Him being next to me felt like it.
Then again…if this was reality, was that even better? Like heaven on earth? Or would it soon get worse for me?
I was so confused.
“Stella,” he barely got out.
All I could do was nod. Or I thought I did.
His large, warm hand engulfed mine, and squeezed so hard, it almost hurt. Maybe I would have complained, but it had been so long since someone touched me that way—in a reassuring way. It made me feel so safe, I almost wanted him to squeeze my hand so hard that he broke my bones. Make a permanent mark on me that I’d carry around whenever I felt sad or overwhelmed or scared. My bones would tingle at the thought.
My entire body was tingling with him being so close. I would have thought it was all the aches and pains, but those were different. Closer to the surface of my skin. Whatever he was doing to me, and he wasn’t really doing anything, went much deeper. I’d felt it the night he showed up in Sub Rosa, which screwed with me more than anything else I’d been through up until that point.
Why?That had been a question I’d been asking myself ever since he showed up. He’d been nothing but an apparition that became a fantasy to keep me going. To keep my fire alive on the darkest days and nights.
I tried to open my mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
“It’s all right,” he whispered. “You’re going to be okay.”
I closed my eyes, and the tears ran down my skin even faster. I couldn’t stop them, just like I couldn’t stop anything else that seemed to happen to me.
“You’re going to be okay,” he kept repeating, and his head came next to mine, and it was the most wonderful thing I’d felt in years. He was so warm and so inviting, and my skin had been much too cold for far too long.
When he told me to open my eyes, I gazed into his dark ones. I could hide in them, be saved and safe in them.
“What took you so long?” he rasped out. He closed his eyes, breathing me in, my hand against his mouth, and tears ran down his cheeks, warm against my frigid skin.
Chapter 14
Matteo
It had been a week since Stella opened her eyes, and even though she still had a rough road ahead, the doctors gave her a promising prognosis.
At first, I thought they were just wary of me, afraid of what I’d do if they gave me anything but good news. Then mamma reminded me that Uncle Tito had appointed these doctors in his retirement, and he wouldn’t have given us anyone who couldn’t deal with delivering bad news to the Fausti family, especially when it came to health. They might be more delicate about it, but they weren’t scared.
Her main doctor, Dr. Casella, was fierce. She’d given me a stern look while holding Stella’s hand when one of her team said Stella would need surgery. She read the violence in my eyes at this news. Stella seemed to like her, though, and that was all that was important to me. Even though it had only been a week, I knew Stella somehow. I knew her in a way that was indescribable, impossible to put into words. This theory was put to the test because Stella hadn’t spoken a word since she opened her eyes.
The doctors were stumped, but mamma said when she was ready, she’d talk. She’d been through hell and back, and mammacould feel her trepidation, how overwhelmed she was. However, whenever I stood to stretch or went to use the bathroom, she snatched my hand, like I was her anchor in this world. I had to constantly remind her that I would never leave her. Not on purpose. Her eyes bore into mine when I said these words. She always seemed to be searching for a lie, but she couldn’t find one.
She’d never find one. Not with me. Those sacred words I’d spoken to her the night in Sub Rosa would die with me.
La mia parola è buona come il mio sangue.
My word is as good as my blood.
My blood was hers, and it would always run true through my heart. And looking at this woman, like I was looking at her for the first time, the millionth time, my heart belonged to her.
In so many ways, this made my heart hit a huge fucking dip. She wanted me close. She refused to let my hand go, and I refused to let her go. She needed to be as close to me as skin, and I needed her there. It seemed like we were both coming to terms with whatever this was between us. How powerful it was. How it would forever link us together. I couldn’t survive without her. And fuck me, the way she’d just gaze into my eyes. It brought me to places I’d never been before. Her light lit up my darkness, all the places no one else was ever allowed to go.
I had no fucking clue how I was going to survive this. The intensity of her. My heart was already turned to mush. I’d do anything she ever asked me to do.
I was where most of the men in my family had dared to go before—in love. The wildest lands a man like me could venture onto.
I’d known it the moment my eyes locked on her that night in Sub Rosa. That moment would always stand out to me as a fire. Something that would always burn bright and out of control in my memories. But the feeling paled in comparison to where Isat. Being this close to her. Knowing she was next to me and her hand was in mine. It brought my life to…life. And for the first time in my life, I could understand why Brando Fausti refused to live without Scarlett Rose Fausti.
What was the point if we weren’t together?
I wasn’t understating it when I said she needed to be underneath my skin. I had to carry her everywhere, or a vital part of me would be missing. A part I refused to live without. As if she could read my mind, her hand squeezed mine while her eyes were closed. I lifted her fingers to my mouth and set my lips over them, breathing her in. She sighed, low and soft. I trembled from the sweet sound of it, from the feel of her cool breath washing over my overheated skin. My temperature always ran hot. Mamma said I was just like my father in that way—in so many ways. Never more so than in this moment. I got him. Truly got him. His love for mamma knew no bounds. I found myself of the same heart.
