Chapter 3 #3
“You overwhelm my heart, Rocco,” I whispered. “And when a woman’s heart is overwhelmed, sometimes it overflows—not only with sadness but with happiness. So, if you ever see me cry, and it’s because I’m happy, it’s because…my heart can’t contain the feeling. This is my right as your wife, ah?”
“Ah,” he breathed out, gazing into my eyes. “I am touching your happiness.”
I nodded, smiling at him. “That’s exactly it.”
The manager came out, sighing at the sight of us, a dreamy look in her eyes. “You have to be newlyweds.”
“We are,” I answered, but from behind me, Rocco said, “We will forever be this way.”
I thought he was going to have to pick her up from the floor, but she was able to look up my account and give me all the details on closing the unit after we moved everything from inside of it.
It wasn’t one of the bigger units, but it was filled.
And I was all paid up on that. I’d paid for the entire summer and all of September before I’d left.
I had no clue where I was going after Italy, but I’d hoped to save enough money to move after—hoping my stalker had forgotten all about me.
My stalker.
That sent a cold feeling lancing through me.
Not only because he was still out there, but because my husband hadn’t mentioned it since the night I spilled my guts about the entire situation.
Yeah, we were here to get my things, but…
there was more to this visit. I went to open my mouth to say something, but Rocco had the key to the unit out and was lifting the metal door.
The smell hit me first.
Nonna’s perfume.
All her meaningful things and mine in this one…small box.
Sighing, I took a step forward, my hands automatically finding comfort in the things of my past.
“Tell me,” Rocco said, rolling his shoulders. “Who moved these things for my wife.”
I blinked at him. “No one. I moved them myself before I left. I went back home after, parked Apple Blossom for the last time, and the next morning, I took an Uber, then an early-bird flight out from Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, not far from here, and, basically, to you.”
I wasn’t sure what was worse for him—that a man might have moved these things for me, or that I had done it myself.
I nudged him. “Let’s get everything and go.” My husband, my protector, was with me, but I remembered the feeling of being watched.
This place was vast and empty. My footsteps had echoed with each step, my breathing labored with each piece of my past that was going to be stuffed into a box—a box I may or may not have ever come back for.
I remembered feeling like I couldn’t get out of the building fast enough.
So, it almost felt like muscle memory to keep checking over our shoulder.
Rocco followed my line of sight and grinned, like he was daring whoever to jump out at us.
Then his eyes snapped to the manager as she pushed a cart with wheels toward us.
He thanked her, and all she could do was stare for a moment before she shook her head, about to leave.
I turned my back on her, and she tapped me on the shoulder.
“You have two handprints on your butt,” she whispered in my ear, like she didn’t want to embarrass me. “Looks like powdered sugar.”
Automatically, I looked over my shoulder, taking the length of my back down to my bubbly ass.
My eyes flew up and crashed with my husband’s, a mischievous glint in them.
His laughter echoed through the metal space as he started lifting the boxes and scarce furniture like they weighed nothing, setting them on the wheeled cart.
Rocco refused to let me move anything, and I just watched as he stacked everything so neatly, I wondered if he ever left his bed unmade as a kid. Then I remembered…he was rich. I said this, and he shook his head.
“We were required to keep our quarters clean.”
Oh, like royal soldiers.
I tapped on the wooden box in his hands, glad to have a subject change to cling to.
“These are letters from Nonna’s older sister, the one she always said I reminded her of, to or from…
a lover. Nonna acted like they were nothing and would always ‘forget’ to read them to me, and I always wanted to translate them, but the dialect can’t be Googled. I tried.”
He set the box down, and with reverence, lifted the top.
The letters were together in a smushed pile.
They were tied with a burgundy-colored ribbon, and from years and years of pressure, had succumb to it and almost molded together.
I could smell that, too, on them. The smell of paper that had been exposed to warm, humid air, and had become stiff after being set in the air conditioning.
The ribbon was tattered on the edges but in pretty good shape for its age.
Rocco untied the ribbon, setting it aside, and opened the first envelope. His eyes scanned the page, reading the words.
“Do you understand it?” I asked, almost moving from foot to foot with impatience—I loved solving mysteries.
