Chapter 25
Some Conversations Are Silent
Aria Amora
The dining room of the ornate castello glowed with candlelight and flowed with fine wine. The scents drifting in the air made me nostalgic for home and for a place that hadn’t been mine until my husband brought me there.
I met numerous family members and guests that Luca personally knew—most of them famous in some type of way.
My first meeting with these people, along with our interactions, seemed to be scrutinized by my husband, his father, and his brothers.
Occasionally I caught even Scarlett scoping it out.
This was because soon, I’d be introduced to my husband’s world, and since he and Rosaria had portrayed a solid couple—the heat was on me.
Would they fall in love with me or not?
Rocco explained that it did not matter how his world felt about me, I was his wife, end of story, though we both knew there was so much more to tell.
And even though their world had some bearing on the next king’s reign, I understood that it was their world’s opinion that influenced the direction the family took when it came to the next king.
It was an uncertain time, and if someone had good reason to challenge my husband for his position, the world not approving of our marriage could sway the way the family felt.
If I was being honest with myself, and myself only, sometimes I got the feeling my husband was tired of his position in the family. If it wasn’t for the ties that bonded him so tightly, in my heart I knew he would have been okay with being another spare to the heir.
The rightful king being Brando Fausti.
Luca had given Brando the option to rule or not.
So had Marzio. Which meant the weight of being the future king had fallen on my husband’s shoulders.
Brando had resigned his position to my husband, knowing his life had been dedicated to wearing the family’s crown and earning the title “head lion.” What Rocco had craved, to love and to be loved in return, was not in the cards for him if he chose to stay with Rosaria.
He had, and ultimately, he had put the family ahead of his wants and desires.
With me in the picture?
I sighed.
His life became more complicated, and I could tell the war between love and responsibility raged inside of him.
My husband’s full heart was all I wanted.
Whatever he chose to do, he had me beside him.
When I accepted Rocco Fausti into my life, I accepted him fully.
Yeah, he had a past with women that made me cringe, but my husband would always be faithful to me—love and touch me only, and that was something I’d put my hand on a chopping block for.
Sometimes, though, an insecurity crept out of the shadows and brought itself into the light of my mind. It was an odd voice, one I hadn’t heard before, that kept reminding me that neither of my parents wanted me.
What if one day, to sacrifice himself, my husband decided to leave me behind too? Not for another woman, but because he felt his life was too great a burden for me to bear? What if the thought he might lose me to the danger that naturally came with the name Fausti, and it began to haunt him?
Because we’d had two deaths in such a short time, and second by second, I could feel how the men around me were reacting to it.
Not well.
No one could control life or death, and these men were used to being in control. Add to that the superstition that death comes in threes, and what we had was a situation leading to disaster, I feared.
I also feared my husband would attempt to burn the world down if I wasn’t accepted and loved right away by his world. The guests I’d met at the Thanksgiving celebration were cordial, but I couldn’t deny the iciness that I felt. It was mostly people who were in awe at Rosaria and her talent.
This…this is who he replaced our lovely Rosaria Caffi with?
Yeah, me.
No one said it aloud, but I could just feel it in my bones—the rejection. I was the beginning of a new book, one where the main leading man (Rocco) had a love interest (Rosaria), and even if she came with a lot of issues, readers inevitably wanted the two to stay together, work it out.
Enter Aria Amora Bella, and the entire story changes.
Sighing, I gazed out the window, a tight feeling in my stomach.
“Amora,” my husband said, bringing our connected hands to his warm mouth. “You are hungry.”
He was feeling for my pulse. All the death around us was making him anxious.
“No.” I smiled at him. “After the Thanksgiving celebration, I don’t feel like I can eat for weeks.”
“This was yesterday.” His eyebrows were pulled down, and he had a seriously confused look on his face.
Not to eat? She must be getting sick! Call in all the medics at once!
Adding to the tightness in my stomach…we were headed to pay our respects to Mamma Maria Maria’s family after her unexpected death.
Most people would think it was ridiculous, she had a heart attack, but the small group of women who had become my sisters—we felt something different.
