Page 94 of Where Wild Hearts Dance
“Are you even listening?”
I blink back to my youngest sister who’s neatly folding clothes and placing them in my suitcase.
“Sorry,” I mutter. “Thinking about the recital. What were you saying?”
“Did you reply to Federico?”
The temperature in the room seems to drop at the mention of his name.
“No. I’m not sure I will.”
Bambi folds a short black bandage dress over her arm and scrunches her nose. “I thought he was your best friend?”
“Three years ago,” I say, lying back down on the bed and covering my eyes with the palms of both hands. “Not anymore. This was the first I’d heard from him in all that time. He could’ve been dead for all I knew.”
“What did he say in his letter? Is he coming back?”
I slide my palms down my face and stare at the stark white ceiling. “I don’t know.”
He said in his letter he was returning to New York, but he didn’t say when, how, who with. And remembering what I can of my old friend, what Federico said and what Federico did were often two very different things.
Bambi’s voice dips. “Would you like him to come back?”
I swallow, my gaze still glued to the shards of light stretched above my head. Truly, I don’t know what I want. I want for Federico never to have written the letter; I want for Benito to never have doubted me so quickly. I want to turn back time so I can forget the heat of his lips on my throat, the scorching trail of fire his fingertips left on my thighs.
But I also want to know Federico is okay, and that Benito sending his family away didn’t hurt them too badly.
I recall the bite in his words and know one thing for sure: The Falconiswerehurt by Benito’s actions—enough that Fed seems determined to get his revenge. The only problem is, he still believes I want revenge too, but I don’t. I know Benito now, and I know in my bones he was telling the truth when he said he’d sent the family away for their own protection.
I worry for Federico if he does choose to return. If Benito can turn on me at the mere suggestion I was plotting against him, I’m frightened for what he’ll do to Federico knowing my old friend really is seeking revenge—it was written in his letter; it was there in black and white.
With that in mind, I reply with a fervent, “No. There is nothing he can gain from coming back here.”
“Not even your heart?” If Bambi’s own heart wasn’t so sweet, I might have snapped, but she knows nothing of my history with Federico, nor my past and present with Benito.
I lift my head and let out a soft sigh. “No, Bambi. That ship has sailed.”
An hour and significant effort on Bambi’s part later, I drop my suitcase into the trunk of the car and ignore Allegra’s scowl as I slide in behind her.
“Honestly,” she mutters. “You girls will be late for your own funerals.”
“I was on time!” Bambi shoots back. “Besides, not planning on dying any time soon.”
I look across to see her inspecting her newly painted nails. “Well, if you do, you can rest assured our aunt will get you to the burial on time.”
“Not if I go before you,” Allegra snaps.
“We’ve got an hour’s drive ahead of us,” Papa grumbles from the driver’s seat. “Can we pick a more optimistic topic?”
I chew the inside of my cheek and drift my gaze out of the window. The grey of the roads eventually gives way to expanses of green, trimmed lawns warming under a cloudless sky.
I feel like I’m on the edge of exhaling a long breath, emptying me of the tightness that has allowed me to function over the last three weeks. But the knowledge of what awaits me keeps the iron fist closed around my heart.
I want to feel everything for Trilby—this will be the happiest day of her life. But I can’t and won’t bevulnerable. I’ll watch the proceedings with a detached eye, I’ll hold a tissue to dry cheeks and I’ll make my apologies at the earliest opportunity. If I stay around just a second longer than I have to, I’ll risk being drawn back into darkness and that scares the life out of me.
For now, darkness recedes as the view ahead fills with bright white architectural splendor.
“Oh, it’s gorgeous,” Allegra says, fanning herself with a magazine.
