Poison Heart (Toxic Hearts), page 11
My eyebrows rose at his blunt honesty, unexpected.
“What about our children? Will you deny them their history, their language?”
A slow smile spread over Romeo’s lips, and his tongue darted out to wet the lower one.
“Our children? They will have whatever you want. You want to send them to Italy? You want them interred on the Orazio estate like I was? So be it. You want them to learn Italian, velenoso dolcezza, mia moglie, I will do it for you.”
My body prickled with unwanted heat, flustered by the low purr of his voice. I didn’t want him saying anything to me in Italian ever again. It was like liquid silk, and I craved the sound wrapped around me. Paolo and Bruno laughed, surprised and awkward. I knew my cheeks were pink, and I damned Romeo in my mind.
“I never thought I’d see you let go of your anger about that year abroad. Being married suits you, Romeo.” Bruno crushed a peanut shell between his thumbs. He looked between us with a guileless smile, truly believing there was love in this marriage.
“It does. You know my wife has many layers. I appreciate them all.”
Paolo gulped, and it was enough for Romeo to shoot him a dark glare. He didn’t even know how many layers I had, and I knew if he did, he wouldn’t be sitting at a table with such ease.
“Your hand is dirty.” Romeo lifted my hand and pursed his lips at the filthy nails.
“It is.” I let my grin unfold. This was what I was waiting for, his displeasure and embarrassment at his wife not putting on airs for him anymore. “My gardening glove had holes.” I added to Bruno as his forehead creased.
Romeo clicked his tongue and dropped my hand in my lap.
“I will be right back.”
He stalked to the door, his shoulders hunched toward his ears. I watched him go with a mix of delight and disappointment. I wanted him to be angry with me. Furious enough to leave me alone. But part of me protested at how easy it had been to carve the thorn of him from my side. My shoulders sagged. He gave up so easily. I expected to trade a few more thinly veiled insults, had them ready on my tongue even.
“Anita,” Paolo shot Bruno a meaningful look, “I need to speak with you in private.”
My cousin fidgeted with an empty peanut shell, tearing off tiny pieces. Bruno held up his hands.
“I can step out if you need. This is an imposition, me turning up here, half drunk. I’m imposing, I know. I just heard the news and had to celebrate with someone who would understand what it meant to me…who knew my sister.” Bruno cleared his throat. I ignored the way Paolo was gesturing at me, my carcass of a chest warming for Bruno. In a way, I understood him. If I suspected my father of being discarded like Diane had been, I wouldn’t stop until I avenged him, either. Every breath would have been laced with the desire for revenge. There was nothing I wouldn’t do for the few people who snuck through the steel prison of my ribs.
He suffered. Lanton died in pain, I promised Bruno in my mind, and he jerked his head up as if he heard me speak.
“I understand, and you’re welcome here any time.”
Had I really extended an open invitation to someone? My stomach quelled in shock. Even Paolo struggled not to squint at me. Bruno, not understanding the rarity, only hummed with pleasure.
“Anita, I really do need to speak with you.” Paolo tried to draw my attention back, but I was too busy wondering what on earth was happening to me. First, I was disappointed that Romeo didn’t give me the fight I craved and now I was inviting people over to socialize? I pressed the back of my hand to my head, checking for a temperature. Perhaps I’d ingested some pollen, and it was making me hallucinate. Romeo stepped through the door, holding a small package in his hands.
“I’m sure you can say anything you need in front of us, Paolo. Don’t be shy. But I would consider whether it’s in your best interest.”
They shared a charged look, one that I should have paid more attention to, but the box he placed in front of me distracted me. It was a plain black rectangle with a silver bow stuck to the top.
“What’s this?” I asked, running my fingers around the edge suspiciously. He paused behind my chair, and the oppressive closeness unsettled me. Romeo had a way of commanding a room with only his presence.
“Open it and find out.” His clear, powerful voice was a challenge I wouldn’t back down from. I flipped the lid open and stared at the gift in sudden muteness. A pair of gardening gloves was nestled in white paper. Mint green suede with a creamy, white leather trim.
