Page 96

Sistine

T he island seemed to be shaped like a turtle from an aerial view. The small plane dipped and dived a bit, and for the hundredth time, Mariano checked my seatbelt. I was harnessed in.

We were flying over his parents’ island, but we would not land there. Mariano had told me that an airstrip was not far, and then we would take water accommodation from there. The island also had sea planes, but the family only used them in emergencies.

Merlin, an older man, his hair all silver, piloted us. Mariano had introduced me to him, and he was not only the pilot, but also our boat captain.

“Sea and land!” he had told me with a hardy laugh, as hardy as he was.

“Like surf and turf.” He acted like he was going to nudge me, but he did not touch me.

He leaned in conspiratorially, putting a hand to the side of his mouth.

“Though I prefer being a captain. It’s part of my blood, ye see.

” He suddenly developed an Irish accent.

“My unc, God bless his soul.” He made the sign of the cross.

“Was friends with Brando and Scarlett Fausti. Brando saved my unc’s life when he was in the Coast Guard.

He owned the island before the Fausti family bought it from him. Everyone just called him Captain.”

Merlin was a warm soul with a bright tropical shirt, khaki pants rolled up over his knees to be shorts, and boat shoes.

His tropical button up was unbuttoned a few down, showing a wolf amount of silver hair on his chest. If I had to guess, he was around the same age as Mariano’s parents.

He wore a small silver cross around his neck.

When the wind blew, and in the cabin of his plane, the scent of aftershave ruled.

“ Woooo! ” I hollered when the plane tipped, and I put my hands up like I was on a roller coaster ride.

Merlin smiled and glanced at Mariano. “You have the kind of lady on your hands who don’t mind the speed. Best take that lady out on daring dates.”

Mariano made a noise in his throat, as if he was agreeing with Merlin, but complaining at the same time.

I laughed to myself, gazing out the window.

Although I had been all over Italy, my father sending me at times to our other branches, and to New York and Wyoming, I had never seen a private island before.

It glowed with colors that were soothing to the soul. The blues and greens of the endless water. The white sand beach. The emerald of the tropical jungle, and pops of color from fauna that I could not entirely see from this high up in the air. The sky. I sighed.

It felt as though we were flying through spun cotton-candy clouds.

I could not wait to feel the silkiness of the air against my skin.

Feel the warm sand between my toes. The cool water rushing over my body, so soft that I could melt into it from the heat of the sun.

I longed to let go and allow it to swoosh my body around.

“I love it here already,” I breathed out, looking at my husband, smiling.

He took my hand and squeezed before he brought it to his lips, breathing me in, kissing each finger, staying longer on my left finger.

The blood diamond glistened like a droplet of blood in the sun, but I had never seen it glow like it did then.

It was as if it knew it was out of the chambers of our underworld vaults and was free to breathe and feel the sun on its cool existence.

We both were.

Merlin dipped the plane and started to sing a song about cheeseburgers. I started to move my shoulders, and shocking me, Mariano joined in on the chorus with Merlin. I started laughing, and as the plane made its descent, I was still high.

It was not Merlin who brought us to the island but my husband.

He drove the boat as a pro would, the wind whipping through his hair, pressing his t-shirt against his bulging muscles, and I was certain I had never seen anything in my life more…

what word to use? No. Two words. Gorgeously rugged, perhaps.

He was wild, this man-monster of mine, and when he picked me up and set me barefooted in the sand, I was breathless.

While Mariano grabbed our things from the boat and started to set them in the sand, my eyes were starving for the scenery. They landed back on my husband, the world beyond him our new backdrop for a time.

The water of the South Pacific seemed to be singing to us, rushing into shore, stealing bits of sand as it did. The colors this close… I could only compare them to the colors of my husband’s eyes. How they seemed to glow from behind when the sun hit them.

Some spots of the water were crystal blue and seemed more on the shallow side, schools of silver fish swimming together, other single fish darting from one area to another.

Other areas of the water were darker, sapphire, and I had seen them from the plane.

They were probably much deeper. Some parts of the water were a mixture of blue and green, a shimmering teal.

The sky was beginning to turn purple, but the pinks and peaches from earlier made the earth glow.

