Ache For You

40

There’s a full mass, including communion. Hymns are sung, bible passages are read, people stand, sit, and kneel at the appropriate times.

I do, too, aware always of Matteo on my right and his mother on my left. Aware of his constant, grounding presence. Aware of his gaze, which doesn’t stray from me for too long.

There are no eulogies, because my father thought it was morbid to talk about the dead. Then it’s over.

I survived. Barely. The scream inside my chest survived, too, and is impatiently clawing for escape from my throat.

I’ll let it have its moment later, when I’m alone.

Matteo, Dominic, and Lorenzo are three of the six pallbearers who bear my father’s casket out of the church to the waiting hearse and to the gravesite. The service at the grave is a blur. All I remember is that at one point, I swayed and Matteo caught me before I fell. He kept his arm clamped around my shoulders for the rest of the service, which was lucky for me. I doubt if I would have been able to stand unsupported.

I throw a fistful of dirt on my father’s casket, then it’s over.

I don’t remember walking back to the limo.

I don’t remember the drive back to the house.

I don’t remember anything, until I look up when the limo pulls to a stop and I see a familiar figure pacing back and forth in agitation in front of the front door of Il Sogno.

When I gasp in horror, Matteo whips his head around and looks at me, then follows my gaze through the window and narrows his eyes.

“Who’s that?”

Though my mouth has gone bone-dry, I manage to answer, “It’s Brad. My ex.”

When Matteo makes a terrifying sound in his chest—like a bear’s growl, only more lethal—I wonder if we’ll be having more than one funeral today.

SEVENTEEN

I’m the first one out of the limo because I launch myself from it like a rocket.

Brad spots me and freezes. He’s as handsome as ever in faded jeans and a navy blazer, though he looks bone tired. The bruises beneath his eyes and the white strip of tape over the bridge of his nose don’t help.

With a pleading look on his face and a crack in his voice, he says, “Babe.”

I whip off my right shoe and hurl it at him.

It lands in the middle of his forehead with a satisfying thwack, then bounces off into the bushes.

I really wish I’d brought a pair of heels. He could be missing an eye right now.

“Ow!” Clutching his forehead, he staggers back and stares at me with big eyes. “Babe!”

I shout, “Call me babe one more time, you lying, cheating, gigantic piece of s**t! I dare you!”

Matteo exits the car behind me. He grips my arm, stopping me from flying across the driveway and clawing out Brad’s eyes. In the most dangerous tone I’ve ever heard a person who isn’t Clint Eastwood use, Matteo says, “You have ten seconds to get off this property before I kill you.”

I blink up at him, surprised. Is he standing up for my honor?

Then I remind myself this is the same person who’s stealing all my designs to use in his upcoming collection and shake my head to clear it. Matteo isn’t concerned with my honor. Matteo doesn’t have honor. He’s concerned with avoiding a scene in front of Mumsy-Wumsy.

Either way, if it ends up with Brad dead, I’m on board.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I spit it out, beyond livid.

“You wouldn’t take my calls. I had to reach you—I—we have to talk.”

Lorenzo and the marchesa have exited the limo and stand with the limo driver, staring at our tawdry little tableau with expressions ranging from mild interest on the driver’s part to extreme distaste on the marchesa’s part.

For someone who dislikes shows of emotion, this must be akin to surgery without anesthesia for her.

But she surprises me by saying, “So this is the man who left my stepdaughter at the altar.” She looks him up and down carefully, then sniffs. “You ought to be shot.”

With Lorenzo on her heels, she lifts her head and breezes past Brad into the house.

Wow. That was a beautiful thing.

Hurt, Brad looks at me. “She’s mean.”

Deadly soft, Matteo says, “Your ten seconds are up.”

I look at Brad and can’t help the vicious smile that curves my lips. “You really don’t want to talk s**t about this guy’s mother.”

“Please, Kimber, I was wrong. I was stupid and wrong, and I freaked out, and it was a total mistake, and . . . can we please just talk for a minute? I came all this way. I have so much I need to tell you.”

At first I think that scary grumbling noise is coming from my chest, but then I realize it’s Matteo. He’s about to blow a gasket. His face is so hard it looks like it’s made of stone.

Murder stone.

When he drops his hand from my arm and takes a step forward, I grab his sleeve. “Wait.”

He slants me a look. His nostrils are flared. That muscle in his jaw is jumping. He’s got violence written all over him, and I’m a teeny bit uncertain now about how much of this is for Mumsy-Wumsy’s sake and how much mine. I mean, she’s already gone.

What is he doing?

I exhale a hard breath, glower at Brad for a moment, then lower my voice. “I know this i***t. If I don’t give him a chance to speak his piece, he’ll never leave me alone.”

“If I remove his tongue, the problem will be solved.”

Matteo’s answer comes fast and quiet. It’s even scarier than if he’d shouted it to the hills. He’s serious. If I said the word, he’d take Brad apart limb by limb right here in the driveway.