“I don’t understand.” I grappled with my rapid heartbeat, dizzy as it slammed a frantic beat against my insides. He got me gloves? I looked down at my grubby hand, the one that was meant to enrage Romeo. He didn’t leave out of disgust but to retrieve the gift he’d procured me.
“I had several pairs made when I visited your greenhouse for the first time. They should be durable, but please let me know if they need adjusting. Anita is a talented gardener, you know,” Romeo explained to Bruno. I picked up the gloves, sliding them over my hands with bubbling excitement. They fit perfectly. The gift fractured some of the hard shell around my heart, made space.
I took the gloves off with a harried breath. Nothing good would come of thoughts like these.
“What do you like to grow, Anita? Vegetables, flowers? My mother has a penchant for orchids.” Bruno asked. Paolo paled at the question, and I fought the urge to snap at him. He was acting so strange tonight.
“Yes, wife, tell Bruno what you grow.” Romeo’s hands landed on my shoulders.
I grow death.
“I like orchids too, although they’re too fussy for me.” If I was going to grow a plant with such an attitude, it would have to give me back something useful, like petals I could dry and grind into poison.
Romeo’s fingers dug into my skin, and he hummed under his breath. I looked up at him.
“She’s full of secret talents, this little gardener of mine.” Romeo’s eyes flashed. I stroked the gloves, shellshocked by the kind gesture. An uncomfortable warmth spread in my stomach, and I couldn’t stem it, no matter how I tried. I liked the gift, and I hated myself for it.
Maria opened the door to the dining room.
“I have some soup to start,” she crowed.
Romeo released his grip on my shoulders to push the cart for Maria. She fussed behind him, wringing her hands.
“Mr. Orazio, it’s fine. That’s my job.” She laughed, but her smile widened. I shifted my box of gloves to the side as Romeo placed a bowl in front of me, and the scent of vegetables and herbs wafted up my nostrils.
“This was a thoughtful gift. I didn’t know you had it in you,” I said out the side of my mouth while Paolo picked up his spoon and ate.
Romeo pinned me in the silken trap of his intense gaze. I shivered all over, hot and cold, all at once.
“We both have our secrets, but I love you all the more for yours, my wife.”
14
Age 16
I jerked awake, blinking through the muted moonlight trickling through the greenhouse window panes. I’d fallen asleep and, in my foolish slumber, missed the night bloom of the catoat cactus. My nails were aching stubs from earlier, waiting for the buds to open. The translucent green had unfurled, but the veiny petals were already useless.
They had to be harvested fresh.
The catoat cactus bloomed once every six months, and the flowers only lasted hours. They carried the scent of rotting, designed to attract prey that would feast on them. Not knowing it was a death wish. As soon as the creature collected the pollen, they would find their nervous system hijacked. The toxins in the flowers would flood their body until they expired.
Decaying into the soil and becoming the cactus food source.
It was also known as the Lady of Death. And I’d missed the chance to harvest it. I ripped off the gloves I’d been wearing in preparation and tossed them across the room. They clattered into a stack of pots, teetering haphazardly. I looked at father’s notes. He underlined the word fresh twice with a thick line.
He would never have fallen asleep. A gaping, dark hole swallowed my stomach. He would never have failed so pitifully. I was grateful for the darkness, heavy enough to muffle the solitary sob I couldn’t contain. For once, I wished I could cry, so the well of hurt might lessen inside of me.
He was gone. Left me swinging in the breeze with nothing to latch onto except the plants and his scrawled handwriting. The echo of his heartbeat throbbed in this place. There were still moments where I thought he was in the moving shadows. Those were the worst. The brief millisecond of euphoria. Shattered and destroyed when I turned and saw nothing.
After a moment of wallowing, I stood, my body aching from the hard stool. The gloves I stored in their proper home and made a note on my calendar.
I would try again. I would never give up.
Not until I became the new master of these plants.
