by Karina Halle
So, just in case, I decide to keep to myself for a while and stay out of the Italian’s hair. I sit in the velvet armchair in the corner of the bedroom and take out my plotting journal, trying to force my brain to focus on the task at hand.
I have the first few chapters done and a detailed two-page outline of what happens in the story. But even with that as a guide, none of it seems to fit. It’s like the story I thought of all those months ago, the story Jana sold to the publisher, isn’t the story I feel pulled to write anymore.
I sigh and look over the outline, wondering how much I can change before it turns into a book they didn’t agree on buying.
Here is the gist of what I have so far:
There’s a woman, Annabelle, who is grieving the death of her estranged mother. She decides to travel to the Shetland Islands to learn more about her since her mother grew up there and was very secretive about her past life. Once there, she discovers a few secrets, including a half-sister she never knew, and she has a romance with a burly fisherman who gets her to open up. At the end, the burly fisherman disappears at sea, but Annabelle is forever changed for the better.
I guess what I’m caught up on is the fact that her love interest dies at the end. If it was a romance, he would live and there would be a happily ever after. With women’s fiction, it feels like the more sorrow and depth the character goes through, the better, at least to the publishers. Besides, the focus of the book isn’t on her love interest—he’s an enigma most of the time, closed off to her and the reader. The focus is on her personal growth.
And yet, why shouldn’t my character have a love that lasts? Why isn’t she worthy of it? Did my book only sell because I promised that conflict and a bittersweet ending? Or is it possible that I can change it to a happily ever after? Would that cause it to lose all credibility?
I don’t know anything about writing romance. In the Sleuths of Stockbridge, my character never had a romantic arc. Robyn’s character did because she was younger, and she was often dating a different guy, but it was never the focus. I guess it doesn’t help that my own love life is completely lackluster. The adage goes, “Write what you know.” I always suspected that was bullshit, but I still think I’m deeply unqualified to write a romance.
A knock at the door pulls me out of my dilemma.
I sit up straight. “Yes?”
The door opens and Vanni pokes his head in, straight-faced. “Here is your first lesson, Grace. Pranzo. It means lunch. Il pranzo è pronto. Lunch is ready.”
I get to my feet and repeat the phrase after him. “Il pranzo è pronto.”
“No, no, no,” he says with an exasperated sigh. “You have much to learn.”
I bite back another smile and follow him out of the room and down the stairs to the first level.
The glass doors to the backyard are open. Beside it, the door to Claudio’s studio is closed. Vanni leads me outside, past the bar to the patio where the table and chairs are set, leafy grapevines growing over the pergola, giving just enough shade. The heat is in full force now, strong and heady.
The table is set for three, with a small bottle of mineral water, two wine glasses, and a bottle of chilled white wine in the middle, condensation running down the sides. My mouth starts salivating at the sight.
“Ah, you’re here,” Claudio says, appearing behind me in the doorway, carrying a giant bowl of salad. He places it on the table and then waves at me to sit down.
“Please sit.
I sit down beside Vanni and peer into the bowl. It’s definitely not a salad you’d find in Scotland. There are big pieces of red tomatoes, onions, olives, basil, cheese, and hunks of bread glistening with olive oil.
“It’s all we had left,” Claudio says. “And luckily it was all we needed to make panzanella.”
He leans over and using ceramic tongs, piles the salad onto the plates, then sits back and pours us both a glass of wine.
When he’s done, he gives me an impish smile that makes him look positively boyish. “I suppose it would have been polite of me to ask if you wanted wine. I just assumed.”
“Well, you assumed correctly,” I tell him, lifting my glass. “Cheers to that. And for letting me stay and for being so understanding.”
Claudio’s eyes are soft as he stares at me. He raises his glass, gaze locked on mine, and I feel strangely exposed. I’m not used to this much eye contact with a stranger, and while I guess he’s not so much of a stranger anymore, it still feels a lot more intimate than I’m prepared to deal with.
“It’s cin cin,” Vanni speaks up. “Not cheers. And when can I have wine, Papà?”
“When you can drink it and not make a face,” Claudio says to him while he continues to look at me. “Cin cin, Ms. Harper. Buon appetito.”
“Please, it’s just Grace,” I tell him, taking a sip of wine. It’s so cold, and so good. “Ms. Harper makes me sound like my mother.”
“You don’t like your mother?” Vanni asks.
I almost laugh at how earnest he sounds. “No, I love my mother. But, I don’t know, it makes me sound … old. Older.”
“How old are you?”
“Vanni,” Claudio chides him. “That’s not polite to ask.”
“Why not? I’m ten. And you are old.”
“I am not old,” Claudio counters.
“I’m thirty,” I tell them.
“Ah,” Claudio muses as he spears a tomato and munches on it thoughtfully. “You seem both older and younger than thirty.”
“That’s the first time I’ve heard that.”
“It’s a compliment,” he finishes. “You look young, but your eyes, they are the eyes of someone who has been through a lot, someone who is wise beyond her years.”
I’m not good with compliments, and I want to correct him because wise is the last thing I feel, but I manage to shove some of the salad in my mouth, letting the flavor explosion take me away. My god, why do simple tomatoes taste so good here?
