Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 65433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 327(@200wpm)___ 262(@250wpm)___ 218(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 327(@200wpm)___ 262(@250wpm)___ 218(@300wpm)
33
AMADEO
I watch Dandelion sleep. She is spent and it’s not just the lovemaking. It’s the hours before, the days, the months, the years. And now she’s here. In our house. In our beds. Ours.
Bastian steps out of the bathroom freshly showered. He, too, looks at her, with her wild blond hair fanned out over the pillow, her face so soft in sleep. Lips still swollen from our kisses.
“I’m going to get dressed,” Bastian says. “Meet out back?”
I nod and see the moment he takes before walking out of that room. We’re thinking the same thing, my brother and me. Because the reason for this, it’s over. Finished. Lucien Russo is dead. Geno Russo was already dead. Russo Properties & Holdings itself hardly seems to matter. The erasure of the Russo name from the face of the earth is a fading memory. Because what matters is the woman sleeping on the bed. Because she has changed everything.
Ten minutes later Bastian walks out onto the back patio where I’m seated looking out over the sea at the clear, beautiful morning. No clouds in the distance. No storms on the horizon.
“What happened?” Bastian asks as he takes a seat.
I pour him a mug of coffee from the carafe on the table.
“Greco got a minute to flex his muscle.” Greco ordered my beating, then denied having done so. Fucking coward. “I’ll repay him in kind in my own time.”
“Bruno came through?”
“Yeah. Uncle Sonny was very good at one thing. He kept very precise records and had an excellent surveillance system in place.”
Bastian grins. “Always covered his ass, the prick.”
“Thanks to Sonny we won’t have any trouble with the authorities going forward.”
“Good. Mom and Emma are good. Just talked to Stefan.”
“Thanks for doing that. Bruno said the cleaners will be done with the Ravello house in a few days. What do you think? Keep it? Go back?”
“I think it’ll be hard for Mom and Emma,” he says.
“Emma.”
He looks out to the sea, jaw tight, because here it is. The thing we are here to discuss. Dandelion.
After a long minute he turns to me.
“I know the right thing to do. But what I want to do is very different,” he says.
I drink a sip of steaming coffee and study my brother. He wants to keep Vittoria. I understand. I feel the same way.
“It has to be up to her, brother,” I say, turning to watch the soft waves of a calm sea.
“Like I said, I know the right thing.”
“Bruno is getting paperwork ready for me to remove my hold on her finances.”
Bastian nods. “Good.”
We fall silent, each of us lost in our thoughts.
In a way, I wish Tilbury’s treatment had been more thorough. That she wouldn’t ever remember that year of her life. But she has, and she’ll need to process. I have no doubt she can and will. If not for herself, then for Emma.
The patio door opens, and I turn, expecting one of the staff, but am surprised to find Vittoria walking toward us. She’s barefoot, wearing one of my T-shirts, her hair loose and wild down her back.
She’s fucking beautiful to watch. Like something not quite of this earth. Not quite human. Or maybe too human. She is self-assured. She knows she is damaged, but she doesn’t hide it or try to be something else. She is our Dandelion, a little strange, a little lonely maybe, a lot sad, but ours.
“Coffee?” I ask as she comes to settle on the grass at our feet.
She shakes her head and looks over her shoulder at the view. “It’s beautiful here.”
I’m not sure my brother or I can drag our eyes from her. “Emma’s on her way,” I tell her. They should be landing any minute now.
“Already?” She seems surprised.
I nod.
“Really?”
“Really.”
She smiles, but then her eyes darken. “Lucien,” she says.
“He’s dead.”
“Did he suffer?”
“He suffered.”
“Good.” She picks at the grass before turning her gaze to mine. “I want to ask you something,” she says, clearly anxious.
“What is it?”
She worries her lip with her teeth and doesn’t speak until I see a drop of crimson from where she bites through skin. “I want to bury my father properly.”
“Dandelion—”
She puts up a hand to stop me. “He made a lot of poor choices. A lot.” Bastian snorts and she gives him a look but turns back to me. “But when it came to me, I think he was trying.”
Bastian glances at me and I at him. She shifts her attention to the grass again.
“He was afraid of my grandfather. My grandfather thought him weak. And I think ultimately, he was afraid of Lucien,” she finally adds then turns her gaze up to us. “What he did was wrong. He shouldn’t have let Lucien hurt your sister. He should have done more then. But he was punished through me.”
“Dandelion,” Bastian starts when her eyes fill with tears.