She looked outraged. “I am not encouraging him to do anything but what he is supposed to do!”
“The guitar and music,” I said.
She looked confused for a second, then realized. “Ah, he wants to learn those things for Dr. Musa?”
“Yeah,” I said, “and I don’t want to have to save Dandolo from a trashcan somewhere—Nino is going to stick him in one.” And I refused to fucking lose the man who was supposed to be overseeing this Fate Day—Mia was right. I had no clue what to call it.
Sistine grinned, and that made my heart speed up. Then her eyes took on a serious look.
“Would you save him if I asked you to?” She lifted a finger.
“You wouldn’t even have to ask me to live or die for you—I do whatever my heart orders me to do. You are my heart.” I took her hand down, making sure she felt the callouses on my hand, and hit my heart with it.
She took one long look at me, my riding shirt hanging around my waist, my riding pants, my boots—dirtied up from a day of working on the farm—and turned away from me.
I stared at her, but she refused to look at me.
It was fucking grating on me, even though I had an idea of why she was doing it. I took her by the arms and walked her to the wall opposite the horses in the stable.
“SignorDan—” she went to call out in that sing-songy, sweet voice she had. Unless she was pissed. Then her mouth became a gun, and she shot rapid-fire bullets.
Iticked my mouth. “He’s practicing the guitar.” My eyes bore into hers. “Here’s the fucking thing,mywife. I know this quote-unquote ‘fate day’ means something to you, so I’m going along with it. It’s romantic, which speaks to me too, but space from you is not going to confuse fate. I was apart from you for fucking centuries, and I found you again. Fate directed my steps back to you. When I first saw you, Fate whispered in my ear—she’s yours,” I breathed out.
“Because here’s the deal. If there are lives before this one, I was with you in each one. I’ll be with you in those after this one. Personally, I believe in heaven, and you’ll be the reason I get in. Your love. Your love will see me there. Because there’s no way you’re going anywhere without me. Understand me?” I said in Italian.
She took a deep breath, and I breathed in her cool release. Apples and pears. She had been eating both. I could still see a sticky spot on her chin from where the juice of—I leaned in and licked her from chin to lip—a pear had dripped from her mouth. I went to do it again, and she sank her teeth into my bottom lip.
It wasn’t a bad bite, but it made me bleed, and I grinned. My cock was hard and pressed against her stomach. I set my mouth close to her ear and breathed out in heated Italian, “I am allowing this time, but come the day of the maze,mywife will return to me.”
Every day until then, I ticked my fingers in her direction.
5…
4…
3…
2…
1.
Time up.
Chapter 41
Mariano
Eleven minutes.
That was how long it took me to find my wife in the maze located in Veneto.
She was sitting in an alcove, on a marble bench, thick bushes surrounding her. The flowers that belonged to that bush were frozen in time, but I had ordered Dandolo to set red roses and red Persian buttercups around my wife. She loved both of those flowers, and I wanted walls of them for her.
She wore a white wedding dress that seemed tailor-made for her body. The details of it shimmered underneath the wintry sun. The fabric was a mixture of tulle, maybe, like the stuff mamma wore to dance in, and silk, and it almost glistened as ice would. The style of the gown at the bottom reminded me of a mermaid tale, the flowers on it three dimensional, the back low cut. The sleeves matched the pattern of the dress, but the flowers that seemed part of her skin were an illusion. Her hair was slicked back, separated down the middle, and a veil sat atop her head.
This was who my wife was in Italy.
It never ceased to amaze me how any soil she set her feet down on seemed made for her. Not the other fucking way around.
