Had it started already? Was he off looking for his own long-term mistress to install in the house and push her out? Or had he lost himself in the whiskey she’d seen he’d left out on his desk, in an imitation of the father he hated and feared becoming?
And what did it say about her that she wasn’t entirely sure which route was worse?
Then his words penetrated and she frowned. “I don’t think I’ve changed. Perhaps you have. Or, more likely, you’re paying more attention than you did before because we’re living in the same house.”
“No,” he replied sternly, in that tone she recalled from the office. The one that brooked absolutely no argument. “There’s a sadness in your eyes all the time now. Do you think I don’t see it?”
“I’m sure you’re mistaken. And I’m equally sure that you don’t really care. Because if you did, you might have mentioned your thoughts on love before getting married.”
Julienne had not meant to say that.
She was horrified that she’d said that.
She flushed, and hated the fact that she was so big now that she couldn’t simply leap to her feet and walk away from her own embarrassment. Not without a struggle. Instead, she had to stay where she was, anchored to the bed by her giant belly.
By the child she was bringing into this mess. Into the arms of a man who didn’t believe in love. It was bad enough for her. What would it do to their son?
Then again, she already knew. Cristiano was a walking advertisement for exactly what would happen.
“It doesn’t matter now,” she said, nervously, because she couldn’t read that intense expression on his face. He seemed even more austere than usual. Almost as if he was in pain. And she could not bear that. “We are married. Our son will be here soon enough. We can love him, instead.”
Or I will, she promised the baby. I will love you enough for both of us.
“I went to see my grandmother,” he said as he came to a stop at the foot of the bed.
And had he said that he had personally flown himself to the moon and back, Julienne could not possibly have been more surprised.
“Your grandmother?” She gaped at him. “The fairy-tale witch?”
“Her name is Paola DeMarco.” His voice was gruff again, his face grim. “She does not use her married name, which will perhaps not surprise you.”
“Why did you go to see her?” Julienne asked. The baby kicked, hard enough to make her wince. And she told herself that was why her heart began to pound. “Did she cast a spell on you after all?”
“Because you spoke to me of whores and witches.” And that grimness on his face began to look...ravaged, instead. “You made me question who it was who told me that particular fairy tale, and why. And because you married me and began at once to fade. And I want you to understand this, if nothing else, Julienne. I have no intention of repeating any of this history.”
“I told you I would burn it to the ground,” Julienne told him fiercely, thinking of that cold, sick feeling in her belly when his office had called. And the gloating letters from his grandfather’s mistress. “I meant it.”
His gaze on hers was savage. And beautiful. “There is nothing to burn save the empty, hollow carcass of the man I was before I met you.”
And there was no pretending, then, that her heart wasn’t beating hard and mad for him.
For hope.
But she couldn’t seem to make herself speak.
“I told myself all was well,” Cristiano said in that same tone. “And I wanted to believe it. But all the while, you looked at me through a stranger’s eyes. No light. No joy. And in all the time I have known you, Julienne, you have never looked at me like that.”
“You don’t have to do this,” she managed to get out. “Really.”
And there was a kind of panic in her then. She fought against it, trying to roll herself out of the nest she’d made of too many pillows, but then he was there.
Cristiano was at the side of the bed, and then he was sitting there beside her. And this time, he didn’t put his hands on her belly, or address himself to her bump.
He took her hands. And he looked into her eyes.
“Last night I came upon you laughing with your sister,” he said, and she’d never heard him sound like this. Gravel and ice, certainly, but something hot and alive beneath. “And I couldn’t help but think to myself that I had extinguished all that light. All that joy. Because when you look at me now, there’s nothing but heartbreak on your face. And tesoro mio, you must know that I cannot bear for you to be broken. I cannot bear it.”
Julienne wanted to reach out to him. She wanted to fix this, whatever it was. It was as if the ice in him had cracked at last, she realized. And what she was seeing was the man beneath it.
Uncontrolled. Untamed.
Real, a voice in her whispered.
Cristiano kept going, his hands on hers. “My whole life I have equated emotion with pain. Terror. Grief and loss. The deeper the emotion, the more passion in its display, and the worse it has always been. I have watched a man I respected act as if what he’d done to his wife was something she deserved. That she’d brought upon herself. He was proud of it.”
He shook his head, a cynicism she’d never seen before in his gaze, not when he spoke of his beloved grandfather. And Julienne didn’t entirely understand how she could feel all that same cynicism when it came to Piero Cassara, but want to soothe it away from Cristiano. With her hands, her mouth, whatever worked.
But he was still speaking, intent and low. “And I watched another man I never respected abuse my mother, who, it must be said, put more energy into martyring herself to her marriage than she ever did into raising her own child. These were the emotions I knew growing up. This was the passion that marked the Cassara family. Of course I told you that love was a lie. Do you know the only person who ever used that word in my hearing?” His mouth, firm and hard, thinned into grimness again. “Sofia Tomasi, the housekeeper who welcomed my grandmother into the Villa when Paola was a shy eighteen-year-old bride. Sofia loved my father, or so she liked to tell me, and she showed that love by undermining my grandmother at every turn. Pretending to befriend her and then using her confidences against her.”