When that pig witch, as Ermanno had called her, slammed the door, it shocked Mamma Maria Maria so badly, her heart gave out.
It seemed intentional. The pig witch didn’t even stop her steps after the woman went down and everyone crowded around her.
“So much food,” I said simply, rubbing my stomach.
“You are picking at food as if you were a bird.”
“Chirp.”
My husband gave me a look—it is not the time for jokes.
Jokes seemed like all I had to lighten the mood.
The thing was…I wasn’t a people pleaser, never was.
It never bothered me if someone liked me or not.
I liked myself. My Nonna raised me that way.
She even told me one time, when the history of the “Casquette Girls” was required for school reading, that I needed to be like them.
I’d been aghast that their families had sent them off to New Orleans from Paris to marry the male settlers there.
“This is because not many people know how to deal with a high-spirited woman,” she had said.
“Instead of feeling sorry for them, honor them by not dimming your spirit for anyone either. You shouldn’t be difficult for no reason, we pick our battles, but when the time calls for it, you answer with your chin held high, knowing whose blood runs through your veins—all that strong Italian blood. ”
“As beautiful as olive oil,” I’d said.
“As spicy as red peppers.” She’d touched my nose. “And as addicting as wine.”
As life progressed, I was coming to learn that my Nonna’s wisdom was starting to help direct me in life.
I wanted to be my husband’s queen, but I also wouldn’t sacrifice my core values for the cause.
I’d have to learn how to balance his work and our life.
I felt Maggie Beautiful had done a great job of it, but somehow, it was different for her.
Maybe because Luca had been gone so long, and when he returned, Italy was so thankful to have him back, they forgot he had been married in the first place.
Also, the woman he was married to hadn’t created a splash in Mediterranean waters like Rosaria had. Her entire family was in the arts, opera, and she was raised in the spotlight. The opera’s darling, like Scarlett was to the ballet.
My husband and Rosaria had painted a picture everyone loved to gaze it, even if the truest thing about them was his love for her voice.
He never brought it up, but I knew—he loved the sound of her music.
If anything, her voice was why he’d stayed all those years, and why he couldn’t free himself of her after she died.
Apparently, her voice was like barbs to many—I had a feeling they couldn’t free themselves of her, either, then there I was…the one who would walk next to Rocco Fausti when they were counting on it always being Rosaria Caffi.
Even if the world my husband belonged to was icy toward me, I knew it was because, when people set their hopes on a couple, and that couple ends, it reminds them of how love can leave them too.
But…
There wasn’t ever love between my husband and Rosaria. Only understanding. Love didn’t have a place in their marriage.
It would be the leading force in ours.
One day they would understand, maybe after the spell Rosaria’s voice cast on them faded into the background of the understanding my husband and Rosaria shared.
Speaking of spells…
I glanced in the rearview mirror of the armored SUV as we headed to the Emilia-Romagna region.
I didn’t like why we were headed there, but something inside of my heart kept flickering at the idea that I’d be connected to my roots in a way I hadn’t been before.
Part of my family came from the region. But ever since what happened in the cucina with the temper tantrum woman, and then Mamma Maria Maria dying after, my side kick hadn’t been the same, and it was worrying me.
Ermanno was quieter. He didn’t laugh, and his eyes always on guard. I knew it had to do with his impression of the woman, and how he thought she was a witch. He thought she had cast a spell on Mamma Maria Maria’s heart and had taken her life.
I’d tried talking to him about it. I even asked Rocco to speak to his father about it, since his father was a part of Rocco’s close security, and Ermanno was with him for the most part.
It always seemed like Ermanno wanted to say something, but he pulled back at the last second. His father said the same of his son.
“Ermanno will work it out in his own time,” my husband had said to me. “He is a man. He is a Fausti.”
The Fausti was so ingrained in my husband that he couldn’t bend when it came to men and their responsibilities.
He didn’t have time for a man’s useless issues.
Get over it and get on with it seemed to be a common theme.
I didn’t want to set Ermanno in the wrong direction, since he shared the same blood as Rocco and would be raised as a soldier, but I also felt bad because I knew the woman had freaked Ermanno out.