You’ll be considered trash, while I’ll bethe prize.
It wasn’t smug, but it was definite.
And she was right.
She knew her place.
I would know mine.
I released a breath that hurt to let go.
“Have you ever considered speaking toZioLuca’s wife, Margherita Granchio?”
It took me a minute to remember Aristide was there. For the first time since I connected with Nazzareno, I felt totally alone in the world.
“Why?” I breathed out.
He stared at me for a second, then shook his head, like he had decided something. After his next words, I knew what it was. He wasn’t going to touch that question.
“For what it is worth,” he said, “Nazzareno did not know Mamma and Elettra would be here. They were supposed to be having breakfast while he had the meeting with father.”
I nodded.
“We will wait for Nazzareno down the street.” Aristide touched my back briefly and we started to walk toward the exit when Belaflore called his name.
We stopped and waited for her. She was rushing toward us. Breathless by the time she made it. She snatched my wrist and I tried to snatch it back, but her grip was like burning iron shackling me. Aristide said something to her in rushed Italian, but she silenced him with a look.
Like the iron had come back to burn her, she flung my hand down. I resisted the urge to rub my wrists, but I refused to do it in front of her.
“You are like the other ones,” she spit at me. “Hypnotizing these men and making them fall at your feet with your witchcraft. Not my son! He will not take a whore and then marry her. I refuse to allow it! Even if I must kill you myself!”
“Mamma.” Aristide’s voice was strong, but still pleading somehow.
Everything that was so romantic before had turned ruthless, and words were failing me. Usually, I had no problem with them, especially when I felt backed into a corner, but this woman…she was the very definition of Lothario Fausti’s wife.
If I challenged her back, it would only make things worse…for me. I didn’t have a right to. I had no pedestal to sit on, not like the one Nazzareno had set me on. Because he would be the only one seeing me that way. The entire family was going to see me as another mistress.
Aristide’s comment about Margherita Granchio came together with what his mom had said…
He will not take a whore and then marry her.
That was what Luca Fausti had done, but only after his father had been killed. Because Marzio had probably arranged Luca’s marriage.
As quickly as Belaflore had charged toward us, she turned and disappeared.
“That’s why you wanted me to talk toMargherita Granchio,” I whispered to Aristide. “You think she can…talk to me.”
I didn’t want to use the word “help,” but that was almost what it felt like he was offering me.
He shrugged. “Let us go.”
As he was leading me out, my eye’s connected with Leandro Fausti’s. He was leaning against the wall, a hand in his pocket, and as we passed him, he snapped his teeth at me, a slow grin coming to his face probably at the look on mine.
TWENTY-FIVE
NAZZARENO
The deeper shewent in my world, the more I felt like I was losing the woman who flew into the darkness of Venice to find me.