Lanton Vani’s funeral was a somber affair.
My nose wrinkled, and I tried to smooth it out. Romeo was stiff beside me. His eyes snagged on Merissa more than once. She was a small, black, shrouded figure in the pew beside my father-in-law, Matteo Orazio. Perhaps the only man who looked devastated in this church. Lanton Vani left no family. He was a scourge that infected every person around him. I looked at his closed casket with a sharp sense of satisfaction. Romeo rested his hand over mine. The warmth was unwelcome, but I relaxed despite myself. Perhaps I was starved of touch. It was the only explanation. I couldn’t yank my hand out in public, but I slid him a cool look of surprise.
“There, there, wife,” he whispered into the shell of my ear. “I can see you’re disturbed, being so close to the gruesome business of death.”
I managed not to snort.
Just.
Romeo stroked his thumb over my skin, and shivers cascaded through my body at the intimate touch. He’d continued his farcical pursuit.
Which made no sense.
My neck prickled, and I tried to dismiss it, but I had always been a paranoid person. It seemed it was becoming more pronounced. Nobody would have guessed it was me who dispatched Lanton. I needed to let go.
“Thank you, Romeo.” I sniffled, thinking of my father, and conjured up a lone tear. Even that was a struggle.
Romeo reached out and stopped the slow path it carved down my cheek with his thumb. He banked the glistening drop with his finger and pressed his lips to my cheek. The affection startled me, and I froze. He pulled back, and his blue eyes searched mine, burning with a fever. Something I couldn’t interpret. I wrapped my free hand around the back of his neck, pulling his head down to whisper in his ear.
“Your mistress is free. I assume you’ll resume your past activities and leave me in peace?” I stroked the side of his face, feeling his jaw tighten. The tiny bristles of stubble sent shivers through me. Anyone looking would assume there was genuine love and affection for each other. Our heads bowed toward each other, hands clinging.
“No, Anita. You’ll never have peace from me,” Romeo promised. His lips thinned. He settled back in the pew.
I was flummoxed into silence.
The priest droned on. The purple liver spots on his face looked like bruises, and he had a tick in his right eye. He might preach peace and salvation, but he would look the other way at anything the people in this church did.
I spotted a shock of platinum blonde I would recognize anywhere.
My mom. She’d bundled her hair off her neck, the beehive hairdo stiff. Sprayed to an inch of its life. How she looked so elegant with such a rotten soul, I would never know. I thanked god that I inherited nothing from her, except my nose. Everything else was my beloved father, including my vicious spirit.
My chest ached at the memory of him, and I shook my head. Tearing my burning gaze away from her.
“Of course, she’d turn up,” Paolo clicked his tongue, and we shared a look of disgust between us.
“She’s a vulture.” I agreed. She’d made no effort to contact me since she’d been in town, but appearances meant more to her than anything. She would seek me out today for the mere reason of optics. I hoped the crowd would rein in her usually acerbic comments.
Romeo tilted his head, catching the soft whispers. His thumb still grazed my skin.
Slowly, slowly, slowly.
The strokes made my stomach flip, a feeling that disconcerted me. He followed my line of sight, humming in the back of his throat. The interest that sparked in his eyes unsettled me.
The funeral was soon over, and we lined up to pay our respects to Merissa. She accepted Romeo’s stiff embrace, his lips barely touching her cheek. Her sniffles intensified as she threw her arms around my neck. I stumbled into her as she gasped in my ear. She squeezed me so hard my ribs ached.
“T-thank you,” she released me from her iron grip, wiping her eyes. Matteo Orazio was standing beside her, wide-eyed with surprise. His lips pursed with disapproval of the overt show of emotion.
Matteo Orazio had always stirred a healthy sense of fear inside of me. His dark hair and judgment reminded me so much of Romeo. He was an iron rod, and he wouldn’t hesitate to beat someone into compliance.
