He paused, thinking this over. “Yeah,” he said. “I can live with that.”
“Or not.” I smiled.
He shook his head, irritation close to spilling over through his words. “I’ll have a lawyer Tito knows and trusts draw it up.”
“Not Rocco?”
“No. He might try to change it, thinking he should get our children.”
“That’s flattering, at least,” I offered, “that he’d even go to the trouble.”
He said nothing else, moving further from me, closer to the stone.
The name on the tomb unnerved me. It was one thing to prepare, to discuss it and then move on, but another to do it while my husband’s name was etched into granite. It was beyond a grim reminder, and one that I shoved aside as soon as my emotions could be put in check.
“What are we doing here, Scarlett?”
Brando’s voice floated toward me, but when it reached me, it chilled me to the bone.
Biting my tongue, I held it until I shook my head. “What are any of us doing here?”
“I didn’t want this. Any of it.” His eyes were hard on the writing on the stone. “And here I am, along with my family, who were dragged into a life I’d refused for reasons made redundant.”
“I know.” I gave him a minute before I finally asked, “What do you want, Brando? Out of life? Is it this? Or something different? You can still be my husband and still have this. You’ve been doing it.”
“A tight line,” he said. “I’ve been walking it.”
“I’ll love you regardless.”
“Yeah,” he said. “But will my children love me?”
How could I answer that for him? I couldn’t.
“You know, it’s all bullshit what they say.You have to love yourself before you can love someone else.” He changed his voice, made it sound like someone real proper, giving advice. “Bullshit,” he said again, pushing against the stone. “You taught me how to love. I love life now because the thought of not being here—of leaving you and our children behind—fucking guts me, Scarlett. I respect life. I want it for as long as possible. As long as you’re here, I need to be here.”
“But now lines are being crossed,” I said. “You’re battling the outside world, while battling your place in this one. It would be much simpler to take your place here, but on the other hand, your children’s lives will be controlled by Luca and the family.”
“Practical. That’s what Luca calls it.”
“Practical,” I murmured, getting up to join him. “That’s a foreign word for him to understand. Given that he’s a man who believes in the romantic.”
“Practical because he wants me to see the sense in it. Accepting my place here means accepting my place in the world.”
“Those women he attempted to set you up with. An arranged marriage, I mean. You met one of them—you told me not long ago. Why didn’t you give in then, Brando? If she was anything like Rosaria, and I’m sure most of them were, that means beauty, money, talent.Thisworld. You still said no.”
His eyes seemed to drift before they became even more solid than before. He didn’t turn to look at me, but he reached out, taking my hand, bringing it underneath the suit jacket, placing it over his heart.
“On paper, it all looked good, but I’ve never lived life by paper. I burned for none of those women. Life? This—” He waved a hand, encompassing the cemetery. “It all leads here. If this is all we have—why? Why do what fucking works on paper? If it’s all going to end, why not live like we’ll die tomorrow? Why not burn for the people and things that make us feel alive?”
“What did I tell you? You’re the most passionate man I’ve ever known. That’s who you are, Brando. That’s how you’ll see this life through. That’s how you’ll find your answers. That’s how Luca finds his. How Marzio did. It’s the ruthless and the romantic.” I rested my head against his back, closing my eyes.
“I wonder if—” He stopped himself cold. Perhaps because he felt me tense up.
Pulling out of his hold, I walked in front of him, forcing him to look me in the eye.
“Brando Fausti,myBrando Fausti,” I said, in case the man behind the stone thought I’d addressed him. “Don’t.”
I refuse to allow you to consider for a second that your life is not worth the price I pay for loving you. That this—this criminal enterprise—could scare me from you, or take me from you.
