Page 105

I liked Nino and Dr. Musa. She was a doctor, but it did not seem as if she knew how to heal the issues her husband was having. I thought dating might remind them of why they fell for each other in the first place, and it would heal whatever was torn between them.

“You are fucking curious,” he almost grumbled.

“Not in this case. I am not curious. I am meddling.”

He laughed, but it was a short, huh , kind of laugh. It seemed as if he was lost to his thoughts for a while. The same as me.

“Did you see anything interesting when you went diving?” I asked to break the silence between us.

“Yeah,” he said. “I was coming to tell you. A turtle.”

“My turtle!”

He kissed over my pulse again. “Yeah, Annie, your turtle.”

On one of our snorkeling adventures, I spotted a turtle.

It seemed to be swaying underneath the water, dancing to some nautical band I could not hear.

I was able to capture it on camera. I was so taken by the shelled beauty, I spent most of my time stalking it.

It seemed to notice, and although it was hesitant, it kept swimming around me.

I would not touch it, but the moment felt as if it were mine.

I started calling the turtle mine after.

It was different with the dolphins. One of those seemed to be my husband’s.

I called her civettuola in Italian. Flirty.

She was obsessed with my husband. She kept taking her beak and poking his culo with it.

She would not stop this. He kept stroking her, but she was obsessed.

At one point, he had to leave the water.

I laughed myself almost to death on the shore.

He had given me a narrow look.

I had laughed even harder, waving a hand in front of my face. “You have finally met your match, Mariano Fausti. A female who ran you away!” I exploded again, plopping back in the sand, not caring that I was coating myself in quartz particles, about to get fried by the sun.

My husband had stood over me, allowing the sun to break against his back, shielding me from it, even if he thought my humor was misplaced. Perhaps he thought I should be defending his honor instead of laughing about the entire experience.

My husband grumbled in real time. “You’re thinking about that dolphin again.”

I laughed. “Yes! She is my spirit animal.”

He shook his head. As soon as the moment passed, he became quiet, almost reflective. I had to fight the urge to ask him where his thoughts were.

He cleared his throat. “My old man started taking mamma on dates here.”

“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 the bure . 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 up and set me inside the fast boat.

He handed me a fazzoletto , ah, handkerchief, and I tied it around my hair as we jetted off to another island.

He untied the fazzoletto from 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.

“You are a trip, Annie. The best fucking trip of my life, for my entire life, and even after that. We’ll be relaxing together—the best sleep of our lives, tangled in each other.” He turned me forward, lifting my hair, and something cool touched my neck.

My hands went instinctually to it and found another necklace, longer than the Annie pendant.

I lifted the pendant closer, attempting to make out the design in the glow of firelight.

It was a square block with a water design, a turtle in the center, but the coolest part—melted emeralds and sapphires seemed to pour out of the square like water.

“This is…” I turned around to face him, wrapping my arms around his neck. “I love it, Marito mio . Grazie mille .”

He kissed me, told me one of my great-uncles designed and created it for me at his order. He took my hand and led me toward the music.

I did not waste time. I started dancing as soon as we were under the shelter of the pavilion, as Mariano called it. A live band—a super country star!—was giving a private performance to a group of people who were invited to the island.

Mariano said these concerts happened a few times a year. It was never announced ahead of time who would be performing, but it seemed to be my lucky day: it was the genre of music I enjoyed most. I wondered if Atta would ever be invited.

As I danced, my husband twirling me around and bringing me in, a rush of excitement raced up my chest at the thought of my cousin performing for the world, a reaction from the crowds feeding her love of singing.

She would love this type of crowd. So warm and welcoming, singing every lyric back to her, losing themselves in the moment.

The musician even asked if anyone wanted to sing with him, and no one raised their hand to offer, so I whistled with my two fingers and pointed to my husband.

“My husband can sing better than you!” I hollered.

Mariano gave me a look, as if to say… you’re not drunk, but you fucking seem like it.

I laughed even harder, danced even harder, when Mariano sang “Can’t You See” followed by “Take It Easy” with the artist.

The entire night made me high, as if I were floating in the water instead of my feet being stuck in sand.

As the night progressed, I kicked my sandal thongs to the side and allowed the night to move me even more freely.

Mariano had truly taught me what it meant to flow with him instead of fight.

To hold onto him and him only when the world attempted to pry us apart.