The wind constantly breezed past, as if it was checking me out, sending tendrils of my hair into wild frenzies.

I had pulled it up on the sides, but my hair was so long, it was flowing freely with the gusts.

I closed my eyes for a second, truly absorbing the feel of it against my skin.

It was tepid, not so hot at this time of the day, and it felt as if I was airing out after a long, hard winter.

Being sick in my parents’ palazzo came to mind. I shivered and then made a shaking-out motion with my hands. I wanted to release the memory to the wind, allow it to take it where it would.

Perhaps to feed some creature in the many palm trees lining the path. The trees themselves bowed a bit, and the fronds shimmered with the wind. They reminded me of green feathers.

I breathed in. The scents were tropical. Clean with a hint of baking seafood in the sand.

Something touched my foot, and I jumped. It was some type of crab that was making a line in the sand to wherever it was headed. It seemed off kilter, one of its pincers bigger than the other.

“This is the oddest little creature I have ever seen,” I muttered to myself. I wished I had a camera to capture the moment. All these moments we were having.

“Fiddler crab,” my husband said, coming to stand beside me. “Mamma likes them.”

I made a breathless noise. “Scarlett told me about the Booby birds on the island!”

“ Boo — bee what?” he asked, removing a long strand of hair from my eyes.

I stood on my toes and wiped sweat from his forehead. I straightened his sunglasses. “Boo— bee birds.” The name did not roll off my tongue with ease. “ Booby birds ,” I rushed out, hoping it would make my pronunciation better.

He exploded with laughter. I narrowed my eyes at him, then got the joke. Men and boobs. I rolled my eyes, shoving him, laughing, as well, and he took my hand, pulling me in. He wrapped his arm around me, I wrapped mine around his waist, and we watched as the ocean rushed into shore.

Together, it seemed, we were airing out. Winter seemed so far away from us, although hours and hours before, we had been in the thick of it. It made me think of the things we spoke about enroute to Fiji.

We were lying down on the bed in the bedroom of the private plane:

He had cleared his throat. “I’m going to ask this, then after, we’re going to fucking forget about it and move on.”

I’d yawned and nodded.

“If you thought I was with your sister, why did you go through with the…fate day. Not that it would have deterred me, if you would have tried to back out. I would have fixed the problem, and all would have been settled between us.”

I had grinned at that. “Fate Day.” It did not seem to have a name. Signor Dandolo did not have an answer for this either. Then my emotions took a different turn. I rose to an upward position, leaning on my elbows, looking down at him.

“Because, Mariano Fausti,” I had said, all the conviction in the world laced through every word, “I would have gone through with it. After, I would have torn your heart out as you tore mine out. I would have simply…left. Even if you would have found me, you would have never been able to touch me deeper than skin again.”

“Hell,” he said. “A version of it that the devil himself couldn’t stand.”

“Hell for me as well,” I said.

“I know what’s at stake, Sistine. I refuse to gamble with what I can’t live without.

Air. And not because it’s the fucking wrong thing to do either, and I would not ever hurt you or betray your trust that way.

It’s because I know there’s no other woman in this world made for me except you.

I don’t settle by nature. I don’t thrive on material things, even though we have plenty.

What I do thrive on is what we have. That’s what I refuse to settle for less on.

You’re my fantasy. You’re my real partner.

In all ways, Sistine Evita Fausti. There could never be another you. ”

“Ah.” I did not have the words to respond to that. However, I did have something to ask him as well. “A book.” I looked him in the eyes. “My sister mentioned this to me. What is it?”

He stared at me, his eyes intense on mine, but I wondered in that moment whether he was thinking of how to answer me. My sister had said she was in it. That meant…he kept track of the women he…ach. I refused to even think it. I turned away from him, but he refused to allow me to.

“Whatever I have is yours,” he said. “The book is better understood if you read it, as most are.”

“I do not want to know ? —”

“Sistine.” His voice commanded me to look at him. “Trust me.”

“Sì.” I relaxed next to him, cuddling up as close as I could, and fell asleep.

He sighed in real time. “I’ve been to this place all my life, and I’ve never seen it the way I am now. It’s like I’ve dropped off the face of the earth and into a found paradise.”