“As long as you are.”
Our eyes connected again, and this time, something different moved between us.
A challenge.
He knew it, and so did I.
We were already connected in ways that were unexplainable. Not even I understood them yet. But we both seemed to understand without it being a conscious choice.
He brought my hand to his mouth, setting a warm, lingering kiss on my knuckles. “You smell good, Annie,” he whispered, then he gently set my hand down.
He went to walk off, leaving me staring after him. He was heading in the direction of the accommodations for the ranch hands. He stopped a few feet ahead and turned toward me.
“I saw the way you were watching me,” he said, voice even and smooth. “When I first pulled up and you thought I was going to hurt your cousin, not knowing he was your cousin, for touching you.”
He let the moment linger, waiting for me to say something. The way he had saidyouwas the equivalent of the way a man would saymine.
I crossed my arms. “Okay,” I said, as if I was saying, “And?”
“If he would not have been your blood,” he said in Italian. “He would have woken up to his hands next to him on his pillow.I knew who he was before we arrived. When it comes to you, I know everything.”
I watched him walk off, my eyes on his back and ass. Mariano Leone Fausti walked with purpose. A lion with a wild horse on his back.
He was such an enigma!
It pissed me off that with every step into my life, he was luring me in, my curiosity getting the best of me. He wore thousand-dollar suits. His cologne made me go weak in the knees. His hair was always neat and in order. He was, no doubt, a millionaire. Perhaps more.
Yet…
His hands were calloused.
If he said he did not mind animal shit, he meant it.
If Hannah had allowed them on the ranch knowing who they were…there had to be more to him.
My eyes moved back to Hannah. She was watching me. She nodded to me before she went inside the house, black hair flowing in the gentle breeze behind her. My eyes moved forward, and this time, my aunt was looking between me and Mariano as he moved toward the cabins. She wore a look I could not decipher on her face.
Once he disappeared, the land welcoming him in, she nudged her horse and then disappeared in a cloud of dust.
Chapter 9
Mariano
Her father tried to hide her—mine—from me.
Flavio Capella told me his daughter was none of my business, and if she never returned to Italy, that was none of my business as well. It was the first time blood seemed to coat my vision, and my mind went numb, except for the order my heart was giving to kill the man attempting to stop me from getting tomine.
Sistine Evita.
Remo had called Guido, his uncle, who had gotten in touch with my uncle, Rocco, who my sister and brothers all calledPadrino.Padrinowas next in line to rule the Fausti family, and he showed up to have a meeting with Flavio.
Padrinowas mostly quiet, listening to Flavio go on and on about how the rules did not permit me to claim his daughter. However, if it was Capri I was after…
My uncle’s attention had come to me then, and even without me giving so much as a shake of the head. He knew.
Abso-fucking-lutely not.
Flavio had no idea how close he came to death that day. Or maybe he had. That was why a meeting was called with my uncle.
