She blinked as the man smoothly moved toward me. He wrapped his arm around me, pulling me close with a yank only he and I had felt. His palm was a scalding brand as he whispered in my ear, “Mywife, you flew away from me, and now your lion has come to collect his wayward bird in a fucking cage.”
He kissed my cheek with a finality that made a single teardrop fall from my eye.
FORTY-FIVE
AVA
Nazzareno tookmy trembling hand in his, and the picture he’d just painted came to life: a bird in the mouth of a lion.
He moved us toward Edna, and she stood abruptly, our eyes meeting.
“Peps,” she breathed.
I nodded, and she came around the desk, hugging me to her and then moving me away to get a better look at me.
“Are you crying, Peps?” She sounded incredulous.
“No.” I used my free hand to dry my face. “It’s coming down hard out there. I had to walk through it to get inside.”
“I was about to say.” She squeezed my arm and looked at Nazzareno. Then she looked at me. “The resemblance is uncanny, isn’t it?”
My eyes hungrily devoured his face. It had only been a short time since I’d seen him last, but it felt like forever had ticked by like slow-moving blood. Maybe because of the way I was looking at him, his features softened, though the heat in his eyes intensified, and he ran a knuckle down my face.
I held his eyes, even though the natural reaction was to close them. “Yeah,” I whispered. “It is. He’s the spitting image of his Nonno.”
“You look different, my wife,” he whispered.
“I felt the need for change, before I met you here.”
Even though we were having, well, not marital issues, because that would mean we had an issue with each other, which we kind of did, but it was more so to do with this challenge. It was coming between us, and I guess…we were both allowing it to.
Still.
I didn’t want to air our dirty laundry out for the public to see. It was personal, and I refused to let the bitter world in on it, except for the few people who were inside the secret Fausti circle. That was why I’d said,before I met you here.It sounded like we planned this. And besides, it was technically true. He was always going to find me, but I had to at least try to save him from what was coming because of me.
It was also about standing my ground and setting boundaries. I had a say in this love too.
So yeah, maybe we were having marital issues. I just hated to call them that, since it felt like that was what my parents had.
“Do you like it?” I went to touch the edges of my hair, but he stopped me, wrapping his hand around my wrist.
“You are mine,” he said, as though he was taking an oath. “It does not matter how you to style your hair, or the clothes you wear, you are the most beautiful woman to me.Per sempre.”
I nodded, hoping he could see the acceptance of his compliment in my eyes. It was actually more than that, and I couldn’t speak around the tight lump in my throat. He honestly said the most heartbreaking things to me, and in such an intense way, there was no room for doubt.
Resting my hand on his stomach, I turned toward Edna. “Nazzareno is here. You’re here. I’m assuming you two met.”
“Nazzareno told me he came here to surprise you.”
“Oh, I’m sure he did.”
“Imagine my surprise when Marzio showed up at my door again, Peps.” She sighed, and it was a wistful sound.
I could only nod. She motioned to the two seats in front of her desk. Nazzareno set his hand on the back of my chair and waited for me to sit before he took his own. He reached over, grabbed the arm of the chair, and dragged me next to him.
We were so close, our arms touched.
“I am Nazzareno,” he said, his forehead tight. “Marzio was my grandfather.”
