I could only stare at the man. He stared back. After a few seconds, he nodded but told us we could not take the photo with us. He stepped inside of his home, and it was stuffy, but he seemed comfortable with the temperature. His dog went straight to a water bowl, lapping it up, and found a spot in the shade to rest. The dog’s eyes never left us. As the old man was shepard to his stock, the dog seemed to be shepard to the man.
The man, who did not give us his name, but we knew as Costa, went to a simple table set by the window, a lace cloth set underneath, where I could see frames lined up next to one another. His wife and the woman he called Leonarda. He handed me, not Donato, the frame.
The photograph was in black and white, but it did not hide how stunning his daughter was. The light in the photograph seemed to give life to her features. She was soft and hard at the same time. The picture was caught from the side when she was laughing, her dark hair about to fall over her face like a shade.
The man snatched the picture back from me and held it to his heart. “Leave now,” he said, but his voice sounded as if it had been crushed from the short walk from outside to inside.
I nodded, and Donato walked behind me. I emerged outside in the sun as if I had been in a cave my entire life, and my eyes could not stand the brightness. I squinted, almost closing them. I took a deep breath, and before I started to move toward the car, the man grabbed my hand and squeezed. His skin was rough and calloused. Cool, even though the temperature scorched.
“I had to touch you,” he said quickly, letting me go a second after. “I had to touch a part of her that I will never again.”
“Tell me,” I whispered. “Did she want me.”
The old man stared at me for a second, then shook his head. “She did not want anyone but herself.”
This was the reason my grandfather had chosen this man’sdaughter for my father to bed and create heirs with. The women Nonno had vetted to be incubators did not want children but the payment they were offered for birthing a Fausti son.
My brothers and I were simply business deals.
I nodded and started to move away from the small casa.
The old man called meSignore Fausti, stopping me before I left. “She is buried not far from here.” He nodded in the direction. “She loved wild fennels.”
Halfway into my seat, he called my name again.
“You have been here. You have learned my name. The name of my daughter. You have glimpsed her face, which is not yours. Now forget. Forget and do not come back.” The dog resting against his legs bared his yellow-stained teeth at me.
As Donato took the rocky road down, stopping two minutes later at a cross in the road, I repeated the man’s words to him. “Forget,cugino.Forget our time here as if it has never happened.”
“Before or after the wild fennel will be delivered?” He did not turn his face to mine as he usually did. He kept it forward, as if turning left or right might sway me.
“After,” I said, fixing my suit.
Donato took the turn, and after the wild fennel I had picked from a field had been delivered, we both would forget.
I had only one family.
The Fausti famiglia.
Trapani was just another city in my beautifulItaliathat my roots were embedded in.
Not one, but all cities to call home.
Chapter 11
The Spinning Toy and the Mesmerizing Stars in Her Eyes
My husband had returned from his last trip with what seemed like prickly pears stuck up hisculo. I was not sure what had gotten into him, but for him to be in such a sullen mood, whatever it was must have been personal.
For an entire week, I listened and snuck around the family as if I were partrat.I had no idea whether my husband had gotten wind of Brando Fausti, or whether he had connected the truth of it to me.
Was that the reason why he was being so sullen?
The night we were traveling to Volterra, he had gotten this look in his eyes, as if something I had done had made his ears prick and his senses turn on, as if I might become dinner. Did he realize on the way that the club was owned by the Nemours, and that I was in on the secret about his brother? I did not believe my husband was having me followed.
Outside of our intimate life was our life as Faustis, and even though we had an arrangement to have sex with other people, Rocco knew my loyalty was to the family—no matter what. I might have been a whore, and enjoyed it, but I was a loyal bitch to one man when it came to the table I chose to sit at.
I shook my head. No, Rocco did not know about the secret son of Luca. If he had, I would have heard about it. I would have felt thechange, whether Rocco knew about the secret son or not. Brando Fausti was not a part of our world, and him being this close would have shaken it up some.
