He took my hand and squeezed before he brought it to his lips, breathing me in, kissing each finger, staying longer on my left finger. The blood diamond glistened like a droplet of blood in the sun, but I had never seen it glow like it did then. It was as if it knew it was out of the chambers of our underworld vaults and was free to breathe and feel the sun on its cool existence.
We both were.
Merlin dipped the plane and started to sing a song about cheeseburgers. I started to move my shoulders, and shocking me, Mariano joined in on the chorus with Merlin. I started laughing, and as the plane made its descent, I was still high.
It was not Merlin who brought us to the island but my husband. He drove the boat as a pro would, the wind whipping through his hair, pressing his t-shirt against his bulging muscles, and I was certain I had never seen anything in my life more…what word to use? No. Two words. Gorgeously rugged, perhaps. He was wild, this man-monster of mine, and when he picked me up and set me barefooted in the sand, I was breathless.
While Mariano grabbed our things from the boat and started to set them in the sand, my eyes were starving for the scenery. They landed back on my husband, the world beyond him our new backdrop for a time.
The water of the South Pacific seemed to be singing to us, rushing into shore, stealing bits of sand as it did. The colors this close… I could only compare them to the colors of my husband’s eyes. How they seemed to glow from behind when the sun hit them.
Some spots of the water were crystal blue and seemed more on the shallow side, schools of silver fish swimming together, other single fish darting from one area to another. Other areas of the water were darker, sapphire, and I had seen them from the plane. They were probably much deeper. Some parts of the water were a mixture of blue and green, a shimmering teal.
The sky was beginning to turn purple, but the pinks and peaches from earlier made the earth glow.
The wind constantly breezed past, as if it was checking me out, sending tendrils of my hair into wild frenzies. I had pulled it up on the sides, but my hair was so long, it was flowing freely with the gusts. I closed my eyes for a second, truly absorbing the feel of it against my skin. It was tepid, not so hot at this time of the day, and it felt as if I was airing out after a long, hard winter.
Being sick in my parents’ palazzo came to mind. I shivered and then made a shaking-out motion with my hands. I wanted to release the memory to the wind, allow it to take it where it would.
Perhaps to feed some creature in the many palm trees lining the path. The trees themselves bowed a bit, and the fronds shimmered with the wind. They reminded me of green feathers.
I breathed in. The scents were tropical. Clean with a hint of baking seafood in the sand.
Something touched my foot, and I jumped. It was some type of crab that was making a line in the sand to wherever it was headed. It seemed off kilter, one of its pincers bigger than the other.
“This is the oddest little creature I have ever seen,” I muttered to myself. I wished I had a camera to capture the moment. All these moments we were having.
“Fiddler crab,” my husband said, coming to stand beside me. “Mamma likes them.”
I made a breathless noise. “Scarlett told me about the Booby birds on the island!”
“Boo—beewhat?” he asked, removing a long strand of hair from my eyes.
I stood on my toes and wiped sweat from his forehead. I straightened his sunglasses. “Boo—beebirds.” The name did notroll off my tongue with ease. “Booby birds,” I rushed out, hoping it would make my pronunciation better.
He exploded with laughter. I narrowed my eyes at him, then got the joke. Men and boobs. I rolled my eyes, shoving him, laughing, as well, and he took my hand, pulling me in. He wrapped his arm around me, I wrapped mine around his waist, and we watched as the ocean rushed into shore.
Together, it seemed, we were airing out. Winter seemed so far away from us, although hours and hours before, we had been in the thick of it. It made me think of the things we spoke about enroute to Fiji.
We were lying down on the bed in the bedroom of the private plane:
He had cleared his throat. “I’m going to ask this, then after, we’re going to fucking forget about it and move on.”
I’d yawned and nodded.
“If you thought I was with your sister, why did you go through with the…fate day. Not that it would have deterred me, if you would have tried to back out. I would have fixed the problem, and all would have been settled between us.”
I had grinned at that. “Fate Day.” It did not seem to have a name. SignorDandolo did not have an answer for this either. Then my emotions took a different turn. I rose to an upward position, leaning on my elbows, looking down at him.
“Because, Mariano Fausti,” I had said, all the conviction in the world laced through every word, “I would have gone through with it. After, I would have torn your heart out as you tore mine out. I would have simply…left. Even if you would have found me, you would have never been able to touch me deeper than skin again.”
“Hell,” he said. “A version of it that the devil himself couldn’t stand.”
“Hell for me as well,” I said.
“I know what’s at stake, Sistine. I refuse to gamble with what I can’t live without. Air. And not because it’s the fucking wrong thing to do either, and I would not ever hurt you or betray your trust that way. It’s because I know there’s no other woman in this world made for me except you. I don’t settle by nature. I don’t thrive on material things, even though we have plenty. What I do thrive on is what we have. That’s what I refuse to settle for less on. You’re my fantasy. You’re my real partner. In all ways, Sistine Evita Fausti. There could never be another you.”
“Ah.” I did not have the words to respond to that. However, I did have something to ask him as well. “A book.” I looked him in the eyes. “My sister mentioned this to me. What is it?”
