Missing my brother deepened my aching and yearning so acutely tears bloom along my lower lids.
“I won’t forgive a man I know nothing about,” I warned him, but what I really meant was ‘I won’t love a man I know nothing about.’
His sigh crackled over the phone. “I’ve kept secrets for some many years I’ve become a vault. It’s not in my nature to share things, but to hide them.”
I could relate to that in a strange way.
I was Bianca Belcante because I had to hide who my father was. I spent the last ten years in Texas then lied to Tiernan about my history for the same reason. Even with Aida, I’d been a false sense of self. Someone harder, more somber and bitter than the woman I wanted to be.
Ironically, it was only heated by the flame of my hatred for Tiernan I’d begun to discover what it was like to truly be me. To fight for who and what I wanted and deserved.
“I can’t say I don’t understand, but I still need answers if who want anything more to do with me.”
“I want everything to do with you,” he replied instantly, easily, and it was so shocking to hear such sweet words in such a habitually cruel and filthy mouth that they hit me like hammer strikes. “I’ll answer your questions, Bianca, but I won’t do it on the phone. When I see you on Friday, I’ll tell you what you need to know.”
“What about what I want to know?”
A soft exhale that was almost a fond laugh. “I’m sure you can find a way to…coerce me into revealing all my secrets.”
Heat flared in my cheeks and pooled in my groin at the fantasies that prompted.
“I’m sure I can,” I agreed because I knew it would make him laugh and despite my turmoil, I was starting think I’d do anything to see Tiernan’s scarred smile or hear his rusty laughter.
He rewarded me with a husky chuckle then sobered. “Don’t misunderstand me, little thing. I’m not playing a game with you. The stakes are much higher than that. I’m hunting more than just your body, now. I’m a greedy man and I won’t stop until I have your soul.”
I breathed deeply, trying to keep my equilibrium. “Well, that’s not easily won or bought.”
“It wouldn’t be worth anything if it was.”
Another silence, but this one was tender somehow. I had the sense that Tiernan wanted me there just as desperately as I wished I could be there.
Still, I clung to the fact that even if he wanted me, maybe even loved me, he had proven himself to be untrustworthy.
And what was love without trust?
Something, I decided, like a wish without hope.
“Brando is beckoning so I’ll let you go,” Tiernan said. “But I want you to think about something before you do. I hated Lane and Caroline Constantine because of someone they took away from me when I was young. But it’s not revenge against them that will right that wrong, because the truth is my own father took something from me long before anyone else did. He ripped away from me what I should have loved most.”
“Who?” I whispered, as if Id break the spell of his vulnerability.
I don’t know who I thought he’d say, some lost lover or his clearly estranged family, but it definitely wasn’t what he uttered next, in a voice razed to the ground of his soul.
“Myself. I realized after thirty fucking years, I still didn’t know myself or like myself very well. There was an entirely undiscovered part of me partially unearthed by the curious, innocent hands of two orphaned Belcantes.” He paused to allow me to digested the tremendousness of his words. “Now that I’ve discovered what I really want, do you think I’m the sort of man who would ever allow it to be taken from him? At least not without one hell of a fucking fight?”
“Who are you fighting for exactly?” I asked, trying to mark the shakiness of my voice.
Fight for me, I wanted to plead. Please, God, for the first time in my life, let someone fight for me.
“Brandon. You. Myself. The family we could have together if you’re forgiving enough and brave enough to come home.”
I blinked sightless at the mirror, at my wet, wavering reflection in it.
His voice gentled as if he could sense my utter shock and inability to process anything further. “I hate knowing you’re in a house with a madwoman like Caroline Constantine, but it’s your choice and as much as I’m fucking desperate to, I won’t take that from you. Just be careful. For me and for Brando. I’ll have him ready for you daily call tonight. Oh, and Bianca? Open the rest of that present when you hang up the phone.”
He ended the call before I could respond, but I didn’t lower the cell for along moment. My entire chest was a writhing mass of slippery emotions, some of them snakes and some ribbons. I was too terrified of the former to sort between the two so I just sat them feeling everything all at once.