“If we are smart, Nazzareno, and learn how to discipline ourselves, it also leads us to romance. Ruthless is only half the battle, ah? There are two sides to this world. Ruthless and romantic. Everything in between is folly, and romance is fading like a rose in winter.”
He set his hand over my chest, almost pushing me back some, but I held my feet in place.
“You, like your father, like your uncles, like your cousins, all of those who carry the Fausti name, will carry romance within you. We will preserve the rose, like warmth keeps the roots safe during seasons of frost. However, not all men will be able to balance both sides of who they are. In time, Nazzareno, we will see if you are one of them. If you are…you are a son of not only my blood, but of my heart.”
He stands taller and looks down on me. He winks. “Ladies, even if they are not accustomed to it, will appreciate this about you. Romance should make the world go around, ah?”
“Sì!”
He throws back his head and chuckles, then sighs. “All right, Nazzareno. Let us see what we can do together.”
He puts me in position, and for hours, he teaches me the basic skills of sword fighting. At the end of the lesson, he even picks up his sword, and we have a mock battle between us.
I could not remember having so much fun.
I feel like a man.
A man who is ready to learn how to balance both his ruthless blood and romantic heart.
As the light dims outside, my seed has been planted and all three offerings checked on the list—blood, sweat, and tears—for me to grow my ancient olive tree.
Nonno squeezes my shoulder as we are walking to the door. “A secret between us, Nazzareno: Your father is as skilled with a sword as his fierce older brother, Zio Luca, but where Luca uses his mind and is even-tempered in a fight, your father can be reckless and hot-tempered. Your father does not say it, or he would lose his tongue, but I know he believes the part of my heart that is romantic is a waste. He cannot see that I can carry ruthless blood and a romantic heart inside of me.
“Romance is not just for fools, Nazzareno. Neither is love. It is the opposite of ruthless, ah, but the contrast is remarkable. We feel both on a level most men would not dare to when we allow both attributes to coincide next to one another. It is like setting two opposite colors next to each other. You can truly see the difference between them then, but also admire how one brings out the best in the other.”
“Red and green?”
“I imagine red and gold.” We stop at the door, and he looks right into my eyes. A reflection of his. “Remember this when you are silently resisting your father’s opinion, and he brings up my name, ah?”
“Sì.”
“Now let us eat!” He roars like a lion. “A celebration in your honor.”
I roar, trying to sound like him, and he roars with laughter.
The door closes behind us, and we walk into the pitch-black night together. My grandfather’s shape fades into the darkness, but his words are an eternal fire in my romantic heart as it pumps ruthless blood.
TWENTY-SEVEN
NAZZARENO
Ava concentratedon my hand as she finished bandaging it.
I stared into the sink at the penthouse in Rome. Blood streaked the surface, along with a few pieces of paper from bandage wrappers. I had cut myself with the broken shard of glass from the vase I had broken.
Different time and place, but the cut reopened an old wound.
Ava’s hand caressed the bandage, making sure it was firmly in place before she sighed and washed her hands. The blood swirled in the sink, and a streak was left behind.
When she moved, my eyes moved with her. She came to stand behind me, wrapping her arms underneath mine and setting her cheek against my back.
Dozens of words from the hospital echoed inside of my head—what my brother had said about Ava, what my father had said about my grandfather—and the two sidesNonnohad helped me bring together in harmony were suddenly at war.
Spilling blood in Ava Girardi’s name made my mouth water, but another part of me knew what it would cost the woman behind me. She was coming dangerously close to being the center of a war, and if that happened, there would be no going back—for either of us.
Leandro’s show in the hospital, when he’d snapped his teeth at her, was a taunting warning.
I had never played with my food and did not plan to start. If Leandro would have made another disrespectful remark, the hospital staff would not have had enough time to save him. He would have bled out from his throat.
