And he kissed her. Hard.
She fought a hand loose and swung at his head. Off by a few inches, she clubbed his ear instead of his temple. He pulled his head back and stared at her.
Jule tried to force him back with her free hand, his shoulder turning under the force. But his pelvis remained planted next to her groin, and Jule felt the unmistakable rise of his erection.
The feeling sent a roll of disgust washing over her. She tried to think. What would be best? Fighting him for all she was worth or giving up the struggle and going limp, hoping a lifeless body would turn him off?
When she tried to knee him in the balls next, he finally showed the first signs of anger. “No matter how you fight it, we’re in this together. We were made for each other, Jule, and the sooner you get used to the idea, the better for both of us.”
She knew it for certain now. Pio was certifiable. He thought another man and her small show of reluctance represented the only obstacle standing in the way of their happy union.
He lowered his head for another kiss, but Jule turned her head away and strained to get her feet under him. She found an opening and pushed with all her strength. Pio flew back, but a death grip on the tail of her shirt kept him on the bed. The buttons of her shirt gave under the force, sounding like popcorn as they left the material.
Jule launched herself off the bed while Pio sprang a second time. She proved faster. He fell on his face, halfway on the bed. Jule stumbled back under his pull. Wriggling out of her shirt, she left it dangling in his fist and raced for the bat in the corner by her desk.
She grabbed it and spun just in time to force Pio back towards the open door.
He panted, his clothes wrinkled and wadded from their struggle. Jule thought fleetingly it was so uncharacteristic to see Pio mussed. As if he heard her, he automatically raked a hand over his graying hair.
She breathed deep, reining in her fear. “I don’t belong to you or anybody else, Pio. No matter what my father says. Now get the hell out of my house.”
The patience radiating from his eyes scared her worse than the physical attack. He would try again. And again. Maybe not tonight, but soon. She considered making the baseball bat an everyday accessory.
His lids fell over his eyes and his gaze dropped to her breasts. Jule felt the heat from his stare and she moved her elbows in tighter, trying to cover herself as best she could.
“That scar. It looks—” he began, taking a step forward.
Jule swung the bat, purposely missing his outstretched finger by a quarter-inch. “Get OUT!” she screamed, sure the neighbors could hear. All the better if they did. Pio could explain this to the police.
He recoiled and snapped up straight like a taut rubber band. Without another word, he turned and left the room.
Jule stood frozen. She didn’t move until she heard the front door slam and his car pull away from the curb. She sank down to the floor, curling her legs under her as she went.
She looked across to the full-length mirror standing in the same corner where she’d pulled the bat. The black satin of her bra stood out in sharp contrast to the paleness of her skin. Red marks warmed her flesh on the shoulder and the ribcage, just under her scar. The one Pio had almost sacrificed a finger for.
Her childhood scar, a memento from falling from her brothers’ tree house onto a jagged limb, shone white like new fallen snow—whiter even than her milky skin. As if on command, the old wound throbbed and Jule felt the first tears roll down her cheeks.
Chapter Nine
Weddings. At Juliet’s tomb. White dresses, happy couples, flowers and big smiles. Rom watched from across a sculptured courtyard as a happy couple emerged from the crypt, confetti dusting their shoulders like colored snow. They paused just inside the bricked stairwell, all smiles and twinkling eyes as attendants snapped photos and shouted words of encouragement.
Rom turned his head away and considered what remained of the friary where he’d lived a short time following Juliet’s death—before he’d left Verona forever.
Not much still stood of the Capuchin monastery today: the ancient cloisters, a chapel, and Juliet’s tomb—now a destination for tourists and wedding parties.
He grimaced and cursed Shakespeare’s memory for the second time since returning to Verona. And then he cursed himself for falling prey to such a human weakness all those centuries ago and sharing his story with a stranger in a pub. If he had kept his bloody mouth shut, he could descend the steps to Juliet’s tomb, alone, and pay his respects. But now he’d have to wait until dusk, when all the happy couples had set off for their celebrations before he could lay hands on her sarcophagus.
…
Rom had thought visiting the tomb difficult.
Idiot. There was nothing left of Juliet there but cold stone and painful memories.
The house at Via Cappello proved a different story, however.
Making his way to the courtyard at the rear of the thirteenth century home, Rom negotiated a group of American tourists writing love notes.
Just inside the narrow arched doors of the courtyard, he stopped, frozen in shock and a numbing pain that spread outward, paralyzing him in a way he didn’t think possible since leaving Verona. Across the pebbled courtyard stood a bronze likeness of Juliet against a backdrop of greenery. Rising a full head above even the tallest tourist, Juliet canted her head to the side, looking down with a thoughtful expression on the people surrounding her.
People flowed around Rom, oblivious to his pain, bumping him and begging pardon in half a dozen different languages. He didn’t move. Couldn’t move a single step closer.
The past engulfed him like a tidal wave, carrying him back through the centuries. He tasted the poison from that long ago night on his lips as if it were just hours ago.
Recalled the vision of Juliet lying motionless, dark blood staining her funeral dress and pooling around her to drip down the side of the dais where she lay.
