Page 109

Sistine

W e were on the Fausti family’s private plane back to Italy. Mariano had told me his family usually vacationed in the Italian alps, or in Switzerland, specifically Zermatt, sometimes even in Germany for the colder months. He said he and his family, mostly the male members, enjoyed skiing.

I was not used to all the traveling and felt as if I might have whiplash when we jetted from a tropical location to a cold climate.

However, since Stella was facing a threatening health issue, the family was staying put in Tuscany, where Brando and Scarlett had a farmhouse.

Mia and Rio, and Matteo and Stella, were not far away.

This was where we were headed.

I could not put off any longer what I had been avoiding. Being honest with my husband about what Iggy had done. The conversation Iggy and I had before the banquet. All the things the Russian killer admitted to me that night.

Again, Iggy seemed capable of evolving into a hard to kill specimen of a man. I wanted Mariano to be prepared for what was to come.

Not even an island was safe enough to tell him.

The plane was better to keep him locked in, I had convinced myself.

I could not tell him during takeoff.

I could not summon the courage to tell him while he read through a finance magazine or while he worked on his computer—something to do with his work.

He, Matteo, and Marciano all shared an investment company.

Mariano had told me Brando Fausti’s sons had all inherited their father’s luck when it came to money.

Even Captain, who was Merlin’s uncle, had become an extremely wealthy man because of Brando Fausti and his luck.

Brando Fausti, along with Rocco Fausti, perhaps even the other two brothers, Dario and Romeo, had invested in Captain’s treasure-hunting expedition, and the chance had paid off. They found gold and a lot more.

It seemed whatever these men touched either turned women into moldable candle wax (the romance ), or their touches came as sharp as a sword (the ruthless ), or…the luck in their hands turned everything into gold.

Mariano’s eyes blinked.

I blinked at him.

I had never seen him do that before.

It was almost a yawn with his eyes…

It seemed as if he could relax on the plane. I was trapped thousands of miles in the air with him. No one could come at me, meaning him , from any side, unless they crashed into our plane, which meant we left this world together.

He shook his head. He took drinks of his whiskey, the computer screen lighting his face, while I assumed he went over numbers.

Mariano was also one of the best footballers in history. He had one of the most recognizable faces. This was profitable for him. He took the money he made and invested it, which turned out to be extremely lucrative.

“They can touch shit and turn it into gold,” Atta had said to me after she realized how all Fausti men had the magic touch. “The women they marry seem to all be talented too. This seems to be the recipe to keep a family as powerful as they are turning.”

“You can sing,” I had said. “You are close to being a world-famous singer.”

“You’re not so bad yourself, Sis. You’re one of the most well-known designers and jewelers on earth.

People from all over the planet seek you out.

You’re one of the most talented artists in the world, your medium jewelry.

Claims. The symbolic. Your forte. You’ll go down in history as one too—a master.

Or should I say mistress? Does that fit? ”

I thought about Scarlett Fausti and how talented she was.

Atta was right.

The Fausti men seemed to marry women who pursued their talents and excelled at them.

“You’re above me in all things,” my husband had once told me.

“We walk into a room, and every male’s thinking the same fucking thing—why the fuck is she with him.

Then they’re wondering if they should challenge me or not for your hand.

Sizing me the fuck up. Let them all.” He held out his hand, as if he was inviting them.

“They can form a line. I’ll put each one of the fuckers down in the dirt. ”

I had smiled at this, refusing to laugh at the absurdity of it. One look at him, and they knew why I was next to him. He had it all and then some. The all was his heart and how he loved me. The then some was his looks.

Mariano Leone Fausti stood out amongst Fausti men.

I watched them walk into the jewelry store, day in, day out, and watched them all walk out, and over the years, I began to clump them all together. Although personalities differed, I could spot a Fausti a mile away from looks alone, even without the tattoo that marked them.

My husband was the moon in a sky of stars.

He was just like his Friesian horse. Gorgeous—way past what the laws of nature should allow.

However, I could not point this out. My husband would have taken offense if he thought I was making light of…me.

I rose from my seat, poured him another glass of whiskey, and set it next to him, kissing him on top of the head. Even in the contained space, his eyes had been on me. They still were.

“I am going to the bed,” I said.

He nodded.

My breath came shallower with the way he was looking at me.

The thought of telling him about Iggy forced me to move away from him.

He snatched my wrist and only allowed me to go so far.

I turned back and looked at him. He pointed to his lips.

I grinned and leaned in for a kiss. Although he released my wrist after, his power seemed to cling to me, always around me.

It did not take him long to leave his work and meet me in the private suite.

His custom-made suit hung from the doorway, my formal dress next to it.

We were, no doubt, headed back to Italy.

The plane shook with turbulence. The lights flickered.

My husband’s fine frame blocked the doorway, the glass of whiskey I made him glowing amber in his hand. “You said the magical word.” He took a deep drink of the glowing liquid, and it glistened on his lips. “Bed.”

My body craved the taste of it from his mouth. I longed to lick it from his lip. Taste the fire of it from his tongue.

Iggy.

The fire beginning to rise inside of me was doused by the equivalent of cold water.

Iggy.

I huffed. “Bed. Floor. Wall. Bedroom. Kitchen. Bathroom. A magical cave in Fiji. Our cabin in Wyoming, or our ranch in Grosseto.” I waved a dismissive hand, and he caught it. His eyes peered down into mine. “It does not matter where we are.”

“As long as we’re fucking alone.” He rolled his teeth over his bottom lip. “No one sees my wife. No one hears what is mine alone.” He hit a hand over his chest.

