It was about treating Ermanno more like a…human being. He wasn’t just a body to dedicate to the Fausti family because their blood ran through his veins. It was the same situation between Rocco and Massimo.
Again, I understood the rules of the family, but sometimes I thought it would be okay to step outside of the box for a bit and just be…father and son.
“Ermanno must understand the rules of this family to his bones to survive it,” he said, reading my mind.
“You don’t think he can do both? Be understanding of the rules and be human?”
“It depends on the man. Some can walk this line. Some cannot. If a man cannot, he should err on the side of caution.”
“You’re the man who enforces the caution.”
“I will be king,” he said simply.
“I know who you are,” I said. “And I completely understand the rules.”
“Tell me, my wife, do you truly.”
I jumped up from the tub, about to step out, but the bubbles made it slippery. Rocco caught my arm before I fell. He helped me out of the tub, and I snatched my robe off the peg, wrapping it around myself.
“Yeah, I do,” I said, facing off with him. “You know what I understand the most? The reason why, besides the order from the heart, the men in this family love their women with wild abandon. Because it’s the only love they don’t have to control. It’s the only time it’s deemed acceptable. Romantic, even.”
He shrugged, but I could tell I’d hit a nerve. The vein in his head was swollen. His hands were balled. And the way he was looking at me…I felt in that moment that he thought he’d had one woman who was the opposite of me, cruel to her core, and maybe he thought I was too soft.
I wasn’t too soft.
I understood the rules and why they had them, but I also didn’t understand why it wasn’t acceptable for a man to have a relationship with his son that didn’t involve hierarchy every second of the day. I understood in that moment, like never before, why Maggie Beautiful was sick of it and requested what she did. She didn’t want to see her husband, son, grandsons, and sons and grandsons of her heart at war—at any time. Her timing might’ve sucked, but it was what it was.
“Let me guess,” I whispered. “I’m the opposite of Ros?—”
Before I could even get her name out, he had me by both of my arms. He wasn’t hurting me, but I could tell he was about to go off. His bones rattled, his muscles shook, and his skin flinched every so often, like a bunch of wasps was stinging him.
“Do not say her name,” he said. “You do, you call her here, and she has no business left with me—between us.”
He was so enraged, but even though I felt how violent he could be by the way he was repressing his anger deep inside, I also knew nothing could cause this man to hurt me. Physically or someplace deeper—emotionally.
I kept my chin up but nodded stiffly. “I won’t,” I said, damning my voice for coming out quiet, betraying me. In thatmoment, looking into his eyes was like looking into the eye of a Category Five hurricane. “But it doesn’t change how I feel.”
“I am too much for you.”
“What?” I breathed, then shook my head. “No, not at all. What I said about the men in this family finding balance, I wasn’t talking about you. Maybe before…maybe you couldn’t find it. But I see you. I see the real you. You have it. Balance. You’ll be the strongest leader this family has ever known, and you’ll make history, mark my words. But that’s all I want for Massimo and Ermanno. To find who they are, while still being able to be dedicated to the family.”
He ran his finger down my face, a whisper of a touch. “This will come when the women they love become their lives. Not before. Your heart is in the right place, my wife, but your full understanding of this family will take time. Even the sister of my heart did not understand it right away. In time, you will come to understand, truly, that our family sanctions how we live. Our wife dictates how we love. This is it. The end.”
“I’ll always love you, my husband,” I whispered. “Despite of it. Because of it.”
He leaned down and, with the same whisper of a touch, except with a passion that burned below the skin, set his lips against mine. My eyes closed, and I wasn’t sure if I was returning the depth of his kiss or not. I was too far gone inside of his love to understand what I was doing. But he knew I was there with him, loving him as much as he loved me.
In a swift move, he picked me up off my feet and carried me to my vanity. He set me down on the chair and motioned for me to lift my arms, then wrapped a towel around me, securing it above my breasts. Then he wrapped one around my hair.
He kissed the spot between my neck and spine, and I shivered. He disappeared into the steam that clouded our bathroom, and when I caught sight of him as he passed me again—he was dressed in a t-shirt and sweatpants. He was going for a run.
It almost seemed like he took the humid smoke with him as he left, because as soon as he was gone, the room had cleared and I was all alone, except for the lost image staring back at me—me.
Chapter 38
A Cold Snap
Aria Amora
