“You look beautiful, baby.” He paused. “That doesn’t even feel right to say. Maybe there’s a word for what you are, but I doubt it. It’s like trying to explain what exists between us. It’s impossible for me to do. The luckiest man alive, that’s what I am.”
“That’s plenty.”
He pushed me back some, looking at me again. Louisiana had the most unpredictable weather. We were in December, but the weather hung around the upper 70s. I had found the dress I’d worn the night he had asked me to marry him in Paris. I wondered if he’d notice.
“Paris,” he said, eerily reading my mind. “The night I asked you to marry me.”
“You remembered.” My heart beat faster at the way he stared at me. As if he were taking in every detail, comforted by the old, but discovering the new.
He was the best at that. Remembering me.
“I never forget when it comes to you.” The pressure on my hips increased, and he shook me a bit. “Now go change.”
“What?” I went to take a step back, but he refused to let me go.
“Your dress is hanging in the closet. Put it on. Meet me outside once you’re done.”
“My wedding dress is hanging in the closet. I even asked who took it out.” I narrowed my eyes. “What’s going on?”
He bopped my nose, and I slapped his hand away. He grinned. It did my heart good to see him lighten up.
“I’m going to do this, Brando Fausti,” I said, attempting to get out of his hold, but he still refused to let me go. “But be warned. It takes a while for me to get it on! I can’t do it without help.”
“I took it off easily enough.” He lifted his brows, then gave me a wicked grin. “It was worth the wait, Scarlett Rose Fausti.”
He lifted his hand, securing a piece of wayward hair that had fallen in my face behind my ear. “You remember the first time I called you that out loud? I had been calling you that since the beginning of time, but to hear it?” He put a hand to his heart, mimicking a frantic beat. “I couldn’t breathe. Still can’t.”
My heart floated, and the butterflies in my stomach went berserk. He could still make me breathless too.
“Go,” he said, turning me around, pushing my bottom. “I’d wait forever, but damned if I will. I want you by my side. The day of our wedding, you almost killed me. I won’t have it again.”
I nodded, walking toward our closet in a daze. Staring at my wedding dress, I had no idea how I was going to get it on alone. I could step inside, put my arms through, but that was about as far as my reach went. Maybe I could keep it up without having to secure the back.
Arriving out of nowhere, my mother, Eunice, Aunt Lola, Violet, and Mia all piled into the room, helping me out. Mia constantly madeoohandahhnoises. She’d seen the dress in pictures, but not in person. It had been preserved in a special box.
I’d forgotten how heavy it was. How it felt against my skin. Perhaps it was my imagination, but I smelled roses, hundreds of them, the ice-cold sharpness of a Slovenian night, the whiskey he’d drunk, fizzy champagne, something earthly—the smell of horses and an antique carriage—and something more exotic—all the candles that had been lit in the castle.
A shiver passed over me, remembering the feel of his warm hands against the coolness of my skin. The temperature had been frigid, cold enough that the horses that brought us to the castle had breathed smoke out of their nostrils. I was nervous as hell to be alone with him. The entire night I knew what he was thinking.
I was officially his, a label that no one could take from me—Brando Fausti’s wife. And he wanted to consummate the marriage. It didn’t matter how fast or how slow, hard or gentle, he gave me the choice, but it would be done.
His face. His body. All that I had felt from him that night. My womb constricted at the thought.
Suddenly, it didn’t matter if my back was exposed or not. I simply wanted him.
“Hold still,Hcerka,” my mother said, impatient. “You act just as you did as a new bride. You wanted to run to that man then. You want to sprint to him now.” Shetsked.
“Wouldn’t you?” Eunice said, and everyone laughed.
Except for Mia, who shook her head, but still smiled.
Once the dress was secure—my mother couldn’t live with herself if I threw myself at my husband without making him sweat a bit!—everyone left but Mia. The boys must have been outside with Brando.
“Take my hand, Mia Bellarosa,” I said, kissing her head before we entwined our fingers. “Let’s see whatPapàhas up his sleeve, ah?”
I quickly checked my reflection in the mirror, touching my face with my free hand.
Life had started to touch my face, laugh lines beside my eyes and mouth. So different from the woman who had first worn this dress.
