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It just did not sit right with me that my sister would engage with any member of the family I was married into. I did not want to see her on the street, much less at family functions. I wondered if Luca could make this a rule? I grinned, but the grin fell when a hand wrapped around my arm.

Clint Herndon, the man who had bid for my jewelry in Wyoming.

I sucked in a quiet breath when my eyes rose to meet his and only found one. He wore a patch over one. The one he had used to wink at me.

“Sistine,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.”

My father came to stand between us, smiling, almost rocking on his feet.

“I am positive you met Signor Herndon,” he said, making Clint’s last name into two syllables.

“Met him, yes.” I narrowed my eyes. “We have no business.” I remembered when my father called and said something about a man with an eye patch. Clint must have told him Mariano was in Wyoming.

“I believe we do,” Clint said, the pressure on my arm increasing.

My eyes slowly moved down to his grip. “You have already lost an eye,” I said, moving my eyes back up to his just as slowly. “I would be careful with that hand, if you value it.”

He smiled at me but released his grip. “I know your husband isn’t here. Your father told me what was going on.”

My father.

He opened and closed his hands. “I was wondering if you would, perhaps, be interested in a business deal with Signor Herndon.”

I laughed, and the sound of it crackled with heat.

“Father,” I said in Italian, “I know what this business deal would entail.

I would marry this buffoon, in return for some kind of riches.

However, you should not need the reminder, but here we are.

I am already married, and it was not you who made the arrangement.

“You do not have this power over me anymore. If you want to sell one of the Capella women to this jackass, try the single one. They would make a beautiful match!” I nodded to Clint, who had no idea what I had just said.

“Have a good night, since this time, you will keep your hand. It will come in handy when you are saying goodbye to Venice and all the opportunities you would have found here.”

Clint had the nerve to whistle at me as I left. I heard him tell my father I was spicy, and that was the kind of food he preferred.

Food!

The only food I wished to be was the type my husband desired and devoured.

My feet stilled on the steps, and I took deep breaths to control the racing of my heart.

A sob was stuck in my throat. I was not sure why, but it was.

I took another deep breath, then forced myself up the stairs, shutting and locking my door after I was in the room I had occupied when I lived in this palazzo.

“Love suits you!” I mocked my husband’s voice.

He was right, and I was finally understanding what he had meant. The men suddenly attracted to me were not ordinary men. The more I told them no, the more of a challenge they found me.

“There is nothing between us.” This from me.

The rest from the men of the night:

You do not know this for sure.

If your sister is the moment, you are the woman for always.

She is just the kind of spicy dish I prefer.

It was beginning. The prediction my husband had made in the water taxi what felt like centuries ago. Our love was attracting hard hitters, and we were going to have to stand against them.

Is he standing against them?

According to the serpentine queen, he was not. He was falling into bed with them.

I plopped on my bed, turning over, making a frustrated noise into my pillow, kicking my legs as if I were a big kid ( my sister!) , before I sat up, then got to my feet. I rocked for a second, the entire world spinning, before I took a deep breath and hustled to the balcony.

The scent.

It circulated in the air around me, made me dizzy, off kilter, as if I was flying and about to crash at the same time.

My heart raced. Skipped. My stomach filled with the very same things I wore on my back.

Winged things. My thighs tightened, and my figa ached.

I closed my eyes, squeezing the railing until my knuckles turned white.

If this was some kind of episode, and perhaps I was dying, I hoped when the good Lord took me, it would be to the blissful sleep I had been experiencing. This was where I would be whenever Mariano Leone Fausti found me. Riding my cloud.

“ My wife.” The two words were said in a warm rasp against my neck, in Italian. I could feel the heat from his body against mine. “The last time we were together, I do not recall you resorting to tantrums.”

I breathed out, my hands releasing the cold stone, but caressing it. “The last time we were together, if this is not a dream, I was a different woman.”

He turned me around so fast, my head got woozy again.

My eyes flew to his.

“Tell me I am not dreaming,” he said in Italian, his voice low, full of glass shards that seemed to be cutting us both.

I shook my head. “I do not know,” I whispered. “If I am in one, I never want to wake up.”

He lifted me off my feet, shut the doors to the balcony, locking them, and brought me back into the room. He set me down, his eyes taking me in slowly.

His manic stare stilled on the wings.

“No,” he said, and his voice almost sounded panicked.

He ripped them from my costume. “Angels do not live on earth,” he said in Italian, flinging them away from me, as though they might attack me.

“They live in heaven. Away from me .” He pounded his chest, and the way he had said away from me would be lodged in my heart for the rest of my life.

His tone was…agonized.

So was the look on his face. I had never seen him so disheveled before. His hair was a mess. His eyes were…tired, dark circles underneath. He seemed thinner, which did not suit his strong frame.

It brought tears to my eyes, but my hands still curled at my sides.

“What are you doing here?” I barely got out, allowing him to see my pain but also my anger.

“My wife doesn’t want to see me?” He laughed, and there was nothing warm about it. It was colder than the weather outside. “Too many suitors?”

Atta’s voice echoed inside of my head. Man, does he have some nerve!

“What is this supposed to mean?” My eyes narrowed on his, but I almost wanted to either run to the door or the balcony, find an escape from his overwhelming presence.

The day he had to leave me came back, and although he was here, nothing had warmed between us.

He ran his fingertip up and down my arm. “You are laughing,” he said in Italian, so soft, it made goosebumps pebble on my arms. “You are enjoying life. Away from me.” He rolled his teeth over his bottom lip. “A woman glows when a man lights the candle inside of her.”

My mouth fell before I closed it on a snap. “Are you saying I am having a great time without you? This, this, ah, situation is truly what I wanted?”

