Page 19

“Lord,” Atta breathed next to me. “No wonder Ty didn’t want to bet. That truck is dang deceiving. Those men don’t fit, but I have no doubt they’re going to pull their weight around here.”

Exactly! This was what I was trying to explain all along. However, I could not even agree, because my eyes were locked on the Casanova Prince. He had found me.

He had found me!

I was not sure how.

Except…

I was responsible for designing and creating their jewelry, and Casanova’s line put tracking devices in their pieces—jewelry that was worn often.

Before my time they didn’t, but my grandfather and father told me this practice had started after an intelligent man who headed their security had started it.

His name was Mac. His son, Saverio, was married to Mia, Mariano’s sister.

The only piece of jewelry they could have bugged on me was the necklace, and I had not taken it off and given them the chance to bug that.

How the hell did he find me?!

He did not look happy. At all. The smugness seemed to be wiped clean from his face, and it was set into a mask of stone.

His eyes were narrowed. His lips pinched.

A vein on his forehead was swollen. His muscles seemed bigger, somehow.

His T-shirt too small. He was wearing a pair of old jeans and boots.

A worn-down ball cap, emblazoned with the insignia of Italy’s football (soccer) team, sat atop his head—turned backward, which only reinforced the serious set of his face. His jaw could cut steel.

Dang, as my cousin would say . I was in so much trouble.

“Atta,” I barely got out.

Her eyes swung to mine. In fact, if I had been paying more attention, I would have noticed that her eyes kept swinging from me to Casanova. She was feeling the tension in the air between us.

“Introduce Ty as your brother, my cousin, now .” I did not like the look on Mariano’s face.

I did not like what I was feeling—anxious, suddenly.

I knew how the Fausti family could be, and if, for some reason, Mariano had made a claim on me, beyond the jewelry he gifted me with, I did not want him to think Ty was a suitor.

Not that it was any of his business, but we would have to settle this issue later.

In that moment, Mariano was coming toward us with enough purpose to move a train.

Ty turned with me in his arms and eyed the two men coming toward us, suddenly looking at them with a different view.

Atta stepped in front of her brother and me. Even she could not stop a Fausti train. She had no idea how fast and hard they moved. The lion symbolism in the family was not wrong.

However, she did stop one of the men.

Angelo.

Of course, I knew who he was because, as a Fausti, all his jewelry was designed by my family.

I was properly introduced to him the night of the concert, on the ride back to Venice.

Son of Romeo and Juliette. Angelo was Mia and Mariano’s first cousin.

He was the spitting image of his father.

Not that any of them varied wildly in looks, or that feeling of sheer power they emitted, but there was always something about each one that made them individual.

If this had been any other time, I probably would have inwardly grinned at Angelo’s entrance.

Where Mariano was dressed for a day of work on a ranch, Angelo was ranch…

fancy. He wore a tight black t-shirt, gold jewelry, and black jeans—a belt that could have belonged to a rodeo star, diamond studs and all.

A black cowboy hat. His boots? Check. These were work ready.

However, I had a feeling he had a pair of black alligators in his bag.

Angelo stopped a step from Atta, a wall separating them—Judge and Juri. No one got to Atta unless her dogs approved. Juri had the final say. Both dogs were eye level with Angelo’s crotch and would not mind castrating him if she gave the word.

No one said anything. Atta and Angelo were in a stare down, it seemed. Something was happening there. Even Ty was frozen, me still in his arms, my feet dangling. Casanova’s eyes were hard on mine.

“Sissy,” I whispered.

Angelo’s eyes snapped to mine, then back to Atta.

“Introductions,” I reminded her.

Ty set me down and cleared his throat. “We met at the meetup point. Mariano Fausti.” He nodded toward Casanova. “His cousin, Angelo Fausti. Our new help. Mariano. Angelo. My sister, Atta, and our cousin, Sistine.”

Angelo reached out and took Atta’s hand. He brought it to his mouth. He kept it long after he should have dropped it. Judge and Juri did not growl. A good sign.

Atta cleared her throat. “I’m Atta Watt.

” She said this unnecessarily. She put her head back, as if she was pointing to her brother.

“Tyrone, Ty, Watt. My brother. Sistine’s cousin.

” She seemed to break eye contact with Angelo to send Mariano a pointed look.

“I’m assuming you both know my cousin, Sistine Capella.

I’ve never met a Fausti before, but if the description fits… ”

I had never seen my cousin so…starstruck over anyone before. Ty grinned at me.

“Atta Watt,” Angelo said, “you will be my wife.”

I expected my cousin to laugh, to punch him in the arm, to tell him to go to hell.

Instead…

She nodded. “Yes, Angelo Fausti, I do believe I will be.”

He grinned at her. “It is done then.”

“We’ll see.” She was breathless.

His eyes became serious on hers. “I have already seen. You are my future.”

Ty cleared his throat, stepped forward. “Now that introductions are done, I’ll show Mariano and Angelo to their cabins.”

No way was Casanova going to walk past me without an explanation. When Atta moved to follow Ty, so did her dogs and Angelo.

