He stared into my eyes. “No more secrets.”
“That’s all I had,” I whispered. “Now I only have the ones between us.”
We stared at each other, and I thought it was because he wanted to make sure I had nothing else to share, er, hide.
He cleared his throat. “Tell me, what do your feelings say about the vision below your window.”
Oh, he was asking me, in his own way, if I believed she was the ghost of Rosaria Caffi or the “real” RosariaCaffi.
My gut reaction?
“I can’t be certain. I’m not Scarlett or Eva. I’m not that far into life with this…giftyet to be at peace with it. I don’t trust myself that much to put my head on a chopping block for anything I feel, except for what I feel for you. But she didn’t feelrealto me, even though shelookedit.”
What I didn’t add was that in my book, the woman haunting him was a ghost. I found this was how I worked out the confusion of my feelings—on paper. I wasn’t completely sure if this was what was happening, though. In the story, the ghost of the main character’s past couldn’t throw vintage candelabras at people’s heads.
In the next second, it seemed like a screeching slash of lightning forked in the sky, followed by a rumble of thunder that made the ground beneath our feet tremble. Then the sky opened, probably from the violence of the shock, and rain seemed like it pulled from the sea below—that was how fast and how much.
The rain smelled fresh, but the sulphur smell seemed enhanced in this weather. It was drifting off our clothes and especially my hair. I wasn’t sure if I could deal with it. It almost reminded me of fire and brimstone.
I glanced at thecastello, suddenly not sure about it being perched on the rock how it was.
What if this storm ravaged it?
I had never felt uncertainty like this before. I wasn’t sure why I was feeling it then.
It made my heart overreact, but in a totally different way than it did when Rocco was close. It was panicked.
The intensity of my husband’s eyes on me sent a shock through me, like I was the sky, and he was the most dangerous thing that belonged to me. Sweeping me off my feet, me dangling in his arms, he took a few steps toward the door, then stopped. He closed his eyes, turning his face to the sky, and his mouth whispered a silent prayer. It was almost like he wasoffering me up, asking it to protect me. I knew it went much deeper than that, though.
He was reaching out to heaven.
His inky hair was plastered to his forehead, rain rushing over his face like tears from a statue, and in the storm…he was almost a creature I had never seen before.
That endangered animal he had mentioned on the ride to the thermal springs.
Wrapping my arms around his neck, I kept my ear pressed to his chest, his heart speaking to me in a language only I could understand, and closed my eyes. The words of his heart echoed the same ones of mine, except I replaced “her” with “him.”
For me, for what I have finally found, keep him safe and sound in my arms, or there will be no life left for either of us.
It was another one of those island storms that seemed to come out of nowhere—boo, I’m here, m’fers. It was bad enough that we couldn’t leave if we had to. Conditions were not safe to take the helicopter out, and staring out of one of the glass windows, I wouldn’t step foot on a boat if I had a hundred life preservers tied to me. High, rolling waves seemed to be crashing into each other, like they were either battling or high-fiving, and it was causing the entire sea to be violent. The boat at the dock was like a toy in a bathtub full of splashing kids. It might as well be a buoy.
Sighing, I turned toward my husband, who stared out the same window, a stone look to his face. It had been decided that we would stay on the island, keeping the threat with us. We had men with us wherever we went, even if I didn’t always see them on the outskirts of our private space. I hadtheking of beasts matching every one of my steps, so I didn’t care if I ever saw the soldiers or not. I knew I was safe with him. I’d put my head on a chopping board for that feeling.
It was my husband who I was worried about.
What I had realized—about Rosaria not caring about me but him—set my heart on edge.
Whoever was after us was getting closer.
The rage I’d felt from Rosaria was creeping underneath our door like seeping blood from whichever animal had been sacrificed to write the warning letters on the wall. If it wasn’t coming from her directly, it was coming from someone directly connected to her.
Where had she been going? Who was she running to?
Maybe she hadn’t made it, but it was still important. I didn’t want to keep bringing it up, but…I wanted to know. One look at my husband’s face and I decided to bring it up later. He had a lot of pent-up energy—it seemed like the storm was getting to him, and so was the entire situation. It had gotten to me too, but I wasn’t pulling extra tension from the intense pressure system like he was either. It was like it was feeding him.
“I need a bath, Rocco,” I said. “The sulfur smell is getting to me for some reason. It’s more intense now.”
He came close, sniffing me, and I almost backed up a pace. I didn’t want him to smell it on me. Because I couldn’t smell it coming from him. All I got was his natural scent, which was like a potent drug. More powerful than dopamine. And I smelled like…rotten eggs. His nostrils flared as he got closer, and this time, I wanted to take a huge step back, like, to the other side of thecastelloaway from him, but after his sniff test, he only shrugged, taking my hand and leading me toward our room. He waited in the doorway of the closet while I got clothes for him and me. He seemed to like it when I did that. I was glad. It felt natural to me, like each of us having a preferred seat at the dining table.
