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Chapter 3
Zephyr
Therewassomethingvery still about him as he considered the offer. He watched her unerringly with that one golden eye, his head tilted to the left, the sunlight streaming from the large windows casting a glow on his beautiful, scarred face.
“You’re not telling me the whole truth,” he spoke finally, and her heart faltered.
No, she wasn’t.
She wasn’t telling him his secrets—that she’d known so much about him since before she’d seen him for the first time. She wasn’t telling him that he’d been her first kiss, that she still remembered the way the metal from the fence he’d pushed her into had dug into her back where she’d had grooves for a week. She wasn’t telling him that she’d loved him as a young man and she wanted to love him again as a grown one.
She just didn’t understand how she’d become such a fleeting memory to him. She knew it sounded like she’d been a stalker, but she hadn’t. She just… loved the only way she knew how to—completely, utterly, without any shame. It had begun when she’d broken her ribs climbing the tree in her backyard at ten. She’d been admitted to the hospital for a week, and because the children’s ward had been full, they’d temporarily put her in the adult ward with a kind older woman.
The woman had been dying, but she’d spoken to Zephyr. She’d asked about her, her family, and played a wordy game with her. She’d talked about her son, what a strong boy he was, how he was such a good person but she was sad to be leaving him alone. He would have no one after she was gone, and Zephyr, heartbroken for a boy she’d not known, had promised her that she would be there for him. The older woman, Adriana, had smiled lovingly and made her pinkie promise. She had died in her sleep that night.
The next morning, Zephyr had seen a tall, lean thirteen-year-old boy in a torn shirt throw a chair through the ward window, his golden eyes red from crying, the pain in his body something she’d felt in hers in that moment.
Alessandro Villanova had loved his mother to the point the nurses had to sedate him to ease his pained howls.
And Zephyr, even after leaving the hospital that day, never forgot about him. That had only been the beginning of them, one he didn’t know about.
She didn’t tell him any of that as she watched that amber eye, the shade so light she’d always called it gold in her head. His beautiful eyes, damaged, leaving him partially blinded, with a leather strap covering it up.
“Does it bother you?” he asked softly, and she knew he was talking about his eye patch. She was surprised at the question. Was he insecure about that? Maybe he wasn’t. Maybe, it was just curiosity.
“Not at all,” she answered honestly. As long as he was okay, it didn’t bother her. But she did wonder when it had happened, how it had happened, and how he had recovered from it.
“Then tell me what you’re hiding.”
And have him run her off like a lunatic? Oh no.
“All in good time,” she smiled softly at him, the joy in her heart visceral at finding him again. “Just know I’m not a liar. Every word I told you is the truth.”
“I’m not a good man,” he informed her. “In my line of work, I have enemies. As interesting as your proposition is, you have no idea the world any wife of mine would be stepping into.”
“I know. You're an underworld hotshot and all that. You have more real estate than any one man should, you take people off the streets and employ them in shady ventures, you have a circuit of sex workers around you for some reason.” He tensed at her recital of the facts. "It's not hard to dig up that you're deep in some dark places, which makes you dangerous, which makes you powerful, and while I might not know the finer details, I know all that."
“Then you should be running the other way.”
She stayed seated.
He leaned back into his chair. “This is… unexpected. Why me in particular?” he asked her point-blank. “A girl like you can have her pick of men to marry. There must be another reason.”
“Maybe, we’re meant to be,” she winked. "Maybe, your kiss blew me away."
The unscarred side of his mouth twitched. “I haven’t been with a woman in a long time, Zephyr,” he warned her quietly. “Be careful of the ways you offer yourself to me. They don’t call me the beast for nothing.”
That was exactly who she wanted. “You’re a twisted beast. I’m a twisted beauty. We’re totally meant to be, handsome. It's written in the fairytales.”
He didn’t react to the lightness in her tone, just observed her for a while longer, and she let him see her sincerity. She let him take in her dyed hair, her round, soft face, the dimple she got in her cheek when she smiled, the silver in her nose, and her pretty boring light brown eyes.
“Alright, I’ll play.”
He tapped his fingers on the desk again. Zephyr watched the back of his hand with more focus, a long scar from the joint of his middle finger disappearing under his t-shirt, black ink wrapping around the line like rose vines with thorns but no blooms. Interesting choice. She wondered if he had more ink around his scars. She wanted to explore every little inch of them.
“So, a marriage for six months before we go our separate ways?”
“Yes.”
