Wanting him all the same, the moment became sweet surrender.
His lips found my neck, and his hands came around my waist, pressing me into him as though he wanted to absorb me into his skin. He spoke in Italian, a drunken slur to his words, but he cut his heart open, whispering all of the things he couldn’t say to me face to face. Tears collected on my pillow, but he didn’t notice. He was in a place between whiskey-induced sleep and despair.
If morning didn’t come soon, I wasn’t sure if I could leave him. Understanding this, and taking pity, daylight seemed to come with a fast blowing wind. With it, I slipped out of the bed quietly and dressed in complete silence. Black blazer, a thin, white long sleeved shirt underneath, skinny jeans, and a pair of high black heels. I snatched a plaid scarf from my bag, muttering irate things, tying it around my neck. Brando had made marks on me again. In consequence, my ensemble was ready for autumn.
Thank God Scotland is first on the itinerary.
I opened the bathroom door and took a quick step back. Brando stood in the doorway, his arms above his head, braced against the doorframe, leaning in. I eyed him from head to toe. My husband was shirtless, sweatpants hanging off his hips, the band of his boxer briefs showing. The longer strands of his black hair fell into his face. The urge to fix them made my fingers twitch.
The watch was still on his wrist. He stared me in the eye for a moment before his gaze dropped to the cross around my neck. He fiddled with the pendent for a moment before slowly pulling his hand away. Even through the fabric, the softness of his touch lingered. “Potresti lasciarmi senza un bacio?”Could you leave me without a kiss?
Though I wore high heels, I still had to stand on my toes to reach his cheek. I placed a soft kiss there and then attempted to sidestep him.
He shook his head. His arms became bars, his body the cell, and his eyes the prison.
“Guardami.” The word was spoken softly, but underneath held the power of the command. I was powerless not to follow. I looked up, blinked a few times, and willed myself to stay upright and not collapse against him.
“I don’t like this, Scarlett Fausti,” he said. “Not one fucking bit.” In that moment his mouth became a magnet. A shiver tore over me at the way my name sounded on his lips in Italian—Scarllllett Fowsti.
“Me either,” I said, meeting his eyes again.
He wasn’t expecting that. He blinked at me in astonishment, and then his eyes narrowed into suspicious slits, making his strong features stand out even more. He refused to say it, perhaps couldn’t, but he wanted me to. I could feel him pulling the words from me.Then why should we separate?
I refused to say it. So did he. We both knew the answer. Spinning wheels, that was all we were doing. “I have to go,” I whispered, putting a hand to his chest. His heart was beating so fast, it seemed like he had run a marathon.
He wasn’t going to allow me to leave though, not until he said it was time to go. His movements were slow, done on purpose, and the kiss he gave me was soft at first, until it became a wild thing. He took me fast and hard against the counter, ordering me not to look away from him, sending me off into the world with more brands upon my skin.
As I dressed again, he watched me and then pulled a black bankcard from his back pocket.
“Use this,” he said, handing it to me. “Nothing else.”
I set it on the counter while fixing the scarf again. “What is it?”
“Our new account.”
This made me pause.
“I put the money back into our other joint account for our villa in Tuscany. And I paid off the mortgage on Snow.”
“What?”
“The investments I made paid off—completely.”
I held on to the counter. “Brando—what company did you—”Oh. I paused, my brain finally catching up. Not a business, per se, but a person. “Captain?”
His mouth twitched. “Yeah, Captain.”
Oh, now-billionaire Captain O’Malley. He was a treasure hunter with the luck of the Irish running through his blood. Captain O’Malley had found one of the biggest pearls in the world. The pearl was worth a hundred million, and that wasn’t counting everything else he had come across recently.Luck finds luck, like money goes to money.Which meant…Brando was an extremely wealthy man. This separate from the investments he shared with Rocco.
Why did the news make me feel like another part of our life had disappeared? It hollowed me out. We were—I clenched my fists—becoming my parents, moving farther and farther away from the simple life we envisioned in Natchitoches.
Snatching the few things left on the counter—brush, lipstick, moisturizer, perfume—and stuffing them in my bag, I flew past him. I left the card on the bathroom counter.
All of the women had already started to pile into the hired car that would drive us to the private airport. Since I was the last to get in, I was in line to see the rearview mirror. The car pulled from the curb and got halfway down the street when I saw him running after me.
I hit the seat. “Stop! Stop the car!”
“What now?” Rosaria practically screeched.
