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“In this world, which is undoubtedly crowded, a man must go on a quest to find what is vital to him. His heart. He must claim it from his woman but also allow her to carry it. Trust her enough to. Even if she might destroy it, he will do it. He has no other choice. This is the romance in our veins, ah?”

“ Sì .” I nodded.

“The ruthless inside of us will keep her safe for all her days. There is no other way. If God calls her home, we will never be the same. Our heart goes with her. It has been with her since the beginning. Again, a man who loves truly has no choice.”

“Your mamma,” I said, remembering how Mariano had told me Grazia Angeli, his great-grandmother, the famous Italian actress, had been taken by cancer—a greater foe than his grandfather could fight.

My husband had held me closer then, a tremble going through him at the thought. It was not fear, but pure heat—he would fight off whatever came at me. He would sacrifice his own heat for me.

“My Mamma,” Luca had said, his voice softer on the word. Perhaps it was this softness that gave meaning to the word and what it meant to him. “My father was never the same. Our family lived for him, and this was his life.”

“I am sorry,” I whispered, understanding what he had meant, but he went on in detail.

He kissed my hand. “Some men have two hearts. The one they live for, and the one that lives for them.”

“Some eat to live and some live to eat.”

“Yes,” was all he said to that. “You are perceptive, granddaughter of my heart.”

“I have been working for your family for as long as I can remember. It does a woman well to be perceptive.”

“Beauty and so much more.” His eyes were serious. “You are a woman who knows how to bring a man to hell, so that he can truly appreciate your heaven. A woman who knows her worth and does not take any less than that.”

I nodded. “No less than your grandson.”

His eyes searched mine, and this time, I held his stare. Perhaps because I had been around Fausti men my entire life, was living with one, I understood that the conversation was about to take a different direction.

“Not to state the obvious,” he said. “This is going to be a problem with your family. The law.”

I nodded at this as well. “Yes.” I breathed out a heavy sigh. “My family, my father especially, will cling to the law. He will not be pleased when Mariano finds me in the maze. To earn the red diamond. Fate’s blood. Fate’s gift.”

“ When he finds you in the maze.”

I answered without hesitation, as I had used the word when without hesitation. “Yes. I also believe I could find him.” I sniffed the air. “I can scent him in the air when he is close. However, he is more than that. He has become a feeling. The beat of my heart.”

Nonno grinned, and I could tell he enjoyed what he was going to say next. “He is close.” He held out his arm and I took it.

I did not touch my grandfather, but I knew my grandfather’s arms did not match this man’s. If a woman went in blindly, without seeing the silver in Luca Fausti’s hair and the wisdom in his eyes, she would not have been able to guess his true age by body alone.

“I am enjoying my grandchildren’s love stories, granddaughter of the heart. These stories are not for the faint of heart. Once the souls come together, forming a love story that fate cannot dispute, their places in the everlasting will be earned. Heaven will be earned—the love they share.”

“This is…” I breathed out, feeling euphoric from the proximity to my husband, his grandfather, the scents dancing in the air, my husband’s woodsy scent along with the rich scent of his grandfather. “This is extremely romantic, Nonno.”

He made a choked noise in his throat, a mixture of fully accepting the compliment and almost denying it.

He patted my hand. “Romance is only part of the battle. That is the after. Before—before is the war. The ruthlessness that must contrast the romance. Earning does not mean being given. It means we sacrifice sweat and blood for what matters the most to us.”

This was where my husband and I veered off the memory course.

My thoughts took me down a dark road. A road that was filled with perilous circumstances once we returned to Italy.

Perhaps my husband’s thoughts were along the same path, but where he envisioned the romance in the ruthless—fighting for my honor once again—I could not escape the fear that had my heart in its clutches.

My husband had become my life, and there was no life without him in it.

He would die to see me safe, to see me next to him for the rest of our lives.

I would do the same for him.

Mariano made a strangled noise, and my eyes opened to find him staring at me. He was communicating to me through our connection—an endless fountain of words in a language only he and I shared.

As the sun started to lower, the weather growing colder, he pulled the quilt around me even tighter, pressing me against his chest even closer.

I could not get any closer. I could feel his heart beating against me.

A steady thump that would send me out of my body in grief if my heart could no longer dance to it.

We had to be closer, or we both might perish if we did not obey the connection between us.

It was voracious, wild, demanding, but soft, melding, shaping to fit us.

Enough.

The word came across my mind, combining all the others together to equal something that would forever keep us hungry and fulfilled at the same time.

Enough.

The word took on a new meaning when the secret of it was shared with me through the connection I shared with my husband.

“Hold on to me,” my husband whispered, his eyes fierce on mine.

Perhaps our thoughts had veered off in different directions, but we would always come back together—as eternal as our circular wedding bands.

“Always,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around his neck, refusing to let go.

My husband closed his eyes, the gallant speech over, placing a lingering kiss on my forehead. He picked me up, slow-dancing with me in his arms to the old country tune playing on the old radio. I closed my eyes, my eyes watering but a smile on my face.

A stronger wind kicked up, and I shivered.

Mariano carried me into the home we were just starting to build together, laying me down gently in the bed we were making together, and made love to me until the sun came up.