Chapter Twenty-Four Raffa
Chapter Twenty-Four
Raffa
I waited for Guinevere in the lobby of the Florentine palazzo, studying the bowl of red flowers on the entryway table but remembering the black chrysanthemums that had been placed there during the San Lorenzo celebration in the summer.
The night everything had gone to hell, and the last time Guinevere and I had occupied this space together.
It was amazing what a difference three months could make.
She had fled the country and come back, my reluctant prisoner for her own safety, and now a blue-blooded Mafia princess in her own right, ready to take my side as my queen.
It was too good to be true for a man like me.
What had I done in all my years to deserve a woman who saw my darkness and understood its necessity just as much as she saw my light and nurtured it?
She was not the yin to my yang or the white to my black, nothing so stark and contrary.
There was no end or beginning to our connection, but a gradation from self to self, a blurring of lines between our souls that perfectly harmonized the dark she’d yearned for in her own life with the light I’d needed in my own.
I knew if I had the courage to show her all the parts of me that I did not love, she would find some way to love them too.
What kind of magic was that?
The kind that drove Dante to write about Beatrice all his life.
The kind that prompted Emperor Justinian to make Theodora an empress at his side.
Even though I was not the type of man to warrant a happily ever after, I thought that, with her at my side, we could fight together to win one.
Starting with what I had planned today.
I was uncharacteristically nervous as I waited for Guinevere to join me, my fingers itching to check the messages on my phone once again to make sure everything was in place, though I knew it already was.
A week of planning and very, very deep pockets could get you anywhere.
“Sorry it took me so long.” Guinevere’s lilting Italian floated down the curved staircase toward me.
When I glanced up, what breath was locked in my lungs evaporated at the sight of her.
She looked ethereal, Proserpina descending into the dark underworld to meet her dark groom.
The gauzy white gown clung to her like condensation, a narrow panel over each breast that revealed acres of pale-gold skin to her navel, where another panel wrapped around her slim waist before giving way to a loose skirt that skimmed her legs all the way to the floor.
With her long, heavy tresses brushed into gleaming waves and the heavy, square gold earrings I’d given her at her ears, she seemed every inch a Roman goddess.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you speechless,” she mused with a feminine smile as she finished climbing down the stairs and stopped in front of me. “Do I pass muster?”
“Sei uno spettacolo,” I admitted. “Mi togli il fiato.”
You are utterly beautiful. You take my breath away.
Guinevere blushed, pink heat streaking her cheeks and chest. I reached out with my thumb to trace the warmth over one side of her face.
“Thank you,” she said simply. “You said to dress for something special, but the Day of the Dead celebration is tomorrow, right?”
“Si, tonight is just for the two of us.”
She cocked her head slightly but nodded, taking my offered arm so I could lead her out the doors to the car that waited for us. Her laughter was bright when she caught sight of the Ferrari NART Spyder.
“If you let my dad drive this, he might actually start liking you,” she teased as I opened the door for her.
I waited until she was ensconced in the car to smile, remembering my conversation with John Stone from the day before.
“Can I talk to you for a moment?” I had asked as I stopped beside the chair John was occupying while he watched Guinevere and her mother play in the pool with some of Carlotta’s and Stacci’s sons.
His lips thinned. “If you feel you must.”
I bit back the edge of my smile and sat in the chair across from him, bracing my forearms on my thighs so I could lean closer. He eyed me suspiciously, rightly guessing that I was settling in for a serious conversation.
“You aren’t marrying her, Romano,” he said, startling me with his perceptiveness.
The smile I gave him was wolfish. “She wants to be with me, Stone. Forever.”
“And you don’t doubt that?” He scoffed. “She’s a twenty-three-year-old girl who has been sheltered most of her life. She’s blinded by your handsomeness and intrigue, but she doesn’t truly know what she is getting into bed with, and when she does, she’ll be gone quicker than you can act.”
“Do not contradict how Guinevere has spoken of you and be condescending now,” I said blandly.
“I believe you were with me two days ago when we broke into your family’s castello and found they had tortured Guinevere.
You saw she shot a man to save herself. Maybe you do not know about the man she pushed from a bell tower to save our friend Ludo, and maybe you have not seen how her curious, brilliant mind has seized on the intricacies of legal and illegal business dealings, but I have seen it all.