He shook his head, but the gaze he kept trained on her was fierce. “Every example of love I have ever seen has been a lie, Julienne. Save yours.”
And his hands were on hers, so she gripped him, hard. She didn’t care about the wetness on her cheeks, not as long as she could keep looking at him. At his face, torn apart by something deep and strong. Ravaged, she thought again.
She would take from him in an instant if she could. If only she could.
“You have loved me unwaveringly,” Cristiano said and there was a kind of wonder in his voice. “You loved me when I was a bitter, angry man who had just sent his own parents to their deaths.”
She did her best not to shout, That is not your fault.
He shifted, his fingers laced with hers now. “That you are so fierce about that is only further testament to the kind of person you are. You loved me then, Julienne. You loved me when I threw you and your sister into this house, then threw money at you to assuage my guilt, and did absolutely nothing to help you make your way in the world.”
“Aside from paying for it.”
“Money does not keep anyone warm, try as they might,” he growled.
And it was her turn to smile, through the tears that blurred her vision. “Cristiano. I do love you. I have always loved you. But please, take it from me, the money to pay a heating bill in a cold winter keeps anyone warm enough. Everything else is icing on the cake.”
He reached over and traced that smile on her mouth with his fingers, as if it was a priceless work of art. As if she was.
“That smile.”
And his voice was so intense, then, it nearly hurt to hear him. Nearl
y. Instead, she melted.
“I have missed that smile.”
“Cristiano—”
“That you love me at all humbles me,” he told her, as if he was making vows. And not with the briskness he’d displayed at their wedding. “You, who have been through so much. I thought that the purpose of my life was to distinguish myself from my father. I wanted so desperately to be nothing like him. But somehow, I never saw that I was as drunk on my own perceived virtue as he ever was on whiskey. Until you.”
“None of this is necessary. Really.”
“It is more than necessary.” And his voice was like thunder, then. “It is past due. This whole time, I have thought that I could avoid saying these words that I barely know how to form if I expressed myself another way. I thought that while I heard that beautiful song of yours, so passionate and all mine, you would hear the truth in my heart as well.”
Julienne found she was holding her breath.
“The things you make me feel terrify me,” he said, and she understood that she was seeing the real Cristiano now. No ice. All flesh and man. And all hers. “They make me feel mortal, weak and wrong. And all my life, I have considered it my duty to exorcise anything I felt. Better to be like ice. Better by far to be half-dead—but you make me feel alive, Julienne. You forced me, against my will and inclination, to face up to the things I wanted so badly I’d locked them away inside myself. And then you systematically broke down each and every one of my compartments.”
She didn’t know if she should melt or apologize. But Cristiano took one of her hands and brought it to his chest. Then placed her palm over his heart. “I’m going to tell you a fairy tale.”
“Does it involve witches?” she managed to ask, not sure if she was laughing or crying.
With his free hand, he reached over and wiped away the water beneath her eyes.
“Once upon a time there was a fool,” he told her, his voice a low rumble that she could feel, now, as well as hear. “He was raised by an ogre and a troll. The ogre taught him airs and graces. The troll taught him pain. The fool knew no better, and imagined that one was a king and the other a jailer.”
“This is already a very sad story.”
Cristiano’s dark eyes gleamed, but he kept on. “Time went on, and the fool allowed his king to color his world. He thought that made him a man. A hero, even. Until one day, at the end of a very low hour when he had indulged his innate selfishness and would soon learn that there would be consequences for his folly, he had the opportunity instead to play the hero he’d always imagined he was. For in walked a girl, and he saved her.”
“Oh, okay,” she said. “I like this story.”
“But you see, like any fool, he thought saving her was enough. He turned his back on her, told himself it was a virtue and made a career out of turning himself to stone.”
Beneath her hand, his heart beat, hard and strong. Beautiful. And inside her, she felt their son’s feet poke at her, and if this wasn’t love—physical and real and true—she was sure she didn’t know the meaning of the word.
“And then one day, years later, the girl found him again,” Cristiano said, still telling his story. Or maybe this was really their story. “She flattered him, flirted with him. For she had grown up to become a beautiful princess, and the fool thought—of course. He considered himself a hero, so why shouldn’t he have a princess? So he kissed her, but when he woke the next morning, it was to find that the princess had disappeared. And worse, that she had prized off the stone he wore instead of a heart and had taken it with her.”
“Not a princess,” Julienne whispered. “And you’ve never been a fool.”
“Six months passed,” he said, a faintly reproving note in his voice. “And the fool knew that he was not the same. His stone was gone, and that meant that he could feel that beating, untamable organ beneath. Suddenly, there was blood in his veins. Suddenly, he wanted things he knew he couldn’t have. But he ignored it all, and assumed that if he locked himself away in eternal winter, he could find another stone. The world has no shortage of stones, after all.”
Julienne’s hand was still there on his chest, splayed wide over his flat pectoral muscle, and all she felt was his heart. The kick of it, insistent and strong.
