Page 17

Sistine

O ne week since I had left Venice. One week since I had been at Watt Ranch, and even though time did not permit it, my feet dragged as if weights had suddenly appeared on them. Perhaps because my heart had inherited a weight it did not have before.

This weight?

It had a name.

Mariano Leone Fausti, aka , The Casanova Prince.

To the rest of the world, the connotation to carry around a weight might seem negative, but it did not feel wholly negative to me.

It felt as if I suddenly had a home, and that home was a place that rooted me.

Perhaps “anchor” would be a better description.

The sudden root in my heart felt like an anchor during a storm.

After it seemed to attach itself to me in Italy, I was set adrift when I was apart from it.

I would have used the word sever , but that did not happen at all.

If anything, I felt the urge to be close to him pulling at me every day.

As if to say, Sistine, you can go, but you cannot go far from me.

You cannot escape my pull now. This space we share to come together and become whole.

In theory, it sounded lovely. To have a steady home base that felt safe in a world that constantly spun.

That felt cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

A place where the heart does not ever starve, and when hard times do arise, they are taken to the bedroom where the door is shut until all problems are solved and love is made after.

In reality, I was irritated by it. Not the theory of it, but the name that suddenly belonged to the other half of me. The pull .

Mariano “Casanova Prince” Fausti.

Of all the men!

Casanova was the male equivalent of my sister.

Love was nothing but a game to them. And once they won, which they always did, that was it .

Over and done. Hearts were put on the table as collateral and contained in a cage after the loss.

A wild thing to show off as a trophy—something that was merely a collectable on the hunter’s belt.

Which was fitting for the Fausti family. They stole hearts out of men’s chests while the organs still beat and pumped blood. Fitting for Capri Capella as well. She was a blood-thirsty ass face.

Love was not a game. Or it should not be.

Sighing, I set the kid down that I was holding.

He looked up and baaaa ’d at me before running off to headbutt his fratello or cugino .

A grin came to my face as I watched him pounce around, little tail wagging.

I looked around to make sure I had done my chores.

On a working ranch, everyone had a job, and the job must get done.

Being on the ranch, even cleaning up behind the animals, never felt like a job to me.

Whenever I was there, it felt as if I could breathe.

We worked hard. Played hard. And when it was time to relax—the time felt sacred and special.

Working for my family’s business was satisfying for me as well.

There was an artist inside of me, and whenever I designed and created a piece of jewelry, it satisfied that part of me.

Beyond the physical traits that I could never truly find to connect me with the Capella family, Cappello’s Jewelry was where I found an ancient connection to my roots.

It made me think of Scarlett Fausti—Casanova’s mamma.

She had been a world-famous ballerina before her retirement.

I had met her a few times. She was a slight woman with a truly stunning face.

Her skin was pale, her eyes green, and her hair auburn.

What I found the most intriguing about her, however, was the depth of her eyes.

Her daughter, Mia, had inherited the same depth.

I had to admit, begrudgingly, that her son did too.

The colors of his eyes were on the same color spectrum as hers, but where Scarlett’s eyes were a solid green, Casanova’s were more…liquid, as if all the passion of his heart made them ooze as if they were molten lava of the most stunning color.

All that aside and bringing me back to the point where I had originally started… being a part of a central business that catered to the needs of one of the most infamous families in history…one hears things.

I knew Scarlett Fausti was famous. This was easy enough to find out.

But from what I had heard, she was an artist, as well, and she found the connection to her family, her famous grandmother, through it.

Her gift was not always welcome, as it seemed to bring Scarlett and her husband (the lookalike to Mariano, Brando) trouble over the years.

My gift did not bring me trouble such as hers, but it put me at odds with my family quite a bit.

My talent was something my family acknowledged and kept almost sacred.

And they put a lot of emphasis on this thing—children of our blood who seemed born to create.

My great-grandfather. My grandfather. Father.

Myself. We all seemed to inherit this talent, or artistic gift.

Those who were born with “it” always inherited the business.

The position was comparable to the “head” of the Fausti family. But where they gave orders, maimed and murdered, and were the most vicious of all, we could design and create. We were the most sought-after designers of our time.

My sister could design, but not craft. Even designing was a stretch for her.

The fits she would throw whenever a client would request me over her were legendary. My grandfather replaced the display case in the front of the store countless times because of this. She would smack the case closed so hard the glass would shatter—the same as her control over her temper.

She and I were pitted against each other from the beginning.

I could do what she could not , and therefore I was her mortal enemy.

She reminded me of this often. Which was why the situation with Mariano Fausti was not going to go unnoticed or unchallenged.

She would make sure hell froze over before he chose me over her.

Perhaps Capri was right. He pitied my situation, and there was also the crazed guy with a gun, Iggy, who made Mariano stick around because it was his duty as a romantic and knightly Fausti to do so.

Pfff.

My hand automatically went to the “Annie” pendant around my neck—it was warm from the day and slick from my sweat.

I absolutely loved the necklace. He seemed to know I would.

And that threw me off center. If Mariano was so into the queen of snakes, why did he gift me a claim?

A claim that showed off my personality? The love of something that gave me an identity outside of my family’s name.

Something he had asked me to design to show him who I was, except the boot was the center of it, and so was the nickname he seemed to bestow upon me.

Annie.

Sighing out a warm breath, I walked out into the bright sunshine and stood in the swarming heat of it. I lifted my hat, wiping sweat from my forehead, then set it back. The brim kept the sun from blinding me, but the glare was still powerful enough to make me narrow my eyes.

Even if I narrowed my eyes, I never missed anything in Wyoming.

It was wide and vast and one of the most spectacular views I had ever seen.

The ruggedness of it took my breath away, even though I had been coming to the ranch since I was young.

It was a place that would never settle in my heart. It was too wild.

In summer, it was full of green hectares and grazing animals.

The mountains in the distance seemed to touch the azure sky below cotton-candy clouds; Atta and I would lie flat on our backs and point at ones we thought resembled something.

We would do the same for the stars, except we would just gaze at them, and after a few minutes of silence, we would fall asleep, even if the temperature would drop.

Ty would be the one who came and got us.

He would stomp back, a sour look on his face.

The memory made me grin.

Another memory came to life in front of me—a memory as steady as all the rest.

Bianca Watt. My Zia . My father’s sister.

In our family, she was considered the one who got away.

The irreverent sheep who refused to bow down to tradition and chose what she had thought was love years ago.

A Fausti from a Sicilian branch had fallen for her the moment he saw her working at her table in the jewelry store.

The table I used. My aunt took one look at him and said her heart hit the floor.

There was something mysterious and dangerous between them.

Except when it was time to put his heart where his mouth was—he decided not to tempt fate to such a degree.

My aunt and the Fausti were going to challenge fate for the blood diamond.

My grandfather was against it, but at the time, Marzio was the head of the Fausti family and had ruled that, if the couple wanted to attempt the test, they could take it.

Marzio had been willing to part with the rare red diamond, if that was the way fate ruled.

My grandfather reminded all parties of this very important consequence.

If fate was not for it, the man would also lose his life.

Marzio had nodded at this.

Then the Fausti had changed his mind. As my aunt had told me, The man my heart thought it loved was not the man for me at all.

Not long after the Fausti recanted his offer, my grandfather sent my aunt to a ranch in Tennessee.

She was about all things equestrian. She loved the history of the Wild West. She fell in love with Bear Watt when he was at the same farm for a foal.

They married in Wyoming, where his family’s ranch was, a week later, and she never returned to Italy to stay.