Rom fought the past and the memories that threatened to drag him further into the cesspool of pain lying beneath the surface of his heart.
God, he’d forgotten how beautiful she was. Coming out of the past, Rom moved forward with the crowd, edging closer to the statue. People vied for a position near her right side to cup her breast. Decades of similar actions had polished the perfect breast to a golden shine.
“For good luck,” someone shouted as a camera flashed and the next tourist snuggled next to Juliet.
Her hair wrapped around her head in the familiar crown he remembered, exposing a long graceful neck he had cherished with his hands and lips. Long lithe arms, seductive in their perfection, framed her nubile body. The left arm rose with a closed fist to lie heavily over her heart.
He felt an answering weight on his own heart.
Standing a few feet from the statue, Rom discovered the likeness didn’t do the real Juliet justice. The artist had captured the body, but not the details of the face he remembered. Small differences like the curve of her upper lip and the prominence of her cheekbones. Details he’d memorized and recalled thousands of times in his mind’s eye.
He turned away toward the house and the balcony, unsettled by so many people traipsing through his nightmare.
Ah, Christ. The damn balcony.
Women took turns standing in Juliet’s place looking out over the crowd below, making flirting gestures before disappearing inside only to return again. Random shouts echoed through the crowd as people quoted Shakespeare to the women above.
What would the gathered tourists do if they knew the real Romeo stood among them?
…
Jule paced the confines of her bedroom. She wanted to crank the volume on the music and drown out the millions of questions bumping around inside her head.
But she couldn’t. Natala sat silently in the corner reading chair, rubbing her temples.
Jule’s thoughts strayed to Montgomery again. She had to find out what he was doing. Why had he disappeared after she’d told him about
the series and what waited for him in Verona?
The events of the night played repeatedly in Jule’s head.
The things Pio had said were crazy and haunting, but what seemed even crazier was that it evoked buried memories inside Jule. Memories she knew hadn’t happened in her lifetime. Memories of her and Pio. Together.
...
“Do not deny to him that you love me,” he said, closing in until personal space was only a wish. The friar watched from several feet away, unwilling to arouse the man’s curiosity by forcing them apart.
They were, after all, to be husband and wife in less than a week.
She turned away, unable to meet his stare. Tears pricked the back of her eyes as they had for days. She didn’t want to cry in front of him. Not him.
“Poor soul, thy face is much abused with tears.”
He saw it anyway, suspicion fresh on his tongue. She tried to make light of the situation, dispelling any further inclination to ask her questions about the real reason for her tears. He couldn’t know. Only the friar knew.
“The tears have got small victory by that, for it was bad enough before their spite.”
He turned her around and raised a hand to her cheek, caressing down and under her chin, his thumb pushing her chin up so her eyes could meet his.
“Thy face is mine, and thou has slandered it.” His tone conveyed his unhappiness more than his words.
“My lord, we must be alone,” the friar said, indicating her need for confession and the reason for her visit to the monastery.
“God forbid that I should disturb devotion,” he said mockingly.
Lingering over her hand, he pulled it to his lips and kissed it in such a familiar manner, that had her father been here, he would have reproached the insult.
“On Thursday eye, I will rouse ye. Till then, adieu.”
With a withering look toward the friar, he quit the room.
On Thursday she would either be gone from Verona to her true love, or dead.
...
Impossible. Unless Jule believed in reincarnation and new age baloney, which she didn’t. She believed in science and facts. The concrete. The physical.
One thing Pio said in particular left her raw and bruised inside. That they were meant to be together. He was simply setting them on the right path. As it always had been and would always be.
She didn’t for an instant believe she belonged with Pio. Now or anytime, past, present, or future. But she couldn’t shake the feeling he’d spoken those words to her many times before.
…
Rom at last pushed through the gated cloisters of the crumbling monastery and into the tunnel descending to the bed of death. The quiet seemed loud and too obvious after the happy celebrations of the day.
The time and my intents are savage-wild,
more fierce and inexorable far
than empty tigers or the roaring sea.
His hand gripped the railing, steadying his course, his resolve. No hiding. No turning back. One foot in front of the other. As it had always been.
He kept moving further down, refusing to acknowledge the shortness of breath in his lungs.
Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,
Gorged with the dearest morsel of the earth,
Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,
And in despite I’ll cram thee with more food.
The tomb opened up before him, two electric torches illuminating the domed room. The present fell away and the past rushed up to greet him with a cold embrace.
...
He laid Paris to rest inside the tomb’s entrance, careful of the man’s head as it met the bricked floor. Though his heart raced until Romeo thought it would burst from his chest, he didn’t hurry, but gave Juliet’s would-be suitor and his own cousin the respect he deserved.
Too late. Romeo had arrived too late and more people had died and would still. His life, his mere breath, marked each living soul he encountered. No one was safe from Romeo.
Free of Paris’s weight, Romeo stood and slowly crossed the tomb, his footsteps echoing in the small chamber. He stood next to his prone wife, drinking in the sight of her. With his arms hanging heavy at his sides and his fingers curled into fists, he simply stared. Noting each detail.
