Then I remembered the bread I’d made for him.
Turning, I poked at it. It was as hard as a rock. I sighed, kind of dramatically.
“Tell me,” he said.
Turning back to face him, I shrugged. “I made you some focaccia for giving me the pendant. I wanted to feed you, you know. Nonna always said feeding someone was one of the nicest things you could do—showing them that you cared enough to take care of them. No one should go hungry. And…I’d left it out on the counter before I went to the beach the day of the storm, the day I got knocked upside the head with a candelabra. Itwasa candelabra, right?”
It was like the temperature dropped, and the pressure in the room had thickened. He seemed to visibly grow harder. Taller. It was like he was swelling like the veins in his hands.
“I will take care of this,” he said, like he was vowing it.
“Do you know who did it?”
He shrugged, like that was answer enough, and went for the counter. He picked up the pan and was about to tear into the stale bread. I don’t know what came over me then, but I pulled it out of his hand with a strangled, “No, you can’t eat it!” I was holding it to my chest like I could hide it behind the clothes I wore.
My reaction, though, had stumped him. I could see it in his eyes—it was like he was trying to come up with the reason before I gave it to him, but for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why. I’d made the bread for him, but I refused to allow him to eat said bread. I would have laughed, but thereason why I refused to let him sample the focaccia art felt so serious to me.
“It is mine,” he said. “You made it for me.”
I took a step back, keeping the pan close to my chest and snatching the other one. “I know,” I said. “But they turned stale. Stale focaccia can’t compare to fresh focaccia.”
“You made it,” he repeated. “For me.”
My back hit the counter, and it wasn’t until then that I realized he was crowding me in. Sighing, I closed my eyes. “It’s not good enough for you,” I whispered. “You deserve better than stale.”
I kept my eyes closed, but I could feel his eyes on my face. He was waiting me out. Finally, I forced my eyes open. They popped instead of doing a sexy slow rise.
“Thank God,” I mouthed when I remembered the counter was at my back. I needed to feel something solid press up against me, to remind me that this was reality and this…Rocco Piero Fausti was REAL. His face had morphed into…a physical representation of intensity, that was the only way I could describe it.
Look at me, being all writerly with that description!
My book.
The romance story!
The ghost had a name, Rocco Piero Fausti, and I was certain that nothing I could ever write would be good enough to capture him. The book seemed lame in comparison to reality. But no matter how much my skills lacked, I would continue to write it. Rocco deserved to be immortalized in the pages—for centuries to come, just as the knights of olden days were. We knew of the knights because someone, someday, sometime had felt inspired enough to set them inside of the page and allow them to live there forever.
This man deserved that same honor.
His hand came up, like he was going to touch my hair, but then it dropped. “Aria Amora Bella,” he whispered, his tongue caressing my name with his beautiful accent, his tone gruff.
“You can call me Ari,” I whispered. “Most people do.”
The look in his eyes said,I am not most people, and I wondered…in time, if he would just call memine. My heart was in total agreement with this. But even though I could tell he was feeling the same intense emotions as I was, there was something frigid, like ice, coming in between us. It was stopping him from getting too close to me.
There was a tense second between us that I had no clue what he was going to do. Then he pushed away from me like someone had shoved him. I couldn’t imagine anyone or anything shoving this man except for the beast that seemed to live inside of him.
A flash of him in the doorway of that villa came back to me—the way the light had lit him up, the rain coming down behind him in sheets. It was as if the power inside of him had physically manifested the storm outside of his body.
I recognized the beast in him right away, but something he would learn about me in time. I wasn’t afraid of much, either, especially not the cold. I had been soaking up the rays of the sun since I’d set foot on this island, storing them. I took a step into his space. He looked down at my feet, and something passed between us when he met my eyes again—understanding. He understood why I had done it. Taken that step. I was warm enough—hot, even, when he was this close, and in no danger of becoming chilled.
He shook his head, like he was shaking out of a dream, and headed for the door. He opened it a crack, and Pisolino flew in, flying past his legs, coming to rub against mine. He purred like he hadn’t seen me in years.Goes to teach him.Never leave things unsaid, even if he left because he was mad at me for allowing Dr. Accolti and his staff to trap him for his own good. He could have given me a more loving look before he left, even if he was pissed.
I bent down to pick him up, but got dizzy on the way back up. Before I could even reach for the counter, Rocco was at my side, holding me like I might disappear. The worry inhiseyes almost mademepanicky.
“I’m okay,” I said, doing my best to reassure him. “Uncle Tito said this would be normal for a while.”
He nodded, but it almost seemed automatic, programmed. He picked me up, surprising me, and brought me over to the sofa.