I was once skeptical like you were, and it was a mistake I will not make again, not when she has told me repeatedly she does not see me as a monster, even when I do monstrous things.
No one knows better than Guinevere what she wants, and I trust her enough to know she wants me. ”
“Pretty speech,” John muttered, rubbing a hand over his downturned mouth. “You speak English very well, if formally.”
“I went to Oxford,” I supplied, just to watch him sigh.
I was not the thug he wanted me to be, the villain he could paint for his daughter, a beast who turned to violence because he was uneducated and brutish.
“I cannot have been the only who heard her say she would not marry anyone who did not ask her the other day in the castello,” I added.
“No,” he confessed, turning his head to watch as Guinevere tossed a squealing Mattia into the water and then Zacheo right after him. “I heard that.”
“You believe I want to marry her just to solidify my power base,” I said, and it was not a question, because I could see the suspicion in the way he had looked at me since the idea had come to light at the Pietra castello.
“It would work,” he noted. “Joining two prominent families that have feuded for years would be a coup for you. Something to settle the worry and gossip about the Venetian. But my daughter is not some pawn.”
“I call her mia stella cadente,” I told him, because there was no way Guinevere could ever be a pawn to me.
“She brought such light to my life I was sure it could not last, even though I wished it would. Now I know she will stay even if I do not ask. I know she will fight for us even when I do not want her to. I think you know these things too, so let me tell you what you do not know because you do not know me.”
I breathed deeply. Being vulnerable with another person was not something I took lightly or did easily, but Guinevere’s father deserved it despite sharing blood with Gaetano Pietra.
“You think I am the kind of man to end lives without thought, to amass fortunes because I am greedy, and to lie because I have no morals. You might be right. But the man I am will also kill anyone who so much as looks at Guinevere the wrong way. I am the man who will use every dollar I have to buy her whatever her heart desires, and I am the man who will lie without blinking if it means protecting her from harm. I have sacrificed many of my dreams to keep my loved ones safe, Stone. But I will sacrifice many more to keep Guinevere safe and by my side.”
John stared at me for a long time, his deep-brown eyes so like his daughter’s, though filled with sharp scrutiny. I let him look, leaning back in the chair with one ankle across my knee so I could enjoy the merriment of my family around me.
When Guinevere got out of the pool, dripping wet in only a tiny red bikini I wanted to undo with my teeth, and glanced over at me, I patted my thigh with one hand.
She bounded over without hesitation and plopped herself in my lap with a giggle as she soaked my clothes through to the skin.
“Sorry,” she said with a sassy grin before kissing my cheek.
“Worth it,” I assured her.
Instantly, she melted into me, curling up against my chest as if content to stay there, wet and cooling in the autumn air, forever. I leaned over to the towels waiting on a bench beside me and unfurled one to drape over her.
When I looked back, John was watching Guinevere with an expression of such intense sadness and love, it made me momentarily pause.
“I missed you,” he said to her softly.
Guinevere reached a hand out to him from under the towel and waited until he grabbed hold before she said, “I missed you too, Dad.”
The moment he stared at me with tears in his eyes, I knew I had his blessing. But it was not until Guinevere was dragged back to the pool by Zacheo, Mattia, Maximo, and Vitale that he reached over to grab me hard by the shoulder.
“You hurt her,” he had said gruffly, “and I’ll polish off my old brass knuckles and beat your stupidly handsome face in.”
“You know,” I told Guinevere as I slid into the driver’s seat. “I think I will drive it back to the villa when we return and let him take it on a joyride.”
She laughed. “Are you trying to suck up to my dad, Raffaele?”
I shrugged one shoulder. “I feel no shame about it. If I want to keep you in my life for a very, very long time, Vera, it is necessary for your father and me to be on good enough terms that he does not appear seconds away from shooting me at any given moment.”
After a long beat of quiet, I glanced over to see her watching me with palpable tenderness. Her hand reached over to rest on my thigh, squeezing gently.
“I know you think you’re mad, bad, and dangerous to know, Raffa,” she said quietly. “But you are the best man I’ve ever known. And I know you think you corrupt me, but I honestly believe you make me a better me.”