He usually did, waiting for one of the deer to go tramping through the wood, giving him a glimpse of the doe he’d named Scarlett.
Not the original Scarlett, but one of her offspring. In actuality, it could have been any deer, but he still held it as a simple of hope—perhaps a good sign?—for some reason.
If the dogs were gone, sometimes the deer crept, taking a stroll, and found shelter under all the trees. Brando and the children left food and water out for them.
My husband’s wide shoulders were set, as though he carried the weight of the world and was ready to do battle to release some of the strain.
Up until this point, we hadn’t discussed all that transpired before or after Nemours came to take his revenge. Our conversations were on the light side, easily discussed topics, neutral territory. There were times a word or two would be said, but we left it right there, at the other’s leisure.
Whether it was from denial or a need to heal, I wasn’t sure why we hadn’t laid it all out on the table—it wasn’thimand it wasn’tme. It had become a silent mutual decision during the months after. Because, make no mistake about it, if he wanted to talk about it, we would have. His stubbornness outranked mine by leaps and bounds.
Chris was the first person to outright bring up what had happened—highlight specifics. Everyone else danced around the subject, and not for the first time, I wondered if Brando had a hand in that. No one would speak to me about it before he did. It was something that needed to be discussed between us first.
I looked down at my folded hands, not able to look at him. “You found me?” I whispered.
“Don’t I always?”
“Yes.”
The softness of my voice contrasted with the bitterness in his. There was no denying, though, that below the surface, something bubbled up in me too. What that emotion was? I couldn’t name it. Not yet. But it felt as dangerous as his outwardly show of calmness.
His even-tempered façade could be eerie. The beautiful blue before the storm. Some people caught the danger; others didn’t. Woe to those who didn’t—they didn’t have the good sense to run before he took down their entire world.
Another gust of wind gently rustled the leaves in the trees, bringing with it a whisper of relief. The touch of it on my skin made me feel feverish. I imagined smoke wafting from his body, the heat of him so strong that his anger and bitterness became a visceral thing. The tang of it almost coated my tongue.
My mouth felt dry, and the words stuck in place. He beat me to the first punch.
“After I left you in Paris, after I asked you to marry me, this is where I came back to.” He set his hands on the railing, leaning over, bracing himself.
The veins in his arms snaked above the skin, all that hot blood surging through his body. The relentless sun illuminated the bronze, almost making him shimmer. The hard jet black of his hair contrasted with the soft texture of it; here and there a piece of pure silver, Luca’s silver, caught the light too.
There was nothing in order about his appearance today.
Strands of his hair fell where they liked. His jaw ticked, and a pulse in his temple seemed to throb. Sweat made his gray shirt cling to his braw bones, all his defined muscles. He had become much thinner; he usually did when life had thrown something at me, and he had to catch it. His shoulders were so rigid that he could’ve drawn back and shot an arrow with the tension. A clear sign that he’d reached his limit and needed an outlet.
“Scarlett, the doe, came to me. A sign, I thought. Her innocence. The way the beast, the hunter, always wants her blood for his own survival. It made sense to me. So how could I—” He paused, shook his head. “How could I even hesitate to make you mine? That’s the question that plagued me. Still plagues me to this day. A man has never loved a woman as much as I love you. If love is even the right word for what we share.”
Then he repeated the saying of his family in Italian, translated—my word is as good as my blood.
“The one thing I wanted most in my life, for my entire life, but still one of the most heartbreaking decisions I’ve ever had to make.”
A man has never loved a woman as much as I love you.The breath left me a little easier, but not much.
“What—” I had to take a steadying breath before I could try again. “Heartbreaking?”
“Tell me if you can still feel me, Scarlett.”
It took me a moment to answer. I had blamed a good bit of the heat on the weather. That wasn’t all to blame. The connection between us almost sizzled in my veins, causing tiny sparks, which seemed to keep sending little electrical currents to my heart. Per usual, my body fed off his energy—whatever it was that had solidified us as one welded us even tighter.
It was more than him, though.
It was us.
After one of us had been in danger, it seemed like whatever this particular connection was instinctively knew. Instead of ripping us apart, it slammed us back together, fusing us even deeper to one another. It almost felt like a safety measure.
The mad tide of the world pulled, and our own magnetized force kept my blood to his bones. If we drifted, we drifted as one—as rough as the seas might get.
All good, unless the one you’re hiding from is also the one that you’re attached to—a heart attempting to hide from a chest. It both irked and soothed me, which did nothing for my temper or my mental stability.
