“It is a wonderful place to start dating,” I said, almost careful not to put too much emotion into my voice. If I seemed eager, or showed too much one way or another, it almost felt as if he would…shut down. He would give me a little and then stop. He did stop.
I prodded, just a little. “Did what I said about Nino and Dr. Musa make you think of that?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Mamma said her time here healed her.”
“After she lost the first Matteo,” I whispered.
He nodded. “She almost died.”
I held on to him closer. I loved Scarlett as a mamma, as my husband’s mamma, and I cared about all that she lost. In a way I could never comprehend before my pregnancy, I understood how she felt. I also felt a bit guilty.
After Mariano confided that in me, my first thought had been—if she had died, I would not be holding this man in my arms, my heart.
My life.
I sighed and kissed his neck over his pulse. “I do not know what to say to such sadness,” I whispered. I was being truthful. What could I say? It felt as if words were meaningless. I only knew that, the next time I saw Scarlett Fausti, I was going to hug her longer, harder.
“There’s nothing to say, Annie,” he said, his voice rough.
“I know, but I sometimes wish there was. Some healing words that work as magic would.”
“You are the good in me,” he said in Italian.
He moved us toward the shore, and as he did, he began to confide in me about how his father had never wanted children. His mamma had told Mariano and his siblings that Papà Brando had not felt worthy enough to have them. Mariano said it went back much further than that. Back to when his grandfather had first met Magpie. He explained how Magpie lived in a small town in Louisiana, where his mamma’s parents were from as well, and his parents had been together since his mamma was a young woman.
His story got to the point when his father set his mamma loose in Paris to become a world-famous ballerina. Events unfolded from there. Events that changed the course of their lives. However, the center of the story was that Brando Fausti was not subject to the rules of the family until Scarlett stumbled upon them in Italy, after she had moved from France to Italy to continue her ballet career.
“She did not know he was a Fausti?” I asked.
“No, not at first. Or, rather, she had no fucking clue who the Fausti family was or what it meant to be related to one. Especially since my grandfather had been in line to be the next leader. The fiercest of the fucking bunch.”
“This must have been a great shock.”
“To my uncles too.”
“They did not know?” I asked, and my voice sounded scandalized.
“No.”
“Madonna mia,” I breathed. “How did all of this change your father’s mind about children?”
“Brando Fausti thought we would all be like him. Essentially, our grandfather in different clothes.”
“Because the Fausti family does not know how to show love—in a way that most of the world can understand?”
“Bullseye,” he said. “But even my old man can’t stop fate. Faulty birth control is the reason my sister is here—the rest of us. After Mia, my old man wanted more of us. Here we are.”
“You know how to love,” I barely got out. “Your mamma must have…”
We reached the shore, and I could tell he had hardened. I knew this all fed into the truth he had confided in me at the waterfall. I used the towel to dry his shoulders, although it was a waste of time with the wind and the sun. I only wanted an excuse to touch him, to get close to him again. He had visibly hardened, or as I preferred to call it...turtled.
However, he sighed at my touch, and after a while, he took my hand and led me back to thebure. He told me to dress casually; he was taking me on a date. It was the first time I dressed in clothes heavier than a bathing suit or silk robe since we arrived.
I dressed in a tank top the color of his eyes, a jean skirt, and thong sandals. I allowed my hair to be free. It plumped around my head, the long strands wavy. My skin glowed from the essence of the sun, and I only applied makeup colors that enhanced this.
Mariano dressed in a t-shirt and thin shorts, and after he removed my sandal thongs, we walked hand in hand in the sand until we came to the edge of the water. He picked me upand set me inside the fast boat. He handed me afazzoletto, ah, handkerchief, and I tied it around my hair as we jetted off to another island.
He untied thefazzolettofrom my hair when we arrived, placing another flower on my left side. Right away, I heard music over the crashing of the tide. I got so excited, I jumped a little, and my husband took my hand, grinning, kissing my fingers.
