Authors: Shannon Leigh
Good. She would react faster when he needed her to.
“Jule, darling,” Mascaro said with a smile. “I will forgive you for running off the other night, but if you continue to fight what’s best for you—what your father and I have agreed to in your interest—well, we’re going to have that talk I warned you about.”
The threat hung heavy in the air between the three of them. And what would Jule’s punishment be when she didn’t heed his warning, Rom wondered?
The smile Mascaro directed her way made Rom step forward, throwing Jule’s body in shadow and out of the path of Mascaro’s bullets.
Jule pushed at his back, but he wouldn’t move. Rom would not lose her this time.
“I told you, Pio,” she said peeking from behind Rom’s back, “You can’t buy me. Whatever ‘agreement’ you made with my father is void. I’m not for sale. If you want your money back, you’ll have to take it up with him.”
The old bloodlust seeped through Rom’s skin, permeating the air with the smell of battle. Images of another man from another time paying Juliet’s father for the privilege flashed through his mind.
No. Couldn’t be.
Pio was Pio. Not Paris. Not the fiancé Romeo had killed outside Juliet’s tomb on that godforsaken night.
Mascaro snorted. “This is family business, Montgomery. Not your concern. You’ve meddled too much in my affairs of late and frankly, I’m quite tired of it. If you will step away from Jule, we can end this quickly.”
Rom had an idea.
“Jule. Let’s go. It’s time we left.” Mascaro waved the gun towards the door.
Jule didn’t move.
“When I turn the light off,” Rom whispered softly, “I want you to run for the chapel on the left. Get behind the altar and follow me out of here.”
“Now, Jule,” Mascaro threatened.
Rom felt Jule lean into him and press a kiss between his shoulder blades before she stepped out from behind him.
He flipped the switch on the flashlight and the chapel fell into darkness. In less than a second, Rom grabbed Jule and forced her behind him as he ran for the shallow niche in the opposite wall.
He wasn’t sure Mascaro would risk firing the gun in the darkness and hitting Jule, but—
The recoil of the gun was loud in the small chapel. Jule screamed and Rom spun, folding her in his arms to provide a shield with his body. The bullet slammed into his back and the searing metal burrowed under his right shoulder.
He didn’t pause, didn’t slow. Another round echoed in the nave of the church, but this one missed both of them.
They made it to the chapel and Rom pulled Jule down behind the altar, skimming the wall with his hand for the hidden tunnel entrance he knew to be there.
A lip of marble protruded from the floor and Rom found the release.
“What are you doing?” Jule hissed in his ear.
“Saving you,” he said, pulling her to his side and out of the path of the hidden door.
“Another tunnel?” she breathed incredulously. “How do you know all this stuff?”
Rom pushed her through and followed close on her heels. “It’s a long story.”
He found the latch on the inside of the door and jerked it closed behind them as he saw Mascaro coming into the chapel with his own flashlight.
Let him try to find the mechanism to open the door. Although, since it had been his house once upon a time—as Paris, if he truly was Paris reincarnated—Rom’s luck might run out.
Rom didn’t turn his flashlight on in case Mascaro somehow followed. Darkness provided the cover they needed and he knew the tunnel anyway. He ran a hand along the wall as they walked, measuring the distance.
He marched them downwards from the old chapel to the main tunnel running beneath the palazzo.
His shoulder burned like holy hell, but paled in comparison to his anger over what he’d learned in the church above.
“Your father sold you to Mascaro?”
Jule jumped at the sound of his voice after several moments of silence.
“Seems that way.”
“And you knew about this? Why didn’t you tell me?”
He imagined the irritation written all over her face.
“To what purpose? There’s nothing you can do.”
“Like hell there’s not.”
“What? Put your lawyer on the case?”
Rom grunted. Leave it to Ben to try to manage his love life from another continent. But he was glad Ben had sent her. Now Rom could protect her.
Which led him to another question. “You knew Pio was in Verona and didn’t tell me.”
Jule jerked to a stop, pulling painfully on Rom’s injured shoulder. He grit his teeth, suppressing a groan, but held onto her elbow.
“I’m grateful for the help, but really, you don’t owe me anything outside of our business partnership. I don’t have any expectations.”
“
You
are my business,” he said in no uncertain terms.
Jule tried to wriggle free from his hand but he wouldn’t let her go.
“Give me the flashlight,” she demanded.
“Why?”
“So I can hit you over the head with it.”
He laughed. And it felt good. Really good.
He started walking again, dragging her along.
