Page 55 of The Virgin's Dance with the Devil
“What’s wrong?” Luisa whispered.
Marisa shook her head. “Can you ask Gennaro if he can get me to Naples?”
Luisa studied her carefully. “You’re sure you want to do this?”
“I’m more certain about this than I’ve ever been about anything.”
Tears filling her eyes, Luisanodded. “When do you want to go?”
“Now.”
Rico let himself into his parents’ home. Now only his mother’s home. She looked splendid, head to toe in black, holding onto her sisters, sisters-in-law and closest friends, the grieving widow at her best. When she saw her youngest son, she broke away from them to embrace him tightly as if she hadn’t seen him for weeks rather than just hours. She disapproved of his decision to step away from the family empire but had kept tight-lipped about it. Rico was quite sure she believed it a knee-jerk reaction he would soon change his mind about. He wouldn’t. His brothers, once they’d finished fighting between themselves over who would beDonand have overall control, would decide between themselves the best way to take it all forward and whether they wanted to continue using threats, intimidation and violence to force their way. They were methods that had served the family so well and for so long that he didn’t imagine much, if anything, would change. He wanted no part in it, and no part in the hunt for Niccolo Martinelli.Run, Niccolo. Run.
Rico loved his family, but his loyalty had transferred in its entirety to Marisa. It didn’t matter that he would never see her again; when she’d wrapped herself around his heart, she’d wrapped herself around his conscience too. He would never be able to look himself in the eye again if he did anything that would cause her chin to wobble and her eyes to fill with tears of distress, even if she wasn’t there to know about it. He would know. And he would know how deeply it would upset her.
His brothers had barely suppressed their glee when Rico announced his intention to step away from it all. One less sibling to fight with (although he suspected they thought the same as their mother in that he would one day come crawling back to the fold). They’d been less impressed when he’d signed over the casinos to Siena.
Let them fight it out. All Rico wanted was to see his father put to rest and then try to find a way to live the rest of his life without Marisa.
He didn’t even have a photo of her. All he had were her letters.
He should have known he was falling for her when he started keeping those letters safe in an elaborately carved wooden box that had once belonged to his grandmother. He’d started using it after their second lunch together. Weeks before leaving for Accardiano, he’d taken to reading them before going to sleep. Reading each and every one of them.
She’d woven into his dreams, waking and sleeping, long before he’d even been aware of it.
God, how was he supposed to go on without her?
There was a tap on his arm. Turning, he found his sister beside him. He had no recollection of his mother walking back to her friends or of himself walking into the kitchen and looking out over the sprawling lawn.
Just as widowhood suited his mother, being the jilted bride suited Siena. While he knew she grieved their father, he sensed in her a clear-eyed steeling of her spine. The future she’d resigned herself to for the benefit of the family was gone. Their father’s control was gone. She would never willingly give that control to anyone else.
“How are you holding up?” she asked him quietly.
He shrugged and mustered a smile. “I’ve been better.”
Her answering smile was sympathetic. “I would use this moment to lecture you that what you’re feeling is karma for the hundreds of women you’ve treated like shit over the years, but I wouldn’t even wish your suffering on Tommaso.” At the expression on his face, she shook her head. “I always know the shit you and those two arseholes get up to.” Bringing her mouth to his ear, she whispered, “I’ve banked it all." Then she kissed his cheek and sashayed away, leaving Rico with the verystrong and sudden feeling that the Espositos were more likely to get their firstDonnathan anotherDon.
The call came out that the funeral cars had arrived.
It was time to say goodbye.
Although Rico had spent hours at the funeral home over the past few days with the body that had played host to his father, stepping out of the farmhouse and making the walk to the limos, knowing this was the last walk to him, the last drive, the last goodbye…
Grief welled up with such force that it doubled him over. Grief for his father, grief for Marisa, grief for the future he’d destroyed.
Surprisingly, it was Tommaso who put a comforting hand on his back and guided him to the waiting car, Tommaso who stayed by his side throughout the funeral mass and then helped him back in the limo for the procession to the cemetery, and Tommaso who held him up as they threw their red roses on the casket when they reached the mausoleum that would be their father’s final resting place. And it was Tommaso who noticed the figure standing in the distance beneath one of the ancient trees encircling the cemetery when it was all over and the mourners were returning to their cars.
“Look,” Tommaso said quietly.
Rico followed his brother’s gaze and blinked. Blinked again to clear the sun from his eyes and the angel bathed in its light it had tricked him into seeing.
The angel bathed in a sunlight that shouldn’t have been able to penetrate the thick trees she stood amongst was still there.
His heartstuttered.
He had to be seeing things. It couldn’t be her. It couldn’t be.
But he couldn’t tear his stare away
