During the mass, I let go of all curiosity, freeing myself from all burdens, giving them over to a higher power. Even though I was paying attention, I still felt Rocco’s eyes on me. It was like he was studying me. His father was, too, but for different reasons, I felt. Rocco was almost…intrigued by me and what I’d do next. His father was almost watching me for…maybe approval’s sake? I didn’t let either man steal my attention. This was my time to be brought to peace and relax in it, like a dehydrated person would settle into the arms of clean water.
After mass was over and the bright sunlight flowed over me again, my thoughts moved forward, and Rocco’s sons’ missing mother plagued me on the entire walk back. We climbed the hill—the hill that invigorated me and tired me out at the same time—and came to thecastellowhere I’d first encountered my ghost.
The beast/man next to me.
His eyes were steadily on me, like he knew where my train of thought was headed and was preparing for it. My heart was refusing to believe the truth of this situation, and my mind was casting doubts. But in the pit of my stomach… I knew.
Scarlett’s words from the first night I’d ran into her rang like a violent bell.
Rosaria was married to my brother-in-law.
Scarlett had three of them, but Rocco was the only one without a woman at his side. Unless one of the other brothers had married right after Rosaria’s death? But that theory was only me grasping for straws, trying to avoid the truth, which made my lungs gasp for air. My throat felt constricted, as if Rosaria had her hands around my neck, shaking me, screeching at me,“Stay away from my husband!”
She had known.
She had known Rocco was going to be…attracted to me.
How did she know?!
Or better yet, how did she know that I would be so attracted to him? I mean, yeah, he was gorgeous, and built, and seemed to be a top member of the Fausti family, but it went much deeper than that.
A feeling moved over me then, a feeling I recalled from that night on the cliffside but couldn’t place in the moment.
She had known that, how strongly I would feel for him, and she had cursed it.
It wasn’t hard to convince myself that if I was married to Rocco, and my life was about to come to an end, I’d be feral too,especially thinking about him falling in love with another woman, and just…touching her. Just the thought made me squeeze the napkin on the table, turning my knuckles white. But was Rosaria able to feel like I could? Like Scarlett? Like Eva? Was that how she knew? She felt like I had killed her inadvertently to take her place? How could someone else just look at a person and assume that person wanted what he or she had?
My eyes went to Scarlett’s. She was looking at me. She pointed toward thecastello. “The bathroom is that way,bebe.”
We were having lunch al fresco, at a table built for a hundred, perched over the Mediterranean Sea, underneath a pergola scented with fresh lemons and white roses. Before I could stand, Rocco did, holding out my chair for me. My mind, focused on an escape, had forgotten to remind my fingers to let the cloth napkin go. Dropping it, I turned toward thecastello. Rocco followed me, like an invisible rope had already tethered us together. He felt my need to flee and was forced to go where I went, no matter the time, date, year, whether in sunny days or perilous storms.
When I’d first found thecastello,I’d found peace and a sense of unyielding curiosity. My imagination had only gone so far, though. As far as my heart would allow it to see.
Rocco had been married to Rosaria. And it hadn’t been that long since her death. Their sons were cordial to me, but what did they think of him parading me in the street for everyone to see? Like we were a couple? I stopped at the door, waiting for Rocco to open it for me. As predicted, he did. A stream of kitchen staff constantly moved in and out, and I moved around them in the kitchen, not really knowing where to go, but following hallways.
Nowhere in this house showcased photographs. Expensive art?Check.But other than that, it felt cold and empty, even if it was perched on the highest point of the island, the best view of the Mediterranean from this height, which felt closer to the sun.Not even the proximity of the rays of the sun, a literal ball of fire, could touch the chill.
Stopping in a dark hallway, turning my back to him, that waswhen I felt it. The tension between us was warm, steadily increasing the longer I refused to look at him. Was he getting angry because I was? Or maybe it was my own temper causing the uptick. My anger wasn’t because no one had told me Rocco had been married to Rosaria, that she had been his wife. Scarlett had alluded to it, but it wasn’t her place to tell me the man who had given me his heart had been married.
My anger had nothing to do with that.
It had everything to do with the fact that he had been married, and my feelings toward the entire situation, especially Rosaria Caffi.
If I would have known how I would feel about Rocco during my chat with Rosaria by the cliffside, would I have been so nice to her? If it were anyone else, I knew I would have been flooded with guilt at the situation I’d caused.
Thinking back, I only felt remorse that a life had been taken, but not so much that it was her.
God, that made me awful, didn’t it? But that was how bad jealousy was eating me up on the inside. I wished to erase all his memories and reboot him with ones we would make. Though a stab of guilt pierced my heart when I thought of his sons. It wasn’t their faults. And I wouldn’t ever make them feel that way. Part of them belonged to Rocco. Judging by their physical appearances, more than half.
My main issue was the feelings that existed between Rocco and Rosaria,his wife.
If I could have flung a candelabra at her from this side, I would have. I knew in that moment what she had known all along—we were going to war over this man.
“I will never lie to you, Amora,” he said, his voice rough. Shredded. “It is not who I am. I have never been a coward, nor will I ever be.La mia parola è buona come il mio sangue.”I heard him hit his chest. “I was married to Rosaria Caffi before her recent death.”
Even though his tone hadn’t changed, I felt the shock of thatword when he’d said it.Death.I felt the same way after my dad and Nonna had died. I wasn’t all that close to my dad. I was Nonna’s shadow. But whenever I thought about never seeing either of them again, when I had to say, no, Elisabetta Bella passed…the word, in any of its forms, shocked me to my core and stole my breath.
“I know,” I whispered, keeping my arms crossed, trying to hide the fact that I was trembling. “But what you don’t know…or at least, I don’t think you do. That night—the night her car went over the side of the cliff—I was on the bus that brought her there. I had a nightmare, and I scared the driver. He swerved, she was coming too fast, and…things didn’t end well. I spoke to her before she died. She told me to stayaway from you.”
