Mariano chuckled, pulling me in close as the first artist took the stage. I lifted my hat over my head, tipping it to the entertainment. Mariano did not dance but kept me close without getting whacked. He moved with me, avoiding my flailing arms. He was so in tune with me, and I was so in tune with him, it was as if our bodies were one. We were extensions of each other.
The song I had sang to him in the car on our way to the auction was performed, the original artist singing it.
I never cried.
But warm tears ran down my face as I sang it while Mariano held me so close, it was a miracle I could even breathe. Years in the future, when I heard that song, I would be back in that moment again.
When I met Atta’s eyes, she wiped hers and smiled at me, tipping her hat to me. I tipped mine to her, and then we started dancing when a faster song came on, bumping our hips and waving our arms, in our own worlds.
I left that night with more memories and stuffed animals than I could carry. Mariano had won them all for me at the game booths.
The day after we returned from the rodeo, the surprise he had planned for me had me rocking in my black heels with a red stripe on the bottom. Mariano only instructed me to dress up. I wore the red version of the black dress I had worn to the auction. This time crimson buttercups were the flowers on my four-inch heels.
When I stepped out of the room, his hand went straight to his heart. “The wife of my heart,” he called me in Italian. “You are the only woman who has ever stopped my heart and been powerful enough to restart it. You are the disease and the cure.”
“Grazie,” I whispered, turning my eyes away from his. My face felt hot. It was not even his words but the look in his eyes.
He was looking at me the way he had done the night in the natural springs. As if I was already naked and he was about to devour me, smoke drifting from the temperature of our bodies alone, all fueled by want.
He used the knuckle of his pointer finger to lift my face and force my eyes to meet his. The signet ring on the smallest digit of his hand glinted gold in the dim light of the cottage. The eyes of the lion were peridot. My grandfather had made that ring for him right after Mariano was born. My great-grandfather was well known in the Fausti family for the style of that ring. The craftsmanship and attention to detail.
“You are the only creature strong enough, powerful enough, to meet my eyes and stare into them without challenging me,” he whispered. His breath caressed my lips. “Without a doubt, I surrender and bow at your feet.” He leaned in, and I finally found the strength to close my eyes and submit to him as his lips grazed mine, then took my mouth in a passionate kiss.
A kiss strong enough to make my knees weak, a volcano inside of me going off, causing me to melt into him. He held me so close, it was as if I was melting intohim, into his bloodstream,but at the same time, I kept all the strongest parts of me so I could walk this earth next to him.
I was still dazed on the ride to wherever we were going. I kept my fingertips on my lips, determined to keep the feeling of his lips on mine forever. I blinked when the car stopped and he stepped out, fixing his suit, coming to open my door.
Remo replaced him in the driver’s seat as my door opened and Mariano offered me his hand. I took it, clasping his fingers, entwining them, and smoothed out any wrinkles in my dress as he led me into a brick building.
Inside waited a woman with a chic haircut, her blond hair glistening in reflection to the hundreds of candles set around the place, her smart black dress hugging her hourglass curves. She wore artsy, oversized glasses, though she barely looked at me. Her eyes were on Mariano, who only nodded at her as we entered.
“Mr. Fausti,” she practically breathed, stepping in front of him. “It was such a pleasure when you called. We were thrilled to do this for you.”
“Not for me,” he said. “For mine, Sistine.” He looked at me, bringing our hands to his mouth, kissing my knuckles.
My breath caught, and the bitch who reminded me of my selfish sister might as well have disappeared. She did not matter. Mariano made me feel as if I was the only woman in the world. He always did. Her response faded into the background as he directed me where to go.
I stopped in the middle of the room, my eyes widening at what I was seeing.
“You are art,” he said in Italian. “You create it. You’re mine. These are allmine.”
My grandfather allowed me to work on pieces outside of the scope of what the Fausti family ordered. I was not allowed to sell them outside of the family. Occasionally, I sold them to eagermembers of the family who were looking for something specific that I had already designed. Or I would occasionally pitch it to them if I felt it fit the individual.
Mariano had somehow gotten a hold of my sketches, and they were life sized on the walls. Some of the actual pieces were interspersed between them. These pieces had been turned into fine-art portraits.
“What?” I breathed, moving closer to one in a daze, my trembling fingers barely touching the canvas. “How…?” I was not sure if my words were coming out in Italian or English.
From behind me, Mariano cleared his throat. “I have my ways. What is yours also belongs to me.”
I grinned, turning my face to meet his glistening eyes. “And what is yours belongs to me.”
“A spell doesn’t work any other way. It takes two.”
“Is that what this is between us, Mariano Fausti?” I whispered. “A spell?”
He shrugged, as if his suit had shrunk suddenly. “I would have called it a love spell,” he said in Italian. “That is a lie, and I do not, cannot, tell those. It goes against who I am as a man. An honorable man.” He hit his heart. “Your man. Love is a lie. I do not have a word for what this is that lives between us. Except for what my parents call it.” He cleared his throat. “Always.”
“Per sempre,” I whispered, hot tears stinging my eyes, running down my cheeks. I did not bother drying them. I wanted him to see how deeply he could affect me.
