“You play, don’t you?” he asks. “You recognize this piece and the notes to go with it.”
One thing I’ve noticed about this man in my time spent with him is that he’s perceptive and has that attention to detail that’s off the charts.
“Yes, I play and I know this piece,” I answer.
“You play as good as you sing, baby?” he asks.
Baby…
When he calls me that I feel like I belong to him.
“I do.”
I might not be the woman I used to be, but I remember who I am and what I can do.
“Who taught you?”
“My mother. Who… taught you?”
“My father,” he answers with pride. “Music tames the beast. Just like you Bellezza. You tame the beast.”
“Me?”
He leans forward and brushes his lips over mine. It’s brief. Not quite a kiss but it’s there clinging to my lips like the thought of him to my heart.
“You do. Join me,” he beckons and starts the piece over again.
I join in, my fingers remembering the melody. It comes from my heart and all that I stored inside from happier times. Happy days I remember as a child when I dreamed of what I would be in the future. When I believed I could do anything.
As we play the piano together it sounds like we’ve practiced for a lifetime. We play so well together I have a hard time believing this is the first time we’ve played together and we’ve truly never done this before.
Minutes pass and as I play my fingers brush his, then I realize he did that on purpose.
The music stops, but as he runs his finger over mine the music’s still playing in my heart.
We look at each other and my breath hitches when reality comes back.
He’s seen I’m well enough to go back to hell.
Will he send me back?
He saw what happened to me. Would he rescue me only to put me back in the darkness where my soul will be devoured? If I go back, there’ll be nothing left of me.
A tear slides down my cheek and he reaches out to catch it.
“Please…” I beg. “Don’t send me back. I’ll do anything. Please don’t
send me back Dante. I’m not a… whore.”
He shakes his head. “No, you aren’t a whore. You were never a whore and I’m not sending you back,” he answers, shocking me.
“You aren’t?”
“No Bellezza. That was never in the cards.” He gives me a sexy smile.
“But… what about my father’s debt?”
“Don’t worry about that ever again. The only way you’ll be going back to a place like that is over my cold dead body. And, I would love to meet the fucker who thinks he can kill me.” He grins.