“We need to talk.”
“I’m listening” she replied, patience dripping from the words.
“As soon as we’re out of the tunnel we’re heading for a place I secured on Lake Garda.”
He sensed the tunnel narrowing and seconds later his hand met the door that would take them out into the piazza. Not the best place for hiding, but he didn’t have a choice.
“We
will
go there Jule and you
will
stay safe.” He threw the bolt and pushed the door open, the hinges screaming with age and disuse. Rom stepped out and into the shadows of a Renaissance staircase.
He listened for several seconds, hearing only the shrill whine of police sirens. Someone had reported Mascaro’s gunshots.
Good. It meant Mascaro was probably skulking away the same as they were.
Rom tugged Jule out behind him and closed the door. He gave it a shove with his uninjured shoulder, hearing the dull click of the lock dropping into place.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“How long are you planning to stay on the lake?”
“Until Pio is no longer a threat.”
Chapter Fifteen
Jule woke as the car came to a stop. Glancing out the windshield, she saw a small stucco villa tucked into a dark hillside.
Lights were on inside. She looked at her watch, three in the morning.
“Is someone expecting us?” She asked Rom.
“Sort of. I paid cash for the rental several days ago and called ahead while you slept.”
“Nice. You make this sound like some kind of spy movie.”
Rom flicked his seatbelt back, reached across her seat and grabbed her chin, turning her head. “This isn’t a game, Jule. Pio is dangerous. He’s had people killed.”
She knew it. Had heard him talk about his nephew Donny and others. But she was having a hard time reconciling her “Uncle” Pio with a murderer.
“Let’s go. It’s warm inside and there’s food.”
Rom slammed his car door and stood outside staring at the night sky. Waiting for her. She realized he wouldn’t leave her. Not alone. She seriously contemplated staying in the car. Inside a warm and cozy nest like the little villa would play havoc with her desire to stay clear of Rom’s penetrating eyes and oh so warm hands.
She sat in the car until her toes started to chill.
“Hell.”
She stormed past Rom and into the house, and was immediately greeted by a Great Dane.
“Hey there, fella,” she crooned, taking the dog’s muzzle into her hands and rubbing his silky ears.
His tail wagged in excitement as he laid his big head on her thigh.
“Thanks for the welcome. I like you, too.” She looked around the villa. Sparsely furnished, it still exuded Old World charm with colorful tiled floors, painted walls, and low-beamed ceilings. Jule could vacation here, no problem. If Pio wasn’t hunting her like a runaway teenager. If she wasn’t trapped alone with a man she desperately wanted to get naked and find out if sex the second time around was as good as the first.
“What is this place?” she asked as sex incarnate walked back into the kitchen.
“A friend back home found it for me. He has tenants nearby who keep an eye on things. They turned the heat on and plugged the lights in.”
“Oh,” was all she could think to say. Despite the fact there was an ocean of unspoken questions between them that needed answers.
Rom opened the small refrigerator at the rear of the kitchen. “There’s food here. Sandwiches and some pasta.”
As he bent over to look through the bottom bins, the interior light from the fridge fell across his back. Blood streaked its way from his shoulder and down his torso, disappearing into the waistband of his jeans.
Jule dropped her jacket there on the floor and flew to his side for a closer look.
“Oh my God! Pio shot you.” She found the tiny hole in his sweater and the mass of angry red flesh beneath.
Rom closed the door and shrugged his good shoulder. “It’s not as bad as it looks. The injuries never are.”
“Bullshit. Take this sweater off and let me have a look.” She gently touched the wound, testing for fever. He was hot all right, but didn’t seem feverish.
He just looked at her, as if not feeling the pain.
“Rom, please. I can’t believe you got shot and never said anything. Nothing for two hours.”
The dog broke the spell as he thrust his head between them. Rom looked away first as he patted the dog’s head.
“Hey, boy. Sorry to ignore you. Did the neighbors not feed you today?” He moved around the kitchen, opening cabinets until he found the dog’s food, and poured an elephant-size portion into the dog bowl.
Rom swung the bag of dog food onto the counter and with a quick jerk, peeled his sweater away from his shoulder and over his head.
He stood in the kitchen bare-chested and Jule knew without a doubt he was a God come to life.
“There should be first aid supplies in the bathroom. Down the hall, last door on the left.” He pointed the direction.
Rom sat in a dining chair when she returned to the kitchen. The Dane happily munched dry food in a corner and something heated in the countertop microwave.
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?
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.