“Sì,” he said, but he was compartmentalizing again. His attention was fixed on the words but also on me.
“Rocco,” I said after he’d torn through the first two letters and was onto the third. “You’re killing me here!”
His eyes slowly lifted from the page. Moving the cart with wheels closer, he sat on it, his long, powerful legs outstretched, pulling me into his lap after.
His, er, cock pressed against my ass, even when it wasn’t hard.
He set the third letter to the side and went back to the first. He cleared his throat and started reading them out loud.
The letters were one sided—from a man to my great-aunt.
No, no, no, it was two different men.
Two different men from…the Fausti family.
“My grandfather’s brothers,” he said.
“Oh, and let me guess, Francesco from the pepper stand is closely related to letter-writing Francesco in some way?”
“The original Francesco’s grandson.”
“Oh man,” I breathed, about to get up, to pace, to release some of the pent-up tension, but Rocco held me in place with one arm. “This really is a small world.”
He shrugged. “What is meant to be will find a way.” But he wasn’t telling me something, and I wanted to look him in the eyes.
Taking his hands, I kissed them before I wiggled against him. Wrong move. He groaned and started to suck on my neck.
I closed my eyes. “Rocco,” I breathed.
“Amora,” he almost growled back, his voice raspy and already fading into our private world. He turned my face and leaned forward so my eyes met his. “Who I am to you.”
“My husband,” I corrected, but it wasn’t the time nor place.
Still. I loved saying those words to him, inside or outside of the bedroom.
“What does all this mean? It means something, doesn’t it?
The letters? I mean, besides my great-aunt deciding on the other brother, not Francesco, but… Ricco. Ricco. Rocco. This is eerie!”
“Sì. Ricco was a loyal brother to my grandfather.”
Gently, I eased myself from his grip and got to my feet. Facing him, I stared into his eyes. “What are you not telling me? I know you’ll give me nothing but the truth.”
He nodded and stood, towering over me. He lifted the letter.
“If my family ever reads these, it will be war between us. Francesco from the pepper stand made a public bid for you. I handled it. However, the letters state that the Francesco from the earlier generation spotted your aunt first. In this generation, Francesco might go to my father and claim his ancestor was done wrong by Ricco, who, incidentally, never married or had children.”
“Done wrong?” I shouted, my voice reverberating in the empty space.
“That was…I don’t even know how many years ago that was!
That’s old business.” I slapped my hands together, making a finished gesture with them, like I was wiping them clean.
“Besides, my great-aunt was killed in War World II. She didn’t have a chance to leave with… Ricco.”
Rocco shook his head. “Matters of the heart are not considered business, and they never grow old.”
I wanted to say, you can’t be serious!, but I wasn’t even sure if Rocco could tell a joke. He wasn’t wired that way, and it might be considered a lie to him. I went to pace, but he took me by the wrist, stopping me.
“We’ll burn the letters.” My tone was final.
“We will not.” He almost looked affronted by even the suggestion. “I am not a coward.”
“I didn’t mean that. I know you’re not. I just don’t want…trouble over this.” It felt like my mouth was trying to avoid word-mines with him.
Rocco’s family had a certain way of speaking, and I didn’t want to insult him by insinuating he was less of a man, but…
this wasn’t our fight. My great-aunt wasn’t even here anymore.
And it hit me—this was why my grandmother had wanted me to stay away from these men.
Her sister had caught the eye of two brothers and had probably been smooshed between their chests.
I couldn’t even imagine, though I had a pretty good idea after Rocco had hit Francesco hard enough that it sounded like two boulders colliding.
Shit, shit, shit.
It felt like history was beginning to repeat itself.
I was told I looked like my great-aunt.
Nonna had pulled me close and kissed me repeatedly after I had admitted this to her, but after she told me I looked like her beloved sister, I told her I was so grateful.
That meant I looked like someone she had loved, and she would love me forever because of it.
She had told me, repeatedly, then and throughout the years, she loved me simply because I was me—God didn’t make replicas or mistakes.
No, I didn’t believe he did, but I also believed that the Fausti family might make a stink over this—a branch of the family that had always been hungry to wear the crown. Mia had told me as much that day on the island when we were a breath away from a fight between Rocco and Francesco.