His throat bobbed when he swallowed. He touched his heart. “Fate.”
It wasn’t his impassioned reaction to what I’d said that sent my blood freezing through my veins and my feet to still. It was my mamma. The look on her face. It was as frozen as I was. Then heat surged and melted the ice. I was hauling ass to get to my wife, but an uneasy sensation settled in the pit of my stomach, one that wouldn’t subside until whatever was going to happen, happened.
And, end of story, wherever my wife went, I would follow, even if I had to fight hell to get back to her.
My wife had a three-day stint in the hospital before she was released. She looked somewhat pale and thinner, but looking back on the night I went to her in Venice, she had looked thinnerthen too. Her being pale could be from the sickness, and it being winter, but it didn’t detract from the inner sun she seemed to have inside of her.
She was still glowing.
Grinning at nothing out of the car window, keeping her hands close to her stomach, daydreaming, getting lost in the scenery. Sometimes her eyes would slowly dance to mine, and when I would meet her stare, she would blink at me and then turn her face away.
Dandolo sat in the back seat with Oscar’s mamma, who was a doctor. I insisted she stay with us.
“For how long?” Dr. Rizzo had quirked a thick eyebrow up when she came to the hospital to check on my wife.
“For however long,” I said, not committing to a date.
Her husband, Nino, had been a solider, her son, Oscar, was a solider, and both were staying on our property, so it wasn’t a fucking deal.
Dandolo kept staring at the woman almost as if he was possessed. His eyes seemed frozen on her hair. It was black and silver and wild with curls. She had so much of it, it was touching the roof of the car. Nino didn’t look like much and wasn’t the best solider the Fausti family had ever seen, but compared to Dandolo, the true romanticist, he could harm the man.
I slowed the SUV to a crawl in front of the villa in Grosseto, and Apollo and Zeus came running out to greet us. They were barking, running in circles. Mamma came out, a dish towel in her hand, Papà right behind her. Mamma said she didn’t want to take over Sistine’s kitchen, but she felt after all she’d been through, she was going to cook for us and freeze the dinners.
For that night, she was going to bake fresh Italian bread and cook her famous lemon chicken soup. It was Mia’s favorite, especially after she had her two sons and daughter, and Mamma thought Sistine would like it too.
I still couldn’t get the look on Mamma’s face off my mind. When her face turned to stone that way, that meant her intuition was speaking to her, and she was trying to figure out what it was saying. It could’ve had something to do with my brother and his wife. Marciano had told me they were dealing with a health issue Stella might or might not have, and Matteo was losing his shit.
My eyes cut to my wife, who, after I stepped out of the SUV and opened her door, went straight to the dogs. She was petting them, making soft and excited noises at them, throwing Zeus the ball he’d brought her.
“You are just fluff balls!” she said to them, patting Apollo’s head when he rested his against her thigh. “Your dogs are so nice.” It was the first time it seemed like she’d spoken to me in forever.
Fucking, literally, forever.
Our chaperone was Dandolo, and my wife was taking advantage of the space he seemed to set between us. I was surprised he’d taken no issue with her sitting next to me in the car. Except I knew why, besides him being wary of me. He still had a mark on his throat.
Dr. Musa.
She had him wrapped up in her spell.
Or caught in her hair.
He couldn’t look past it. Had to be a fetish.
Then it hit me.
I was in the same predicament as Dandolo. Except the woman was my wife. I had a Sistine Fausti fucking fetish.
“Ourdogs,” I grumbled.
My wife’s eyes met mine and she blinked at me, then turned away.
It was like our time in Wyoming had disappeared.
My wife wasn’tmywife.
My fists tightened and released. Tightened and released.
Mamma ran out and took Sistine in her arms, hugging her tightly. She rubbed her back and told her how good it was to have her home. Papà nodded at Sistine, rubbing Mamma’s back. I set my hand on my wife’s lower back, and even though she didn’t move out of my embrace, I felt the distance between us. It was like my wife had set a cold wall between her body and mine, and she was warm and fucking toasty on her side.
