“You’re not crazy.”
“I am,” she said. “I am, but that’s okay because you’re here.”
Warm fingers trailed up and down her arm as she reveled in his touch.
“Dreaming, I tell you. Not hallucinating.”
She opened her eyes and looked up at him. “You’re not really here, are you?”
He gave a sad shake. “As much as I may wish it, no.”
“I guess I’m okay with crazy then.”
He tapped a finger against her forehead. “Not crazy.”
“I am, a little. Why do you love me like you do? I’ve never been able to figure it out. I’m really not that special.”
Giovanni smiled mischievously and tapped her forehead again. “Maybe I like crazy.”
“Told you.”
“No.” He breathed out. “I recognized you. Here.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead, then let his finger trail down her nose, over the slight bump and down around her lips. His fingertips danced across her bare skin until they rested lightly over her heart. “And here. I recognized you. Your mind. Your heart. We recognized each other.”
“Like Aristotle said.”
“One soul. Two bodies. My soul recognized its own. That is why I love you as I do. All the mysteries. All the secrets. That is the one truth we can hold to.”
She sighed and buried her face in the crook of his warm neck, inhaling the ghost of scent that covered him. “You are my balance in this life. In every life.”
He tangled his hand in her hair and held her closer. “In every life. Remember that, Tesoro mio.”
She took a deep breath and dug her fingers into his arms, desperate to hold him there. “I can’t do this without you. I’m so lost. Nothing is right without you.”
“You are exactly who you need to be.”
“Not without you. Never without you. Come back to me.” She closed her eyes and tried to stop the tears that welled up. “What if you don’t come back to me?”
“Then you will go on.”
“I won’t want to.”
“But you will.”
She felt his lips on her forehead, softly pressing kisses along her hairline, down across her cheek until his face was buried in her neck and he could breathe in her scent. She twisted his hair around her fingers as their hearts beat together and they breathed in unison. In. Out. She inhaled the scent of sweet smoke and held it as long as she could.
“You can’t leave me.”
“I didn’t want to.”
“Please, Jacopo.”
“Why did you send me away?”
She choked on her cry. “Please… please come back.”
“Whatever happens, you will go on, Beatrice.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes and held him close, but when she opened them a pillow was crushed to her chest, and the ghost of his scent barely clung to it.
Night had fallen when Ben tapped on her door. “B?”
She was still holding the pillow and wrapped in the sheets that held the last of his scent. “Yeah?”
“Jean’s here. He’s in the library.”
“Gavin?”
“I guess he’s guarding the truck wherever they left it.”
She grabbed the dark handkerchief she kept by the bed and swiped at her eyes. “I’ll be down in a minute, okay?”
“Okay.” She heard him hesitate. “You all right?”
Beatrice sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. “I’m fine.”
She heard Ben walk back down the stairs, and she rose to walk into the closet. On impulse, she grabbed one of Giovanni’s black Oxford shirts and threw it over a black tank and a pair of jeans. She slipped her old boots on and pulled her hair back into a quick knot. Then she took a deep breath and walked out of the bedroom and down the stairs.
She heard Jean’s deep voice as she approached the library. He was chatting with Angela and complimenting her on the wine. When Beatrice entered, he rose and offered a guarded smile. “Beatrice.”
“Hey, Jean. So, what’s the news?”
Angela slipped out of the room, probably to join Ben, who she could hear in the kitchen on the ground floor.
“Well, as they say, do you want the good news? Or the bad news?”
She sank into the couch and Jean took the seat across from her. Leaning forward, she tugged at her hair. “Can’t we get one, single break, Jean? Hit me with both. Whatever.”
“We have the truck. We have the boxes of ELIXIR. But we only have four of them.”
“And there were five in the shipment.”
“Oui. Whoever was holding the truck for us in Zagreb must have taken one off. Or Livia managed to get one of her people in.”
“So, there’s one box of this stuff floating around?”
He shrugged. “Chances are, she also had people watching, though she does not have as many interesting associates as Gavin and I do. Prior to this, the majority of her business has been legitimate.”
Beatrice bit her lip. “What’s your best guess? I’m bowing to the experts on this one. Do you and Gavin think she has it, or is this the kind of thing that was randomly stolen?”
Jean squinted and took another sip of his wine. “Honestly? If it was ordinary thieves stealing from a truck carrying what appeared to be high-end cosmetics... I suspect they would have taken all five boxes. Things like that are easily sold. Thieves would know this. I suspect that this was a single individual, one probably sent to fetch a box for Livia when she realized we had located and stopped the truck. A human who could only carry one before being detected. There was no scent of another immortal lingering in the area.”