Forbidden Kiss

by Shannon Leigh

  The scene put a lump in her throat. It was so wonderfully domestic. She didn’t trust herself to speak without tearing up, so she kept her lips closed and went to work, praying her gratitude would convey through action.

  The wound, thank God, appeared clean. Jule’s nursing skills were scanty to say the least, but she could tell the bullet entered through his back, passing out the front, probably missing her by inches back in the chapel.

  She cleaned it and taped him up, patting his back when she finished.

  Rom flexed his shoulder testing the bandage. “Thank you.”

  While he stood and retrieved a shirt from a hook near the back door, Jule packed up the first aid kit, keeping herself busy.

  “Let’s go in the den,” he said, catching her eye with a nod to the room just off the kitchen.

  Jule left the kit on the table and followed him into a snuggly den full of wall-to-wall bookshelves and overstuffed furniture. A low round coffee table anchored the room and provided more surface space for books.

  She chose an isolated chair in a corner and sunk onto the supple leather.

  Rom settled on the couch, throwing his good arm over the back. “Please,” he said, nodding to the empty cushion next to him.

  “I’d rather not.”

  He sighed and closed his eyes for a second. Jule couldn’t stop the indignation that rose up inside her.

  “I’ve been nothing, nothing but honest with you every step of the way. What you see right here, is what you get, Montgomery. I bet nobody has ever been able to say the same of you.”

  He pinned her to her chair with a look that raised the hairs on the back of her neck. In that moment, Jule could well imagine what kind of man Rom Montgomery used to be.

  “Let’s get it out in the open then, Jule. Anything you want to know. I’ll lay it out there.”

  “Fine. What is your real name?”

  “Romeo Montecchi. Anglicized to Romeo Montague.”

  Jule frowned. “Like Shakespeare’s Romeo?”

  “Exactly like Shakespeare’s Romeo. Well, with some deviations, but yeah, that’s me.”

  Jule picked at some dirt on her jeans. “What do you mean, ‘that’s me’?”

  Rom rubbed his eyes and started talking. “I am Romeo Montague. Born 1396 as Romeo Montecchi. Married to Juliet Capuleti in 1416. Died age twenty the same year. Made immortal by the good Friar Lawrence to walk the bloody earth until such time I find Juliet again and meet my end.”

  He was serious.

  “You’re immortal?”

  He didn’t move a muscle. “Yes.”

  “How do I know if you’re telling the truth?” What was she saying? No way this could be the truth.

  Rom rubbed his injured shoulder and narrowed his eyes. “Tomorrow the wound will be mostly healed and in three days there won’t be a single sign I was ever shot. I cannot be killed.”

  Okay. She’d come back to that one.

  “You married Juliet Capulet? 600 years ago?”

  “Yes. When Juliet died, I wanted to die with her. You know the story—there isn’t a high school student in the world who doesn’t.

  “Death wasn’t to be, however. Not for me. Lawrence intervened and saved my soul for another day. To set history straight, he said. To right the cosmos. I would become mortal only when I met Juliet again. So I lived, waiting for the day. For centuries. Never changing. Always mourning what I could not have. Juliet. Death. Peace. I thought I was doomed to walk the earth forever until I met you.

  “When you showed me the painting and told me there were others, I knew Lawrence had left a message for me. Possibly even a way to end this.”

  His hand flowed down over his form, a frown weighing down the corners of his mouth.

  “To die? Is that what you mean?”

  “Yes. There was no reason for me to continue. 600 years had shown me nothing but pain, misery, and disillusionment.”

  “You’re saying you never knew happiness in that time?”

  “No. Affairs, friendships, yes. Love, no.” Rom cleared his throat. “I had to come home to Verona to find out for myself. I didn’t see the point in trying to convince you of my need. It’s a lot to swallow.”

  Jule rested her chin on her bent knees, trying to reconcile his story with what the reality she’d always known. “I’ll say,” she mumbled.

