise when she called her perception of men and their intentions obtuse, which didn’t earn me any points. I wasn’t looking for any, not at the moment.
A dancer had tried to set Scarlett up with her brother. Wanting to impress her, he had taken her to a winery. She didn’t say all of that, she kept to the basics, but I knew.
“That’s it,” she ended the story, opening and closing her hands.
“No.”
Her cheeks flamed. I could see the embers below the transparency of her skin—skin like gossamer wings.
“No—” She stopped and huffed out a breath, almost in anoh,what the hell gesture. “He asked me on a date.”
“You said yes.”
“I did.”
All right. Now we were getting somewhere.“Go on. Don’t keep me in suspense.” My voice was hard, cold, and she built her defenses even higher.
She raised a hand toward the roses. “Those stopped me. Well, notthose,” she amended. “The roses you sent me every month. On the eleventh, which would have been our anniversary, whichisour anniversary. Remember?” she added, her voice going warm and soft.
“I remember.” The tone of her voice melted some of the ice in mine.
She looked down at her hands and toyed with the dark polish on her nails. “The bouquet of roses came that morning—the morning of the date. He had asked me to go out to dinner with him, after the trip to the winery. I was…so lonely. I didn’t realize it, not until after the day was over. But after the roses came—” She shrugged. “I called him and told him I couldn’t.”
Of course, I knew about all of this too. The man that had been following her had reported it back to Pnina. It had almost cost me my sanity, but at the time, I waited it out to see if she would go after the roses came.
She hadn’t.Forethought and roses are friends to most men.
“Scarlett,” I said softly. “Guardami.”Look at me.