Her beauty defied even death. Color bloomed yet in her cheeks and lips, a rosy red that spoke of life rather than death. But he couldn’t discern breath in her chest or on her lips.
If death had truly claimed her, then so shall it take him. But first he would look his fill.
“I’ll stay with thee, Juliet. Never leaving you again, guarding you against the dark.” He palmed her hand, slipping his fingers under hers until they were tightly joined.
“Here with you I’ll die, throwing off the unhappy circumstances of our lives. I’m tired, Juliet. So very tired.”
Slipping his hand free, Romeo crawled up on the dais and lifted Juliet until she rested limply in his lap. He pulled the apothecary’s potion from the pouch at his side and raised it to his lips.
“Here’s to you, my love,” he said, drinking the liquid and throwing the empty bottle away.
With poison still wet on his lips, Romeo kissed Juliet before he felt the world tip to the left and slip away into blackness.
...
When next he woke, Romeo lay in a monk’s cell, his body and destiny forever altered by Lawrence’s alchemy.
But now, here, in the twenty-first century, little from that fateful night remained. The dais was gone, replaced by a period sarcophagus, which Rom prayed rested empty and not filled with some unknown bones.
Paris’s remains, too, were gone, as was Tybalt’s bloody, sheet wrapped body.
Juliet wasn’t here. Her spirit didn’t linger.
Rom released a low, long breath and bent over, grasping his knees. He was lost to discover Juliet was truly, irrevocably gone.
Chapter Eleven
Jule took her first breath of Veronese air. Funny. It smelled the same as the air in Chicago.
“Ms. Casale?” The sudden question so near threw Jule off guard and she jerked away from the man in the slate gray linen suit.
Get a grip, girl. Nobody here knows you’re running.
Dark colored eyes set beneath bold brows inspected Jule as though she were a painting in a gallery. Professional and thorough.
Her ride.
She offered a weak smile. “Mr. Rossi?”
“Si.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. Rossi was an independent art consultant to both museums and collectors, specializing in collections from the early Renaissance. If the paintings resided in Verona, Rossi would know.
“Sorry if I seem jumpy. Long flight.”
“Of course. Please.” He held his hand out for her carry-on bag.
“Thanks. I got it.”
“Approvazione. Okay.”
Rossi walked her out of the baggage claim and into the early morning sun. A light wind ruffled her hair, bringing with it the unmistakable odor of diesel.
“I have a car waiting.” He gestured to a sleek Mercedes parked in the front of a long line of automobiles. Seeing the car made her anxious to get on with what she’d came here for.
To find the paintings before Montgomery did.
She didn’t want to seem rude and ungrateful for Rossi’s hospitality, especially since she’d sprung this visit on him with less than twenty-four hours notice. But she just couldn’t wait. “Mr. Rossi, I hoped we could get right to the paintings.”
He regarded her over the top of the Mercedes for several seconds. Jule couldn’t read a thing in his expression, as he’d put on mirrored sunglasses.
Nodding curtly, Rossi slipped out of sight and into the driver’s seat. Jule followed suit.
Once they buckled in, he pulled away from the curb and eased into traffic. “You are not the only investigator to come to Verona this week. Is something going on in America that would prompt such interest in Veronese art?”
Jule’
s heart sank into her feet. “How many other people have contacted you with a similar request?”
“One other.” Rossi cast a quick look in her direction before returning his gaze to the road. “You know this other person?”
She swallowed the disappointment that burned like bile in her throat. “Probably. Rom Montgomery?”
Rossi shook his head. “No. Montecchi.”
“Is Montecchi American?”
“No. A native.”
Didn’t sound like Montgomery. But if she believed Pio, and she did not want to, Rom went by many names.
“May I ask what he wanted?”
Rossi shrugged his shoulders. “The same as you. Looking for other paintings by the same artist.”
And? “What did you tell him?”
“What I told you, Ms. Casale. There is much art here in the city. Many residences, public buildings, churches. I have my people looking at the catalogs and the items we’ve studied in detail, but until they finish, I won’t know.”
Jule forced her body to remain still in the seat. She wanted to grab Rossi’s lapels and demand he hurry up. If the other person wasn’t Rom, then someone else was onto her secret.
Antagonizing her contact wouldn’t help matters. “I’m sorry, Mr. Rossi. How long will the process take?”
He paused before answering. “A week maybe. Perhaps less.”
A week! Could she wait an entire week? Seven days? 168 hours?
Of course she could.
Breathing deeply, Jule turned in her seat to face Rossi. “What can I do to help?”
…
Rom heard her determined step on the uneven brick even before he saw her face. He’d heard it in his sleep these last few nights, his mind acknowledging what his consciousness would not. That his present was catching up to him.
“I wondered when you might find me,” he said, still facing away from her approach, looking down the shaded tunnel of overgrown grapevines to the arched wooden door of the abandoned monastery.
He heard her hesitate at the threshold. Rom turned to face Jule. She hovered just inside the gate, her hand gripping the open door for balance.
Forbidden Kiss Page 7