Casanova stood his ground, and so did I.

I crossed my arms over my chest as we seemed to inhale each other through our eyes.

Although he was as stunning as always, a true wildness I had only seen on his face twice was present.

When I shot at Iggy, and he had a breakdown after.

And when the arrow had killed that man, and he thought I was hurt.

In that moment…

It irked me that I could not hold his intense stare for long. I looked to the left. “How did you find me?” My voice was breathy, and I hated it. I could not speak louder, though, because seeing him did things to me. Things I could not understand. His proximity both thrilled and put me at ease.

“I will always find you,” he said in Italian, his voice rough. It almost matched mine, but with much more intensity.

My eyes snapped to his. “Where is it? The bug?”

He grinned, but it was void of the vainness it usually possessed.

He was possessed by something else. The something that made the Fausti family who they were.

Something wild not a lot of men could pull off.

In that moment, I realized why he could fit in the backdrop—a place as wild as Wyoming—and not seem out of place.

Wild lived inside of him. It only enhanced who he was.

He shook his head. “You and I both know electronics only go so far out here, Annie.”

At his nickname for me, I shivered. It had the same effect as if he had called me baby .

“Tell me,” I said, gaining control over myself. He used those two words as a command to know the truth. I demanded the same of him. “How did you find me.”

“Tell me , what if I said something inside of me just knows.”

“Bullshit.”

He roared with laughter, and it pissed me off.

He stopped laughing suddenly. “You willing to challenge me on my truth, Sistine?”

“You did not commit to ‘just knowing’ where I am, Mariano. Therefore, no, I am not challenging your truth. However, you alluded to it, and I am calling it as I see it. How would you know where I was, in the middle of nowhere, by just knowing it?”

“Because I know you,” he said simply.

I shrugged—this was not a good enough answer.

His muscles quivered. He was bothered.

Bene!

“Venice is an entirely separate world for you here,” he said, switching gears.

I did not respond, and after a minute of the silence, of the intense connection, I turned to go. His hand wrapped around my arm, and I could have sworn his touch was an electrical storm. Goosebumps rose on my skin. The heat from his palm felt as if it were branding me.

“I didn’t know, exactly, where you were,” he said, and there was a bite to his tone. Anger. Below it. Unease. “Let’s not get it twisted. I would have found you eventually, but not fast enough without some help. I didn’t fucking like it. You were gone.”

“You do not own me, Casanova.” My tone matched his, except, perhaps, mine did not hold the same intense passion—or possessive edge—his held.

He laughed, but this time, there was no humor in it. “You fucking own me.”

My eyes met his.

“Yeah, you fucking own me.”

“Love is nothing but a game to you.”

A long pause, and his grin, the one I had come to know, appeared on his face. “You love me.”

A growl vibrated in my throat before it slipped from my lips. “You are not going to find a rose and a chocolate on your pillow here, Casanova. Animal shit is a part of life you will have to contend with. No one else will be there to pick it up for you.”

He exploded with laughter, and although I wanted to rip my arm from his grip, I could not seem to find it in myself to pull away from his magnetic warmth.

“How long are you here for?” I asked.

“As long as you are.”

Our eyes connected again, and this time, something different moved between us.

A challenge.

He knew it, and so did I.

We were already connected in ways that were unexplainable. Not even I understood them yet. But we both seemed to understand without it being a conscious choice.

He brought my hand to his mouth, setting a warm, lingering kiss on my knuckles. “You smell good, Annie,” he whispered, then he gently set my hand down.

He went to walk off, leaving me staring after him. He was heading in the direction of the accommodations for the ranch hands. He stopped a few feet ahead and turned toward me.

“I saw the way you were watching me,” he said, voice even and smooth. “When I first pulled up and you thought I was going to hurt your cousin, not knowing he was your cousin, for touching you.”

He let the moment linger, waiting for me to say something. The way he had said you was the equivalent of the way a man would say mine .

I crossed my arms. “Okay,” I said, as if I was saying, “And?”

“If he would not have been your blood,” he said in Italian. “He would have woken up to his hands next to him on his pillow. I knew who he was before we arrived. When it comes to you, I know everything.”

I watched him walk off, my eyes on his back and ass. Mariano Leone Fausti walked with purpose. A lion with a wild horse on his back.

He was such an enigma!

It pissed me off that with every step into my life, he was luring me in, my curiosity getting the best of me. He wore thousand-dollar suits. His cologne made me go weak in the knees. His hair was always neat and in order. He was, no doubt, a millionaire. Perhaps more.

Yet…

His hands were calloused.

If he said he did not mind animal shit, he meant it.

If Hannah had allowed them on the ranch knowing who they were…there had to be more to him.

My eyes moved back to Hannah. She was watching me.

She nodded to me before she went inside the house, black hair flowing in the gentle breeze behind her.

My eyes moved forward, and this time, my aunt was looking between me and Mariano as he moved toward the cabins.

She wore a look I could not decipher on her face.

Once he disappeared, the land welcoming him in, she nudged her horse and then disappeared in a cloud of dust.