“Now I’m torn!” I pushed against his chest. “That’s such a beautiful name.” Especially when he said it with a perfect Italian accent. He could’ve been reading me my rights, and I would’ve fallen in love.Take me to jail, Officer Rocco.
“What about three girls?”
“You are just being cheeky now.”
I exploded with laughter. “Just in case!”
“Sì, just in case.”He set his hand over mine, kissing me. “It is always better to have more than not enough. Therefore, I agree. Maddalena Isabella. Isabella means ‘Devoted to God.’ Maddalena is biblical. However, it also means ‘tower.’” He searched my eyes.
“Ah,” I breathed, understanding. “The tower in Maranello.”
“Sì. The beginning of you and I—of us.”
“The beginning,” I agreed. “And those special powers? Three girls? I think they come from the grapes you grow.”
He laughed into my neck, shaking me again. “What am I to do with you, ah?”
“I have lots of ideas…” He began to suck on my neck when a throat cleared.
Luca had arrived, Maggie Beautiful on his arm. She set the bottle of wine down on the table and came to hug us both, growling as she did. Luca greeted me with a kiss on each cheek, then he and his son greeted each other.
Maggie Beautiful always came first.
Period.
Since this was a family “dinner” the rules were a bit different—we still had to dress to respect the table, but it didn’t feel as formal. Luca and Rocco left the kitchen, and Maggie Beautiful and I finished what was a left to do.
We were eating Italian-style. I felt it was more welcoming than being served. Everyone took what and how much they wanted.
“You are so good at this.” She waved a hand to all the bowls, platters, and plates I’d set out on a warming tray. “I was never all that great with entraining. I was the one who needed to be entertained. I don’t truly regret it. I mean, we’re all special for a reason, and I’m the queen of directing other people around, especially in this arena. Scarlett backs me up on that one.” She sighed wistfully, taking a napkin and wiping around the rim of a platter, even though it wasn’t dirty. “I just wish sometimes…I felt like cooking and doing all this for Luca. He does it for me.”
“That’s really nice, Maggie Beautiful,” I said. “I’m sure you do for him, too, just in a different way.”
Her eyes met mine, and when I realized what I’d said, she exploded with laughter. “Your face,” she barely got out. “It’s okay! I know I’m good in the bedroom.” She slapped my behind. “You are, too, or the son of my heart wouldn’t be as hypnotized by you. The Fausti men take pride in an entire package.”
“They make us feel like we’re the entire package.” I smiled.
She lifted her wine glass and I lifted mine—water with lemon only for me. We clanked. While we prepared, she brought up Ita Novak, and I began to feel sick to my stomach. I went over what Massimo had said and my hope that he could shed light on the situation with the pig witch, and her eyebrows drew down.
“This is such a hard situation. I don’t believe Rocco did this on purpose. This has happened to him before. Being tricked, I mean.”
“He was drugged before?”
“No,” she said. “Tricked. I should’ve clarified. He had a…relationship with a woman who lied about being pregnant with his child. He was going to marry her, of course—this was before the…um, Caffi got involved. Uncle Tito found out the woman was lying to Rocco. She wasn’t pregnant at all, or she was…but she told Rocco she terminated the pregnancy because she didn’t want another child of the blood to be born. Scarlett said she “felt” the woman was lying about that too.”
All I could do was nod. I drank down my water with lemon as fast as I could. I thought I might truly be sick. Maggie Beautiful had reminded me that time wasticking like a bomb—Massimo the one who would either detonate or defuse.
Maggie Beautiful squeezed my hand. “You learn to love them,” she whispered to me. “You learn to love their children even if they’re not yours—just like you have Rocco’s sons. Scarlett Gorgeous, who is just like my daughter, as you can tell. I truly worried about her.
She…she wouldn’t have been able to deal with this situation—the affair on purpose or not. She either would have killed my son, or he would’ve done something terrible—something his father would’ve done, but for a different reason.”
“To kill the hurt he’d caused.”
“Yeah, to kill the hurt he’d caused.”
I thought about Rocco and what he’d told me. How he would erase the situation with Ita. I shook my head. “You can’t kill something like that.”
“No,” she whispered. “You can’t. But sometimes these Fausti men, or maybe men in general, think they can kill things like that—invisible things that claw at our hearts and souls—by physically removing it. We know it’s not possible, but…to them, it’s a way at controlling the situation.”