“You are glowing.” It was an accusation.

“Screw you, Fausti!” I snapped at him. He had just showed up. When I was not sleeping, or working, or trying to keep my life together, my pillow could attest to how many tears it had collected since the day he left me in hell!

It was not his fault. This was the price of our love, because of who we were in the world, but in the end, I knew it was all going to be worth it.

“This is why I’m here.” He laughed, and goosebumps rose along my arms again, this time, from the chill of his mood.

“Get out!” I whispered, pointing to the door. I did not want him to ruin this—this time apart was to prove to the world, perhaps even to us, that Fate had directed our steps.

“Make me,” he said, taking a seat on my bed. He crossed his arms over his chest and stuck his gorgeous chin up.

I realized he was doing it to mock me. I had assumed the same position.

“Man—child!” I whispered at him.

“Look who’s talking.” He gestured at me. “The one kicking her legs against the bed.” He copied me.

“ Ahhh !” I went for him, my hands ready to strangle him. He was going to accuse me of being flirty, or whatever the fuck he was getting at, but he was the one having a dirty scene with my sister?

I did not say this.

I did not have time.

He took my mouth in a punishing kiss that my body had no recourse against. I instantly melted into him, and…

I was a traitor to my own system. Whatever moves he made, I made with him.

I had lost all control. He held it all. I did not even realize he had picked me up and set me against the wall until his hands came between my thighs. My hands were already down his pants.

The connection was starved between us, and it seemed to rule us both. We were angry at each other, saying things that were mean, that we could never take back. At the same time, our hands pulled and shoved, ripped and tore, but also… mending somehow.

“Fuck,” he said as he pushed into me.

We both stilled.

A break in our battle.

The war was not over.

Far from it.

He stared into my eyes, in a way the Kama Sutra would never be able to replicate, while his thrusts were punishing.

The moans from my mouth garbled against his.

We were not kissing, but our mouths were close, open, stealing each other’s breaths, our tongues reaching out to fight.

This side of him was cold, but when I started to cry out, the pain too much, he would slow, a warm stretch of thrusts making me feel as if I was high.

“Say my name,” he ordered me.

“ Mmmmasgag ,” was all I could get out. His cock was sliding against every sensitive nerve, and my body was in that delicious position where it could not outrun him. He had me imprisoned—he was inside of me so far, there was no place for me to run.

He slowed, and I whimpered in his mouth.

“Say my name,” he ordered again, and this time, it was a sharper command.

“Mariano,” I barely got out.

He slid out, came back with a thrust so hard, I was rocked up, and when I came back down, my hair caught on the wall, the tiny flowers falling at his feet. “The name you fucking gave me.”

“My husband,” I barely got out.

“Yeah,” he breathed in my mouth. “Say it again.”

“My husband,” I barely got out.

“My wife,” he said, stilling, rolling his teeth over his bottom lip, causing it to glisten when the fireworks started up again. “My wife wants time away from me.”

“N—” I was about to say no, but he started with the punishing rhythm again, and that small fire in the pit of my stomach seemed to grow hotter, and it made me nervous.

If the small fire was what I thought it was…

I shoved against his chest. “Not so hard.”

He stilled, his eyes on mine, but in a different way.

Questioning.

“Not so hard,” I repeated in a whisper. “Please.”

His face transformed.

I was not sure who I was seeing.

This man…he was my husband, but not.

A monster had reared its head from the depths of his light eyes, and it was aimed at me, or…someone he could not see in that moment.

“My wife wants slow,” he said, and he started moving slower, thrusting so deep, I could barely catch my breath.

If the rough pace was torture, this was…

a slow form of it. It was not physically hurting, but I could feel all he was giving me.

His hurt. When I orgasmed, it ripped through me, almost feeling as though it was responsible for the cave in the center of my chest, where my heart should have been.

He came inside of me with a growl, then he set me on my feet, not even caring that I slid to the floor, his seed dripping down my leg.

He fixed his bowtie, the feeling from him as cold as ever. I did not say anything to him as he went for the door.

Until I realized what he must have thought when he considered my words… not so hard , as if I was sore, and the bruises on my body from my mamma’s hands.

“Mariano!” I jumped up, tilting to the side, having to stop and take a breath before I could run for him. I was a breath away from missing his arm. I tugged. “ Marito mio ,” I breathed out. “It is not what you think!”

“You are sore,” he said in Italian, clearing his throat. His shoulders rolled. “You have a bruise on your hip.”

I looked away from him, biting my lip for a second. My cheeks heated. “You are just…big,” I whispered. “We have not made love,” or whatever that was, “in a while.”

While it was the truth, I was more concerned about the small fire. I did not want to share it with him yet. I did not know if it was true, and if it was, I knew he would never let me go. We were almost there.

He rolled his shoulders again. “Tell me. The bruise.”

His eyes missed nothing when it came to me.

My cheeks heated even hotter. “My mamma…” Deep breath. “She whipped me.”

He slowly turned toward me. “Repeat that.”

I lifted my hands in a pleading gesture. “She was having one of her…episodes. It was raining. She was stressed and needed one of her shots after.” I refused to tell him what she had told me, about my sister being pushed, when it was me who had been shoved.

It would all come out when we came face to face after the day of the maze.

I was not going to react to my sister’s story, of him and their time at his place in Grosseto, until I spoke to my husband first. If it was true, I was already gone.

I could not deal with him hurting me in this way. Not after what we shared.

He barely touched my hip, but I felt it. It was a caress so soft, it made me close my eyes, a shiver rocking my body. When I opened them, my husband was walking away from me.

That night, Remo was replaced by Oscar to keep guard at my door. Signor Dandolo was there for the switch.