Our eyes held until I looked away.

I felt his warmth next to me, although the bed did not move. I set my hand over his, entwining our fingers. I looked down when I noticed in my peripheral vision that he was holding something out for me. His infamous book.

My eyes flew to his.

He nodded at it. “I was going to burn it, turn my past to ash. There was something inside I wanted you to see, though.”

My hands trembled from the anxiety of telling him about Iggy.

Now this.

The book was filled with numbers. Numbers, no names. A lot of numbers. I lifted it.

“This the only one like this?”

“No,” he said. “Those I did burn.”

“I see,” I breathed out. I was not sure where to put all these rampant feelings exploding across my chest like a herd of elephants, except the herd was running from me—I had turned into a jealous lioness on the hunt for carnage.

I stood abruptly from the bed, and he went to touch me, but I put a hand up. “A minute.”

“Away from me,” he said.

“Away…” I could not even form a coherent sentence. Perhaps this would make it easier to crush him with the meeting with Iggy. Burn for burn.

“Look beside the numbers,” he said.

“I do not want to look at the numbers!” I shouted.

“Fucking look at the numbers, Sistine.”

I opened the book, reading the numbers out loud rather childishly. “Which page in this book of conquests do you want me to start on? The middle? What is that? Page one thousand?”

“There are not that many pages,” he said.

“I know this! However, there are that many numbers listed.”

He snatched the book from my hands, and opening it to whichever page it landed on, he stuck it closer to my face. My eyes went crossed before I took a step back, my arms crossing. A defensive position.

If I allowed my hands to be free, I might attack him, cause him pain—the same pain ripping my…was it my heart? I was so jealous! It felt like acid eating at my skin.

“Fucking look at it, Sistine.”

“Fine!” I snatched the book from him, holding it out. I read off a random number, and when I got to the end, there was the letter N next to it. “What is that? Some type of code?”

“The N is for no,” he said, as if it should be obvious. “No, she, whoever the fuck she was, was not you. Turn to the end.”

I flipped to the end. He had sketched a picture of me.

Similar to the one of my great-grandmother.

It was how he saw me the first time he described seeing me.

I was at my work desk. He even took great care with how my hair was styled.

My dress. A stained-glass window shedding a kaleidoscope of colors around me, even if the sketch was done in what seemed like charcoal.

I could not explain it; however, I just knew.

I just knew the colors of his mind, even if it came out on paper as black and white.

My eyes slowly rose to meet his. Tears I held back burned. Burned from the jealousy and the relief that this man had fallen for me out of all these numbers.

“My number one,” he said, his voice rough, “turned out to be my fucking end game. The one who beat me at my own fucking game.”

I should have been falling into his arms, making love to him with a fervor that would send the plane in flames, making another claim on him, feeling the words he had just spoken to me in unbridled truth.

However.

I was angry.

So angry.

Iggy.

I knew I was defending myself against the crushing amount of anxiety I was experiencing about having to tell Mariano by thinking of how mad I was that Iggy even put me in this predicament!

However, my husband’s eyes, his entire demeanor… Perhaps it was not…anxiety, per se, that he was feeling having to share with me the book of his past, but he was feeling some kind of way I did not fully understand.

He cleared his throat. “Say something.”

The words flew from my mouth. “You are an artist as well.”

He made a hng noise in his throat. “You sound pissed about it.”

“I am not.” I took a deep breath. I took a small step toward him, another, until I took a seat next to him. “It is the most beautiful picture of me I have ever seen.” My voice was quiet, almost lost to the humming of the plane.

“She is who you are to me.” His voice was rough.

“After I left the jewelry store, I couldn’t fucking control my hands.

A restless, fucking reckless, need inside of me to capture what I had experienced that day ruled me.

You. My wife. I knew who you were to me the first time my eyes found yours.

Everything. My life. My breath. My healing.

The one woman who started the racing of my heart and could stop it. ”

Bene. Bene. He knew, and he would not deny me for what I had hidden from him.

I sighed. It trembled out. “I have to tell you something, Mariano.”

His eyes slowly rose to meet mine. He nodded.

“I do not know how to say this…”

“Fucking say it.” He rolled his shoulders.

“The night of the banquet in Venice…Iggy climbed the hand statue, using it to gain entry to my parents’ palazzo. He…broke into my room. He…told me…he…loved…me.”

Silence.

Complete silence.

Until he got to his feet, all over six feet of him making the space suddenly feel so small, almost claustrophobic, going to fix the suit he was not wearing. His suit hung on the door.

His eyes met mine. “You are just now telling me this,” he said in Italian.

I answered in the same language. “Yes.”

“He hurt you.” It was not a question; however, I answered it as if it were one.

“No,” I said quickly. “He only wanted to talk.”

“Talk to you. Tell my wife that he loves her. He was fucking alone with my wife.” The words exited his mouth in a smooth flow, but I could feel it.

The tremulous nature of what existed below the surface of their meaning.

It was the same when he had said he hurt you .

It was the monster existing inside of every Fausti man, speaking for him.

Inside of my husband, his monster was about to explode through the surface.

“Yes.” I forced the one simple word out.

He stared at me, but I was not sure if he was seeing me. He nodded, as if he was answering thoughts inside of his head, and then turned and left, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Except it did not feel quiet in my heart.

It felt as if he had shattered the door, and the pressure the gaping hole left behind sucked all the air out of the plane, and I was suffocating while trying to hold on so I would not get flung out.