“All she could say. She told me she could remember the intensity of it. How she was sure the heat from her cheeks in contrast to the cold was going to cause smoke to rise from them.” I touched my own cheeks the same way she had the evening she had told me the story. My cheeks were hot to the touch, contrary to the feel of my hands. “He offered her his jacket. She accepted it. Then they spoke in the rain for around ten minutes, just talking about normal things. She said he did most of the talking; she listened. He had enchanted her. It was hard for her to speak when her heart felt like it was floating. He bid her goodnight, because he felt bad for keeping her out in the downpour, and then promised to have dinner at the diner the next evening.”
I stilled, watching him. He could be so quiet, so still, eerily so. Looking to the floor, I ran the toe of my sneaker against the grass. Back and forth. Back and forth. “You never bring it up,” I finally said. “The fact that I’ve stopped you twice from…leaving me.”
“It scares me.” His voice matched his eerie stillness.
That was understandable. This peculiar sense wasn’t normal, yet I owed my life to the gift. If Brando had left with Elliott, I would have lost my brother and the beat of my heart.
“You don’t scare me, Scarlett Rose.” He seized my arm, not enough to hurt, but enough to get my attention. “The connection does. What we share runs deep.”
“Would you rather it be one-sided?”
“I’d rather it just be me who felt it.”
My eyes found his. “It worked out between them, you know. Despite their differences. Despite the backlash they faced from his parents. From society. This was their safe place, their secret place. It made all of the difference. For them to create roots that couldn’t be dislodged.”
Something in his eyes—was it pleading?—told me to look deeper, that perhaps coming from two different worlds was not the entire problem. What else could it be? If I asked him, there was no doubt that he’d answer with the blunt truth, but what then? Would the truth make him retreat behind his wall again?
I plunged ahead, not knowing, but vowing to make it right.
“After the storm had burnt itself out, they moved into town, but they always came back here to reconnect. After my grandfather passed away, he knew my grandmother would come here, and this is what she found.”
Their place, the place he loved to take her, immortalized through her flowers and his poetry. He had arranged it prior to his death. After hers, it was his law that whoever was next in line to receive this property had to take care of it, but not touch the integrity of it.”
“Do you feel safe here, Scarlett?”
“I feel their love when I’m here. I feel safe in the abandoned house—the one we slept at. It feels like home to me.” You feel like home to me.
Feeling the shift in his mood, I steered the conversation in a different direction.
“You wanted to talk to me,” I said, my voice soft. “What about?”
“From now on, it’s just me and you.”
The misty rain had collected on his lashes, making them shine jet-black. He gazed at me, no humor, only intensity.
“You belong to me, Scarlett. Mine. Beginning. End.”
“Are you all mine, Brando Fausti?” I felt his answer, knew it before he had the chance to speak, but a part of me wanted to hear the words come from his mouth.
“Always.”
“All right,” I whispered.
“I have one condition.”
“No conditions.” I shook my head. “But you can ask.”
What a novel concept to a man like him.
“Dance for me again.”
He skipped over the question and went straight to the demand. This would be our give and take. But surrender came without regret this time, and the truth flowed like falling rain.
“I have always danced for you, I will always dance for you, for however long you want me to.”
Chapter Nineteen
Scarlett
Pnina Poésy, also known as my mother, or Mati, once told me that those who have to strive to become what their hearts desire are not in jeopardy of ever taking advantage.
“They know what it is to suffer for their love.” Those who are born with the talent, though, are in the greatest jeopardy. “Although they have to work, they do not know what it