In his arms I found freedom—a freedom so strong that it made me almost giddy.
“I love you,” he whispered, his voice hoarse.
“I love you, too,” I whispered.
“I’ve never loved a woman before you. I won’t love another woman after you.” He set my hand over his pounding heart. “I’ve never felt the inside of a woman until you—without protection. The only woman I’ve ever called mine or will ever call mine.”
“What are you doing to me, Matteo Fausti?” I breathed out as his lips came to mine and he kissed me.
He kissed me until I couldn’t breathe, until I was dizzy and disoriented, and he was making his way down my neck.
“Making you forget my past, Stella Fausti,” he whispered against my pulse. “As I have forgotten every woman but you. And I’ll make you forget every day, until you can’t even remember ever feeling the way you do. The only thing you’ll remember…” He pulled me to him, breath to breath, skin to skin, his darkness to my light.
Us.
Always.
My husband left me that morning with more than a goodbye kiss. After the night before, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to walk the next day, but what he’d done to me was warm, slow, and made me feel like I could sleep the entire day away. But my husband had business to attend to, and so did I. Matteo didn’t usually leave that early, but something was going on, and Nonno had requested a meeting with him. That could mean anything from our personal war to our private ones within the family to financial dealings that Matteo took care of for the family.
Mom and I had our breakfast and herbal tea outside before we dressed for the day. After I stopped by Rocco’s place, I was going to Brando and Scarlett’s place to hang out. The women were all meeting up there. Ava was visiting, and she was going to fill me in on what would happen next November. It was a big deal in the family, because it would be a sort of retirement party for Nonno. Scarlett called it the switching of power, though. I guess Nonno was going to relinquish control of it to Rocco.
The entire family was tense about that, though, since Rocco and Rosaria were having serious marriage issues, especially afterwhat she’d done to Massimo. I’d asked Matteo what would happen if Rocco gave up his right as the next King of Italy, and he’d told me he was next in line to rule, unless someone challenged him.
“Like what’s his name?” I’d asked. I knew him as Marzio, but since he shamed the name, Nonno demoted him to a name that meant traitor in their family. Sometimes I could remember it, if someone had brought it up, but mostly, I just remembered it started with a T.
“Tiziano,” Matteo said.
That was it.
He nodded. “He could, but I’m not sure if Nonno will allow it, since he threatened you. That’s not how things work in my family. If Tiziano had a problem with what you did to his mamma, he should have taken it up with Nonno or me. He could have challenged me, but he didn’t.”
“He knew he was going to lose.”
“Yeah,” he said, but then he got this dreamy look in his eyes, like he was imagining going at it with his cousin. Probably with a sword.
The thought made me sick.
“If you were a man and took a piece of sharp stone to a woman—” he shrugged “—the outcome of this would be vastly different. But it was woman against woman.”
“You okay, bestie boo?” Mom asked as we got to the new car. Matteo said it was safe to drive it, if we were behind the gates. One day, he promised, we’d take it out on the open roads, but after what had happened at the cemetery, he was more paranoid.
“Yeah,” I said, handing mom the two tins of cookies for her to hold. The car didn’t have a back seat. “Just thinking about some stuff.”
“Seems like there’s a lot of stuff to think about around here.”
That was the understatement of the year.
Mom gave awhoop!as I backed out of the drive, and she turned the music up. Neither of us acknowledged that even behind the wall, I still had guards that followed me around. They kept a distance, but they were still there. Placido and Oscar were with us. Saverio and Armando had gone to the meeting with Matteo.
We drove around for a bit, trying to learn the lay of the land, before we followed the directions Matteo had given me to Rocco’s place. It was close to Brando and Scarlett. Everything this family did, they did by hierarchy. Matteo’s place was close to his sister and brother’s places. I wasn’t sure what would happen after something happened to Nonno, or once he retired. Who got hiscastello? Rocco? Since it seemed fit for a king and his queen? I wasn’t even sure if I was right about everything, since I was basing my theory on what I thought I knew. I’d have to ask Matteo later.
I wasn’t sure I’d even want to live in thecastello. It was so big. I liked our smaller place. It felt more intimate.
After a few minutes of driving around, listening to Italian music we didn’t know and trying to sing along to it, we pulled up at Rocco’s place. I was proud of myself. I only got lost a few times, and we only got smacked by a few low-lying branches once or twice. Mom laughed her ass off when she’d said, holding her hands in front of her face, “Estella! You’re smacking me with twigs!” I caught the giggles, and caught them so hard, I had to pull over because I couldn’t breathe. Neither could she.
I honked the horn in front of Rocco’s place and waved to my two guards. They waved back.
“The one in the passenger seat,” Mom said, staring in her rearview mirror. “He looks like someone, but I can’t place him for the life of me.”
