brother, Nate. I told you about Nate.”
“Yes, you did.”
“He found the ring. It has an inscription on it. B.A.”
“Bartolo,” she said.
“Probably. They are the same initials on the painting, Gabriella. They were his. She was his, just like your grandmother said. But it’s more than that. I know that my grandfather had to start over when he came to America. And I wonder just how completely the new beginning was.”
“You think he was my grandmother’s lover.” His suspicions mirrored her own. It made sense. There just didn’t seem to be another way someone could possess all of the same objects that appeared in the painting. More than that, it was her grandmother’s reaction to everything. The fact that she had seemed to want Giovanni to have the painting. “She knows,” Gabriella said. “She figured it out before we did.”
She thought back to the way that her grandmother had looked at Alex when he’d first come into the room at the estate in Aceena. “I bet you look like him,” she said. She couldn’t see him now; she was staring through the darkness, looking in his direction, barely able to make out his silhouette against the dark bedspread. “I mean, like he did.”
“I guess that’s why she let me take it in the end.”
“They loved each other. They couldn’t be together because she had to marry royalty. My grandfather.” Suddenly, her throat felt tight, painful. “The artist... Bartolo...he did love her very much. I know. You can see it. It must’ve killed him to part with those things.”
“Not quite. He’s still very much alive. For now. It wounded him to part with them. I wonder if he thinks seeing them will return some of his strengths.”
“It isn’t the objects he needs,” she said, her voice wistful.
“You are right.” He reached across the distance between them, drawing his fingertips slowly across her cheek. She closed her eyes, tried to fight the tears that were welling in them.
“It is a tragedy, Alex. To think of that. Just think of how much they loved each other all those years...”
She could see her life suddenly, stretching before her. Bleak and lonely. She realized that she could never marry a man who didn’t incite fantasy in her. Down to her very core. That she couldn’t possibly ever marry a man who understood art the way she did, or appreciated books, or had a library. That she couldn’t marry a man who was closer to her age and experience or didn’t think of her as an owl. Because that man wouldn’t be Alex.
It was Alex for her. Now and always. Forever.
She realized now that maybe she had not been protecting herself so much as waiting for this. For him. For the kind of desire that reached down deep and took over your soul. For the kind of desire that went well beyond common sense. The kind that didn’t care if heartbreak lay down the road. Even if it was a short distance away.
She thought of the way her grandmother had spoken of Giovanni—because she was certain that Giovanni and Bartolo were one and the same—of the fact that no matter the heartbreak she could never regret their time together, and it made her tremble. She wasn’t certain if she was that strong. To grab hold of an experience while giving no thought to the pain that the consequences might cause.
It was the kind of thing she had been avoiding all of her life. Being like her parents.
But they don’t do anything because of love. It’s because of selfishness.
Her chest felt like it had cracked open. Of course. That was the difference. Action was always empty, dry, when there was no love. There had been a time when her mother had kissed her good-night before going off to a party, but the gesture had been empty. And the proof was in the fact that now that Gabriella was an adult neither of her parents ever spoke to her. Those goodnight kisses could not be a happy memory, not now that she could see them so clearly for what they were. The proper motions that her parents went through in order to salve what little conscience they had.
This...this had nothing to do with going through the motions. Had nothing to do with doing the right thing. It was just...need.
Alex was a man so far removed from the world. Everything in it seemed to move around him. And he seemed to exist in it untouched.
She wanted to touch him. Not just his skin, but beneath it. She wanted to reach him down deep where his heart beat. Wanted to heat him from the inside out, warm his blood, his soul.
Mostly, she just wanted everything he had promised her back in the library. When they parted, the wound would linger. No matter what happened now. If he was going to leave a scar, she wanted it to be such a scar. So deep, so affecting, it would never heal.
She inched toward him, reaching out and placing her hand over his cheek, mirroring his action.
“Gabriella,” he said, his voice a growl, warning.
She didn’t listen to it.
She leaned forward, claiming his mouth with hers, kissing him as though she had a right to do it. As though she knew how.
She knew that he would recognize her limited technique, because she had learned it from him. It was all she knew. So when she traced the seam of his lips with her tongue, she was keenly aware of the fact that she was plagiarizing his earlier kiss. But if he was aware of it, he didn’t show it. He was still beneath her touch, completely motionless. But he hadn’t pushed her away.
They parted, her hand still resting on his cheek. She could hear ragged breathing filling the space between them, but couldn’t tell if it was his or hers. Both.
“Gabriella,” he said again, “you have no idea what you’re asking for. No idea what you’re doing.”
She pressed her forehead to his, the tips of their noses touching. “I want to make love. I know what that is, Alex. Sex. I’ve never wanted it before. Not in a specific sense. But I do now.”
“I can’t offer you anything. I won’t make you any promises, because I will only break them.”
“Maybe.”
“Certainly.”
“Well, tomorrow the sky could fall, or I could get hit by a bus—”
“It won’t, and you won’t.”
“You don’t know that. We don’t know anything beyond right now. I saw my grandmother’s face. I know there was a lot that she regretted. But I don’t think she ever regretted being with Bartolo.” She knew that these words were tantamount to admitting that she felt more for him than simple attraction, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.
“I am the worst of sinners. I condemned my half brother to a life lived outside of the family. It was me who stood in his way. Made him feel like he could never be close to us. He told me that tonight. It is on me, Gabriella.”
“Alex—”
“I carry the blood of my father. Weak selfishness that I’ve worked a very long time to overcome. So believe me when I tell you I will regret nothing of what happened here tonight. My nobility is nothing more than a construct. There
