Sempre (Sempre 1)

He went rigid. “What does he have to do with this?”

“You said nothing would get better holding grudges so I figured—”

“You figured wrong. That’s different.”

“How?” she asked. “You said dwelling on stuff wouldn’t help anything. It happened, but it’s over, so it’s time to move on. Right?”

He stared at her. “He’s an asshole, Haven. He hurts everything he touches.”

“That’s the same thing he says about you. He’s wrong, and I’ve told him, but maybe you are, too.”

“I’m not.”

“Okay. I’m just saying maybe the two of you aren’t that different, and maybe if you can put everything aside, you guys can—”

“I know what you’re saying, and that’s a lot of fucking maybes. It’s not gonna happen, so there’s no point talking about it. In fact, I don’t wanna talk about him at all, ever.”

She stopped talking, his tone telling her the subject was closed. The tension in the room mounted again, and she fought the urge to apologize for irritating him.

“Il tempo guarisce tutti i mali,” Carmine said, rubbing his chest where those words were inked on his flesh. “When I first got the tattoo, I didn’t believe it, but I do now. You can get over anything with enough time. I’m not sure how much it’s gonna take to work through this shit we have going on, but I have all the time in the world for you.”

He wrapped his arms around her, and she closed her eyes as she hugged him. “If you didn’t believe it, why’d you get the tattoo?”

“It’s something my mom used to say.” He let out a curious laugh. “Reminds me of you and your random trivia. I don’t know why it took me so long to see the similarities. It should’ve been obvious that my mom had grown up like you.”

Haven pulled away from him. “What did you say?”

He cut his eyes to her. “Which part?”

“Your mama was like me? You mean a slave?”

He cringed at the word but nodded. “I thought you knew. You saw the diary.”

She shook her head. “I only read the piece of paper that fell out of it, Carmine.”

His eyes widened. “I thought you read the whole thing. Hell, I would’ve read it. I gave it to my father so I wouldn’t be tempted.”

“Dr. DeMarco knows?”

“Of course,” he said. “He’s known for years. It’s no coincidence you ended up here.”

All of a sudden, as she stood there in the kitchen, the fog lifted and everything became clear. The reason he bought her, the reason he was freeing her. Masters were supposed to take life away, yet he had done everything in his power to give her one instead . . . and he had done it all for the woman he loved.

That knowledge made it feel like the ground was moving.

* * *

Haven was in her room that afternoon when Carmine came in, clutching a large white envelope. “You have mail, tesoro.”

She eyed him warily as he sat on the edge of the bed, handing the mail to her. The return address was from North Carolina Community Colleges. “Is this . . . ?”

“Your test results.”

She stared at the envelope as she ran her finger along the seal.

“Are you gonna open it or what?”

The enthusiasm in Carmine’s voice frazzled her. It was the first time she had put herself out there, and the thought of failing scared her. “Can you do it for me?”