  A soft smile turned his mouth back up, causing Jule’s heart to beat a tad faster. “All I want is to know what Lawrence left me. The riddle to my existence. He played at being an alchemist and a magician. But he had the sight. The proof exists. Painted into that altar.”

  “The picture of me.” It gave her the willies to say it out loud.

  Rom nodded.

  “What does it mean?”

  “Do you not recognize the story Lawrence painted?”

  Jule thought of the two paintings, hers and Rom’s. Then she filled in the gaps with the ones she’d seen tonight. It clicked into place like the big hand on a grandfather clock.

  “Romeo and Juliet.” She breathed, searching his face for verification.

  “Right. You’ve seen the beginning and the end of the story as Shakespeare told it. What’s in the middle, what Lawrence foresaw is the thing I need to know.”

  “I was in the middle.”

  He stared at her as she tried to puzzle it. He held back, but Jule guessed it was out of courtesy rather than arrogance.

  Until I met you. Juliet. The flashbacks. The scar under her breast. His dagger.

  “Holy crap!” No way she was his Juliet. No way was she that Juliet. She couldn’t be. She was Jule Casale. Born to Claudina and Edmondo Casale.

  She even looked like her mother.

  Jule left the front door open behind her and ran out into the night. The cold took her breath away, slapping some sense into her.

  Breathe, Casale. Get a grip.

  Jule paced and put her head between her knees when the panic threatened to make her dry heave. She didn’t know how long she wandered out there pacing, but her fingers were stiff with cold when Rom laid his coat over her shoulders.

  “What you’re saying, implying, cannot be true, Rom.” She swallowed and talked over a sob. “I am not Juliet.”

  Rom gathered her in his arms and held her tight.

  “Shhh,” he murmured in her hair. “Shhh, Jule. Just breathe. One breath at a time.”

  His warmth penetrated her thin sweater and wrapped around her body. Jule gave up for the moment and leaned into him, letting someone carry the burden with her.

  She had been alone so long.

  “Let’s go back inside, okay?”

  Jule nodded and he walked them inside and down the hall to a bedroom.

  Setting Jule on the edge of the bed, he bent and slipped off her shoes and then turned down the bedcovers.

  Exhaustion knocked all the fight out of her and she sat limp when Rom tugged her sweater over her head, leaving her in a thin cotton camisole. Next went her jeans and wool socks.

  The sheets felt wonderfully cool against her skin as he pushed her back into the pillows. The sensation revived her enough to grab Rom’s hand as he tucked the brocade spread up around her shoulders.

  “Stay with me for a while?”

  She couldn’t read his expression. “Are you sure?”

  She nodded and Rom leaned over and pressed a kiss to her brow before disappearing out the door to secure the house for the night.

  …

  “Ah, Jule,” Rom whispered to the night as he let the Dane outside. He stepped outside, too, walking the perimeter of the villa.

  Evergreens dotted the edge of the estate and rose up to meet the sky, creating silent sentries protecting the house from the rest of the world. Jule would be safe here until they figured out what to do.

  But what would they do, now that Rom had discovered the truth? The idea of any kind of happily ever after was so foreign to him, it seemed impossible. And Jule? She didn’t want this.

  But what did she want?r />
  A normal life. With a normal man.

  Children?

  Rom laughed, his breath frosting the night air. He’d never considered children, not seriously. He and Juliet had been together so short a time, there had never been an opportunity for them to even talk about the possibility.

  And he didn’t feel strong enough now to consider it.

  Juliet’s return hadn’t changed a thing. Rom knew it all the way down to his immortal soul. He remained the same man he’d been yesterday, and last week, and the year before. Incapable of dying.

  How did this story end?

  He thought about the four paintings in the della Scala chapel and the three missing ones. The answer must lie in the missing paintings.

  But where to start?

  “We go back to the beginning.”

  Rom spun to find Jule standing at the front entrance, his borrowed shirt brushing the tops of her naked thighs. The dog stood guard next to her, his attentive face trained to the woods beyond.

