then, he supposed that for Luca, it was.
Rafael sighed. “Was there a question in there somewhere?”
“Is this why she ran away, then?” Luca’s voice was light. Almost carefree, but Rafael didn’t quite believe it. He’d seen the shock on Luca’s face when she’d walked into that café.
“I couldn’t say why she ran away,” Rafael replied evenly. Or faked her own death, if he was to call this situation what it truly was. That was what she’d done, after all. Why pretty it up? “And she doesn’t appear to have any intention of telling me.”
Luca watched him for a moment, as if weighing his words. “It’s uncanny, how much that little boy looks like you. Father might well have a heart attack when he sees him. Or lapse further into dementia, never to return, mumbling on about ghosts in the family wing.”
“I will be certain to schedule time to worry about that,” Rafael assured him, his lips twitching despite himself. “But as I do not expect the old man and his brand-new child bride until much nearer Christmas, I think we can hold off on the family melodrama until then.”
“Buon Natale, brother,” Luca murmured, and then laughed again. “It will be the most joyous Christmas yet, I’m sure. Ghosts and resurrections and a surprise grandson, too. It’s nearly biblical.”
“I’m glad you find this amusing.”
“I wouldn’t say this is amusing, exactly,” Luca said then, the laughter disappearing. “But what would be the point in beating you up any further? You’ve been rolling around in the proverbial hair shirt for the last five years and have taken all the pleasure out of needling you, to be honest.”
“There was no hair shirt,” Rafael said, trying to keep his tone even, because the penance he’d done for a woman who hadn’t actually died was not his brother’s business. “It was time to grow up. I did.”
“Rafael.” Luca shifted in his chair, then blew out a breath, shoving back that unruly hair of his. “You were a wreck when you thought she was dead, and for a long time after. Maybe you should take heart that she is not. All the rest is noise that will sort itself out, surely.”
Rafael frowned at him. “Of course I’m pleased that she’s not dead, Luca.”
“But are you happy she’s alive?” Luca asked, with that uncanny insight of his that suggested he was something more than the lazy creature he’d spent most of his life pretending he was. At least in public. “It’s not quite the same thing, is it?”
“Of course.” But Rafael had waited a moment too long to respond, and he knew it. “Of course I’m happy she’s alive. What a thing to ask.”
His younger brother studied him for a moment. “Is it that she can’t remember you?” His mouth curved slightly. “Or anything else, for that matter?”
“I don’t believe that she has forgotten a thing,” Rafael said quietly, and it took him a moment to recognize the sheer savagery in his voice, to hear the way it sliced through the air between them, harsh and unmistakable. “Not one single thing. She left.”
He did not say, she left me, and yet that sat there for a moment in the middle of the room as well. Right there in the center of the priceless rug that was older than the two of them and Lily combined. Obvious and terrible, and Rafael thought he couldn’t possibly loathe himself more than he did at that moment.
Luca shifted in his chair, his whole body suddenly gripped with a different kind of tension.
“Rafael,” he began. “Mio fratello—”
“I’m finished discussing this,” Rafael gritted out.
“But I am not.” Luca shook his head. “This is not the same. Lily is not our mother. There is no comparison between an accident and what happened here.”
“You don’t actually know that,” Rafael said quietly. Too quietly. It revealed too much and even if he hadn’t heard that in his own voice as it hung there between them, he saw it in his brother’s eyes.
“Raf—”
“No more,” Rafael said, cutting his brother off. “Lily and I will come to terms with what she’s actually forgotten and what she’s found convenient to pretend she’s forgotten, I’m sure. That’s quite enough ancient history to dredge up. There’s no need to drag our mother into this.”
For a moment he thought Luca would protest that. He felt himself tense, as if he thought he might fight back if his brother dared—
You need to pull yourself together, he ordered himself. This is Luca. He’s the only person you love who’s never betrayed you.
“Do you have any particular reason to think she’s pretending?” Luca asked after a moment, his voice as light and easy as if they’d never strayed into the muddy waters of their mother’s sad fate. He even smiled again. “Most women, of course, would hold you like the North Star deep within them, knowing you even if they lost themselves. Such is the Castelli charm. I know this myself, obviously. But Lily always was different.”
Rafael forced himself to smile. To play off the darkness pounding through his veins even then, whispering things he didn’t want to hear.
“She was that.”
“Her memory will return or it won’t,” Luca said carefully, watching Rafael much too closely. “And in the meantime, there is the child. My nephew.”
“My son,” Rafael agreed.
He didn’t think he’d said that out loud before. My son. He wasn’t prepared for that rush inside, that simmering, inarticulate joy, beating back the darkness. He hardly knew what to make of it.
“Indeed.” Luca’s dark eyes gleamed. “So perhaps what she remembers, or what happened in this ancient history of yours, is unimportant next to that. Or should be.”
“Goodbye, Luca,” Rafael said softly, and he didn’t care what his brother could read in his tone. He didn’t care what he revealed, as long as this uncomfortable conversation ended immediately. As long as Luca left him here to fight his way toward his equilibrium again. Rafael was sure it had to be in there somewhere. “I don’t expect to see you again until Christmas. What a shame. You’ll be missed. By someone, I’m sure.”
“Liar,” said his irrepressible brother, wholly unconcerned by his dismissal. “You miss me already.”
Rafael shook his head, then turned back to the window and ignored the sound of his brother’s laughter behind him as Luca took his leave.
Outside, the little boy—his little boy—was still running, the hood of his bright blue coat tossed back and his head tipped toward the sky.
Arlo was a miracle. Arlo was impossible. Arlo was a perfect, wonderful mistake Rafael hadn’t known he’d made, and Rafael already thought he was a pure delight.
But he changed nothing.
He only made Rafael’s course of action that much more clear.
* * *
