He held out a hand after he was done, and the two men shook, forearms flexing with the motion.
“You are going to visit the sheep farm today,” Luca said after they pulled apart.
Brando shook his head, then looked down at me. “No. We’re cancelling.”
“What?” I blinked up at him. “Why? I’m fine. Mia would love to see them.”
He sighed, running a tender finger along my collarbone. The move made me shiver in earnest.
“If you want,” he said.
“I want,” I whispered in Italian.
Luca cleared his throat. “Another moment alone with your wife, son.”
Brando’s eyes snapped up at this. Luca opened his a little wider. Brando left with more reluctance a minute later. He wasn’t going far though. I could feel him close. He probably stood right outside of the door.
“What is it, Rose?”
My eyes snapped up to meet his.
“How did you know?” I breathed.
“How do I know a woman’s ring size? Or her dress size? Any woman.” He smiled at me. “I know the routes of a female’s body as well as I know my own heart.I know.”
I rustled the course pages of the Bible with my fingertip, the paper making an almost silent fanning noise. I placed my palm against the cover, as though I were about to submit my testimony in church.
“Use me as bait to capture Giulio Cesare, after my son is born.”
My father-in-law sat on the edge of the desk for a minute or two, no response except for the stare he aimed at me.
If I were a nervous woman, I would have repeated myself for the sake of breaking the tension, so that he would be forced to acknowledge my request.
I wasn’t an anxious woman. I knew exactly what I wanted, and I aimed to get it.
Finally, a sigh escaped his lips. “Tell me, what will your husband think of this plan.”
He knew exactly what my husband would think of this plan. He just wanted me to voice it. Then there would be no denying the fact that I’d been working behind his back to put this plan into motion once the words were spoken and couldn’t be taken back.
“He would kill me before Giulio Cesare got the chance.” I shrugged. “But this is not the first time someone tried to kill me, known intentions or not, and I’m sick of it. If they hurt me, they hurt my husband. If they kill me…” I didn’t need to repeat myself.
“Ah,” he said. “My son decided to tell you Red’s request of me.”
“Red?”
“The girl in that small town. She is obsessed with my son. This is why she wanted me to have you killed.”
I struggled to keep my face even. Jane Jones had wanted to have me killed? Brando hadn’t told me that. I tried to relax my tight knuckles so Luca wouldn’t see, but his eyes grew hard on my face.
“I wonder at times,” he murmured. “Lothario. He could never see, even when the truth was written on the palms of his hands. To not send men into battle to save a woman, a creature as enigmatic as yourself, is plain sinful. Ettore is too headstrong. His beliefs are his beliefs and cannot be changed unless by an act of God. He believes you to be astrega, an enchantress who has cast her spells on all our men. It would be easy for me to believe him. If I was not a man to know the truth of things.”
He stood from the desk, putting his hands behind his back, going to the window. He stared out, a thoughtful look coming over his face.
“It is no secret,” he said after a minute or two. “Nor is it witchcraft, as my brother has fooled himself into believing.”
The longer he kept me in the office, the stronger the blood hummed in my veins in an almost vicious chant. Brando started to become restless, and I was starting to become overheated.
“You are simply a good woman, my daughter,” Luca finally said, continuing in Italian. “A rose that could survive the most savage of winters.”