“For being such a wonderful friend,” Merissa added, shooting Matteo a tremulous smile. Her actions irritated me, because Romeo knew very well that we weren’t friends, and he might wonder why his mistress was embracing me. I chanced a look at him, but his steely face was stony.
“We are sorry for your loss.” Romeo bowed his head before pressing his hand to my lower back and guiding us away. I waited for him to say something, to pick apart the strange interaction, but he only moved us through the crowd to the front of the church.
I blinked in the bright sun, and I tipped my head to capture more of its cleansing rays. Tonight, The Lady of Death would bloom, and I had prepared in advance. But underneath my skin still itched in anticipation.
“Did you want to speak with your mom?” Romeo asked, interrupting my mental to-do list. I snapped my head toward him with a glare. He rocked back on his heels, hands clasped behind his back. So pristine in his tailored black suit. He was wearing the silver and onyx cufflinks I had bought for him when we were courting. Back when giddy little lies had hijacked my brain. He noted my focus and turned his wrist to show them off, smug.
“If there is one thing you should know about me, Romeo, there is no one I despise more in this world than my mom,” I said.
“We might want to go then,” Romeo mused, looking over my shoulder. “Oh, too late.”
I spun on my heel, containing the roiling disgust.
My mom was as I remembered. Her clothes wore her, even at a funeral she couldn’t help donning her shiniest necklace. Her flawless make-up accentuated her fine features. She crowed in mock affection, gripping my wrists and smacking air kisses on either side of my face. Her hands were bony, nails making pink indents before she released me to assail Romeo.
“My darling,” she sighed, turning watery eyes on me. “What sad circumstances to see you again.” She huffed a sigh, her sizable cleavage teasing from her black dress. The soft skin smattered with freckles.
She’d had many suitors after my father went missing. She’d lived her life as though she was single, attempting to entertain them in our house. But that was another thing I’d ruined for her, if her endless rants were anything to go by.
“Mrs. Bianco, we missed you at the wedding.” Romeo was compelled to speak when I let the silence stretch too long.
It wasn’t a tragedy. And I didn’t want to see her. But she knew that, her cunning eyes glittering like cold gems. She reached out and squeezed Romeo’s biceps, clicking her tongue.
“You know, I was so surprised that Anita had made a match. Let alone a good one.” She waved her hands, coating her barbs with just enough sugar to seem plausible while she avoided the question of her absence. She cast me an adoring look, all for show and Romeo…didn’t fall for it.
His lips spread, a remarkable effort of a smile. But it was thin, and I could tell it wasn’t genuine.
“Why would you be surprised? Anita is perfect, as if god made her for me.” He looked at me as he said the last comment, and a shiver zapped down my spine from the intensity of his gaze. The honesty. As if he was slicing past layers of secrets I held and beholding my heart like a precious gift.
Mom concealed her disbelief with a flash of her white teeth.
“Of course, of course. I only meant Anita keeps so much to herself. I often despaired about whether she would do the right thing and marry.” She gave a conciliatory titter.
Paolo hovered in the background but didn’t approach. He didn’t want to interact with his aunt any more than I did.
I stiffened. Her insults were usually better packaged than this. She cared too much about public opinion, but this? Her charm was brittle, and Romeo heard her barbs for what they were. He moved behind me, hands anchoring down on my shoulders. His thumbs stroked, and my skin heated through the material of my dress.
“I adore your daughter. There is nothing she could do that would turn me away from her.” His words sent a lick of warmth through me. If only for the way my mom’s nostrils flared unflatteringly.
She was warring with herself. It was her habit to denigrate me, sweet and careful, but Romeo wasn’t giving her any room to work.
I leaned back on him to spite my mom. But his chest was a furnace, and I had to bite my lip. Romeo’s arm slid around my waist, hauling me to him in an obscene display of affection. I tried to signal for him to let me go, but he was glaring at my mom.
Did he feel protective of me?
A bubble of laughter choked my throat. My mom knew me better than Romeo, knew what I was capable of, at least. She’d seen me raised a spitting image of my father and witnessed the rage I could wield when he disappeared.