  “You must be cold. Let’s go back in,” he said, striding to her.

  “I love the cold. It brings me to life.”

  Rom enjoyed the cold for the opposite effect. It numbed him.

  “I mean it, Rom.” She paused and canted her head looking at him. “Should I continue to call you Rom?”

  He ran a finger along her chin and stroked her bottom lip. She was so heartbreakingly beautiful.

  “Yes. Rom is my name now.”

  “We find out all we can about the palazzo and the altar. When it was built, the families who owned it. Who’s had access to the altar and when the missing paintings were taken. We examine those left until we get to the bottom of this.”

  “So you believe me then?”

  Her silence told him everything he needed to know. She didn’t believe him.

  He seized her hand again, kissing her palm before standing to escort her down the hall. With her safely back in bed, Rom flipped the switch.

  “Try to get some sleep.”

  “Rom,” she said as he started to pull the door closed. He swung it open to see her sitting up in bed. “I don’t know what I believe anymore. But I feel safe with you. Always have. That’s big for me.”

  She lay back down and turned away from him. Rom shut the door and headed back to the den.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Rom had fresh coffee brewing as Jule walked into the kitchen the next morning. She didn’t look as rested as he would have liked, but the shadows under her eyes had lessened.

  “Coffee?” he asked.

  “God, yes,” she replied and pulled out a chair at the table.

  Rom set a cup in front of her. “Sorry, no cream.”

  “I don’t care at this point,” she said, immediately moving the cup to her lips. After several sips, she breathed deep and leaned her head back against the chair.

  “Thank you.” Her eyes closed and the sun streamed through the window, falling on her features.

  He could see Juliet in her. Juliet grown up, about ten years older. The same full lips that could produce a pout to make a man like him beg. The strong dark brows framing her brilliant blue eyes and the nose that turned up slightly at the end.

  “Where do you want to start today?” she asked, watching him through lowered lashes. Rom cleared his throat and refilled his cup.

  “We need to take inventory of what we saw last night. Go over what we know and what we suspect is missing.”

  “I’ll take notes. You’ll have to fill in the blanks because I haven’t a clue what could be missing.”

  “In another couple of days, we need to check out the Capuchin monastery where I last saw Lawrence. He may have left other clues.”

  Jule nodded, taking another sip. She set her cup on the table and stretched, drawing Rom’s eye to her breasts.

  She wore the same clothes from yesterday, but in the early morning sunlight, they didn’t seem to be as concealing as they’d been last night.

  “We’ll need to contact Rossi and see if he’s made any headway with the nonprofit guys. And we need to get back into that chapel, but I’d prefer if we had permission this time.”

  Rom watched her arms return to her side, but her sweater stayed hitched up outlining taut nipples. Jesus, he could drive himself insane this way.

  “No. Probably not a good idea.” He turned his back and busied himself putting away the coffee beans.

  He heard the chair push back as Jule stood. He smelled her skin before he felt her body heat behind him.

  “Why not? He’s been a good contact so far.”

  Rom was going to have to face her, now and for the next several days. How the hell was he supposed to keep his hands off her when all he wanted to do was wrap them in her mane of midnight hair and pull her head back for a tonsil searing kiss?

  “How do you suppose Pio knew where to find us?” he gritted from between clenched teeth.

  “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that.” She studied the tiled floor. “But Rossi knew about Pio. That Pio was looking for me and that I didn’t want to be found.”

  Goddamnit. “How long have you known he was in Verona?”

  “Three days.”

  “And you didn’t stop to think he might be dangerous?”

  Jule stepped back into the crook of the L-shaped counter. “I’ve had other things on my mind.”

  “You’ve been running from him.”

  She took it for the statement it was and not a question.

  “What am I supposed to do? He paid my father money. They’ve already filed the marriage license and transferred property, for God’s sake. I can’t go home, Rom. I’ve got nothing left to go home to. This is it,” she said gesturing to the empty air.

