I went to smack him, but he caught my wrist, bringing it to his mouth, kissing my pulse.
“Your answer did things to me,” he whispered.
“My answer?”
“The question he asked you over lunch.”
Why my son?
I sucked in a breath. “That’s why you didn’t intervene! You wanted to hear my answer!”
“Ovviamente,” he said, letting my wrist go, but pulling me close, resuming our earlier pace. “I wanted to hear it. There was another reason too. As much as he tests his sons, he’s testing you. You handled him. You took his twisted attempt and twisted him up in it. It was hard for Ettore to keep still. He had no fucking clue what was going to happen.”
“Obviously,” I translated his answer, then scoffed. “I thought Ettore was going to bring out his presentation on why I should be tried as astrega. I bet he even has slides and evidence.”
Brando threw back his head and laughed, squeezing my shoulder.
“Ha ha ha!” I mimicked his laugh like Mia did. “High hilarity, me being adjudicated as astrega.”
“That’s where Mia gets it from,” he murmured to himself. “I wondered.Matisaid once or twice that payback was sweet.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that she recognized the behavior from our daughter because her daughter did the same thing. It’s cute now, but wait until she’s a teenager.”
“I—” I went to defend myself but couldn’t. Damn, I did do that. “Well, all I can say in my defense is that I stopped doing it before anyone had a chance to send me to boarding school. That’s promising.”
He gave me a dubious look. “You just did it to me!”
“Totally provoked.”
“Perfectly acceptable to retaliate then.”
“Vengeance will be mine,” I said in a deep voice.
He grinned, but the conversation faded after that. No, they didn’t send me to boarding school, but I was sent away, quite a bit, for dance. Sometimes because my sister lied on me. It almost felt like punishment at times.
He lifted my hand, putting it to his warm mouth. “I love when she does it, and when you do it too. You both make me laugh.”
Instead of answering with words, I leaned in closer, showing my gratitude with touch. Or just wanting to be closer, to feel his warmth wrap me in a solid embrace.
“Those times were hard for you,” he said, reading my mood. “You’re my home, baby. No one can send you away from me. Least of all me. As selfish as it makes me, not even under the worst circumstances could I do it again. The hero is overplayed. I’ll be the villain and keep the girl.”
“Rarely do I like the hero,” I said. “The villain gets me. I can see that he’s misunderstood. There’s a story there. Besides, he’ll sacrifice the world before he sacrifices the girl. The hero wants everyone to live. Anda friend to all is a friend to none,” I quoted.
“Aristotle,” he murmured.
We stopped moving when we came to the center of the castle. Music radiated from the top floor. The Italian tenor again. Lace curtains hid the privacy of a bedroom, but not the man standing behind them.
Luca had been watching us from his window. Perhaps seeking more answers—What makes them tick? Who are they when they think no one is watching? Who is my son? His wife?
When we caught him, he seemed to lose interest, or he acted like it, since it defeated the purpose of watching us in secret, and he turned to go. Two firm brown buttocks graced our view, along with wide shoulders and a heavily muscled back, before the curtains closed.
His tenor-ish voice picked up where his body had just been.
“They must be…getting reacquainted,” I said, turning to find Brando staring at me.
He couldn’t think that I was…attracted to his father, could he?