No stones to be found.
“One day, the princess returned. She gazed at our fool, and to his astonishment, he could see in her eyes that what she saw was a hero. ‘Look,’ she said, and showed him her big, round belly, swollen with child. ‘I have taken the stone that lay upon your heart, and see what I’ve made with it.’”
“A son,” Julienne whispered.
“A son,” he agreed. “But the fool knew that he was no hero, you see. And more, he was afraid of the princess, and the things she made him feel, and that hollow where his stone once lay. He knew that the princess was filled with light, and it was only a matter of time before she looked deep enough to see that there was nothing in him but darkness. He had an idea. He would marry the princess, and pile stones on top of her, muting her light. Saving himself in the process.”
“Some princesses like stones,” Julienne argued, astonished to hear the thickness in her voice. “Or they wouldn’t take them from unsuspecting hearts in the first place, would they?”
“A princess might like to collect stones,” Cristiano said, shaking his head at her. “But no one likes to have them stacked on top of their chest. Crushing out the will to live. The fool kept going, for he knew no other way. Every day he lay another stone upon the princess, and every day, he watched the light in her fade. Until one day, he realized that when she looked at him, all she saw was stone. That he was no longer a hero at all. And the fool knew then that if he continued along this path, it would only end one way. First he would kill the princess, as surely as if he choked her with his own hand. And then, inevitably, he would do the same to his son.”
“Cristiano,” she said.
And it was only his name. But it held whole worlds in it.
“More than that, he understood at last that the ogre and the troll were neither kings nor jailers, but had once been fools themselves. And once he understood that, everywhere he looked, he saw the stones his ancestors had piled up like walls.”
She tried again, but she couldn’t seem to speak. And she knew she didn’t have stones on her chest, but love. So much love it hurt.
“That was when the fool remembered there had been another princess, long ago. A princess so feared that every ogre and troll in the kingdom called her a witch instead. And the fool ran, then, over the hills and into the forest. And he found an old woman who had once been a princess living alone in a cottage on the edge of a deep, dark wood.”
“Your grandmother.”
“A fool is a fool until the very end,” Cristiano said. “‘How can I help the princess?’ he asked the old woman. ‘How can I dislodge the stones enough to keep her breathing?’ The old woman laughed, and she told him that the stone was a stone. It could never be changed. It was weight and heft, and when piled upon a princess would crush her, sure enough. ‘‘But the princess took a stone and made a son of it,’ the fool argued.”
Julienne’s heart beat so hard, she wondered if she was made of stone herself.
“The old woman looked him straight in the eye. And she said, ‘She didn’t take a stone from you, child. She took your heart. And all you’ve done since is pretend you can function without it.’”
Cristiano smiled then, and Julienne held her breath.
“‘You can, but you must kill her first in order to do it. And when you’re done killing her, you must destroy your son, so he too becomes a fool. A fool becomes an ogre or troll, and if you squint, you can see which one he’ll be. Which one you are.’”
“She sounds like a wise woman,” Julienne managed to say, feeling wrecked. And a bit dizzy, too. “And scary, if I’m honest.” She shifted where she sat, se
arching his face. “And I love a fairy tale, Cristiano, but I really would love to jump to the end of this one. The ‘they lived happily ever after’ part. Is that where we’re headed?”
Though she wasn’t sure what she’d do if he said no.
He held her gaze. Then he reached into the pocket of his trousers and pulled something out. And she didn’t know why she was holding her breath again, because she already wore his rings. Beautiful, priceless works of stone and metal that declared her not only his, but forever a Cassara bride. His wife, no matter what.
Still, she watched as he opened his palm.
And then she blinked.
Because sitting there in his hand was a stone. At first she thought it was misshapen—but then she realized.
It looked like a heart.
“I’m not sure I have ever loved anything in my life,” Cristiano told her, his voice deep and strong. “I have long hated the word. I have considered it nothing but the harbinger of doom, if I am honest. But I can think of no other word that explains how I feel about you, Julienne. You are the sun, the stars, the moon. You are all the light in the world, and I do not deserve you, and I don’t know that I ever will. You think I saved you, when all the while, you must know that you are the one who has saved me. You took the stone away from my heart and taught me how to make it beat again. You have loved me completely, always. You are carrying my son. Everything is dark and cold without you. Me most of all.”
She whispered his name again, but this time, perhaps it was a kind of incantation.
Hope, love and joy.
Cristiano.
“You already have my heart,” he said. “I want you to have this, too. Because if I keep it, I think we both know that I will use whatever stones I have to build as many walls as possible. But not you, my beautiful Julienne. You make life. You make love. And I want nothing else than to dedicate myself to making you happy.”
“Cristiano,” she said, and this time, he did not cut her off. And she did not falter. “I love you. And I don’t want to be a princess. You are not a fool, and I am your wife, and we will love each other as best we can, for as long as we can, so that our son grows up and doesn’t spend his time worried about stones and ogres and trolls. But rather, happiness. Family. Love. All the things that make life worth living.”
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