  “You’ve got me.”

  “If you are who you say, then you’ve lived almost ten lifetimes. How could I ever get to know all of that?”

  “Believe me, it’s not important.”

  “How can you say that? Of course it’s important. You are what your experiences make you and I want to know…I want to know…”

  Jule brushed hair back from her shoulder and looked out the window.

  “You want to know, what?”

  “How your shoulder is doing.” She smiled brightly, covering her slip as she set her mug on the counter. “Let me have a look.”

  Rom agreed, aware of what lay ahead.

  He lifted his shirt over his head and sat in the chair Jule had vacated moments ago.

  She washed her hands in the sink and came up beside him smelling of woman and soap. Her breasts were on level with his mouth and Rom remembered the feel of her silky skin under his tongue.

  “Sorry if this stings,” she said, tearing the bandage tape loose.

  Rom felt the slight sting and then her cool hands on his back.

  “It’s healed. Only a little redness left.” Disbelief rang in her voice. She’d never believed him. Faced with the physical proof now, she wouldn’t have a choice.

  Rom turned, pulling Jule by the waist until she stood between his open legs. “Jule. I am immortal. I cannot die. I can feel pain—sometimes extreme—but I heal.”

  She ran a hand down his face, cupping his cheek.

  “How?”

  He could see the start of some change, a shift in Jule’s perception. It moved in her eyes like the sun coming out from behind a cloud.

  “I don’t know. Magic. Chemistry. A strong will and a need for retribution. Only the higher powers know and they haven’t seen fit to share the information with me.”

  Jule traced his cheekbone and then slid a fingertip down his nose and over his mouth.

  “And you think I’m Juliet because of the painting?”

  “No. That was only confirmation. I’ve suspected, but was too guarded to see the truth.”

  Rom took the dagger from his back and laid it on the table next to them. The polished hilt glimmered in the twinkling sun, sending snatches of reflected light across their bodies.

  He watched Jule clos
ely for signs of concern, but she held tight, not moving.

  “This dagger is the one Juliet killed herself with. I’ve carried it with me every day since that night, never allowing myself to forgive or forget.”

  Jule touched the blade hesitantly, gaining confidence the longer she made contact. After several seconds she picked it up and held it, point down towards the table.

  Unexpectedly, she pulled back from Rom and raised the blade to her chest, aiming the point straight at her breast.

  Her eyes met his over the knife and Rom saw the realization swimming there.

  “I’m not immortal, so what am I?”

  “Reincarnated.”

  Carefully, Rom slipped the knife free from her fingers and put it back in the sheath on the table.

  “I don’t have the answers, but I think I know where to find them,” he said quietly.

  “Then what are we waiting for?”

  “Certainty that you’re fiancé isn’t going to put a bullet through your heart.”

  Jule pushed away and picked up her mug again, cradling it in her palms. She gazed into the cup instead of at him.

  “I don’t think he’d do that.” She didn’t sound certain.

  “Not good enough,” he said, rising and swiping his shirt off the table. He pulled it over his head and checked his pockets for keys.

  “Where are we going?” Jule asked.

  “We aren’t going anywhere. I’m heading back into the city to find that bastard Mascaro and see what he’s up to. You,” he said, pointing a finger at Jule, “are staying here with the dog.”

  “Max?” Jule asked.

  “You’ve named him?”

  She shrugged. “He seems like a Max.”

  The subject of the conversation wagged his tail ecstatically at the sound of his name.

  Jule set her cup down quickly, sloshing coffee on the counter. “But I am not waiting here, Montgomery, like some meek little girl. If you’re going, I’m going too.”

  He headed for the door and slipped his jacket off the coat tree. “You’re not meek, Jule, not by a long shot. But I need to see some people and it would be better if you weren’t there.”

  Let her think whatever she wanted. That he needed to contact some shady underworld types, or buy information from two-timing cops. It didn’t matter as long as she remained safe.