“Thirty is old,” Vanni says after a moment.
I nearly choke on a hunk of vinegar-soaked bread.
“Vanni,” Claudio warns him. “Smettila. Enough.”
His son shrugs. “You’re at least fifty.”
Now Claudio is laughing. “Hey. What is with you? I’m thirty-six.”
“Then Mamma is fifty.”
“Your mother is forty-five.” He gives me an apologetic look. “I’m sure Jana shivered just now without knowing why.” I smile at the image. “She would probably kill me if I gave out her real age.”
I make a motion to zip my lips. “Her secret is safe with me.”
Meanwhile, I can’t help but be impressed. Jana would have been, what, thirty-five when Vanni was born? Claudio would have been twenty-six. Sooner or later I’d have to get to the bottom of how they got together because there’s definitely a story there. Perhaps Claudio likes older women. Maybe he’s attracted to the strong, confident, and assertive types. You know, the complete opposite of me.
But asking “how did you and your ex-wife meet?” isn’t the best conversation to have while eating, so I busy myself with more food and wine, which suits me just fine.
“How are you liking the wine?” Claudio asks.
I glance up at him, and he’s staring at me curiously, his dark eyes glittering as sun streams between the vine leaves, making the gold in his irises shine.
I swallow, totally aware now that I must have been making my food orgasm face. Robyn has pointed it out to me many times when I’m enjoying food I like. Pretty sure it’s not flattering.
“It’s really good,” I tell him, trying to compose myself. “Did you make it?”
He shakes his head. “No. I got that from the store. I don’t have the agricultural thumb that my mother and uncle had. The best I can do is keep the roses going when Emilio isn’t here.”
“Emilio?” I perk up. “He picked me up from the airport.”
“Yes, Jana told me as much.”
“He’s very nice.”
“He’s my uncle,” Claudio says. “His brother, my Uncle Giovanni, whom Vanni is named after, died. He owned this place before, when it was a hunting lodge. Emilio always has his hands on this property. He’s the one who planted the olive grove and the roses. Why we call it Villa Rosa. All of this.” He twists in his seat to gesture to the sprawling lawn behind us. “It was all roses. His wife, Lucia, she would grow them and sell them to the local stores. It was her way of making it feminine, to balance. She didn’t like the idea of hunting. Too barbaric.”
“She was right,” Vanni says through a mouthful. “But she’s dead now. Just like Zio Giovanni.”
The boy is so blunt.
Claudio gives him a lingering look before flashing me a quick smile. I know that look. It’s when you’re so used to someone acting a certain way, you forget sometimes that other people might not understand.
“So, Emilio,” I prompt, wanting to skirt past any awkwardness. “I guess he still loves the property if he comes here every other day.”
Claudio takes a gulp of wine and I watch his Adam’s apple bob in his throat, finding that strangely mesmerizing.
“He does. Sometimes he stays for dinner, sometimes he stays over after that if he’s had too much wine. I’ll show you his room later when we’re on our tour, just so you’re never surprised to see him. Otherwise he lives in the next village over by himself. He has his own plot of land, still keeps working it at his age.”
I glance at him and then at Vanni.
“What?” Claudio asks.
I shake my head. “Nothing. I just find it interesting that three generations of men can have such wildly different interests.”
Claudio’s angled brows come together for a moment, his full lips pursed as he thinks, another distraction. Then he grins at me. “You’re right. That’s terribly observant.”
I shrug. “One of my few gifts that only sometimes works.”
“What do you mean?” Vanni asks his father.
“Allora,” his father says, which I’m now guessing means so or well. “Grace pointed out that your interests are science, while mine is art, and Emilio’s is agriculture and growing things. Of course there is some overlap.”
“Yes, Zio Emilio loves your cars. And you take care of his roses. And you also make olive oil.”
“Cars?” I ask.
“Sì!” Vanni says and starts to get up from his seat. “He has a car collection. They’re all old and cool and expensive. You must come see.”
“Vanni, sit down,” Claudio warns him.
Vanni sighs and sits back down, cracking open the mineral water.
“I saw the vintage Ferrari in the front,” I tell Claudio.
He nods and gestures to the next property over where there’s a big barn. “That’s where I keep them.”
“Oh. I assumed that was someone else’s place.”
“No. We own about thirty acres here, though twenty of it is the woods. That barn is … multipurpose. It’s a garage for my vintage cars, a small olive oil pressing plant, while the upstairs holds all my plasters.”
He seems to expect me to know what he means when he talks about plasters, so I just raise my brows. “I take it you don’t know much about sculpting.”
I obviously don’t.
I obviously also didn’t realize that being a sculptor meant you could afford this place plus a barn full of vintage cars.
“Finish up,” he says to me, swallowing the rest of the wine. “So I can show you around. I’m sure Emilio didn’t tell you much.”
“Just that he’ll be back tomorrow.”
But even with Claudio telling me to finish up, lunch lingers on. The two of us finish the bottle of wine after we’ve eaten all the food, while Vanni tells me about an Italian scientist called Enrico Fermi and his views on quantum theory.
“One day I’ll have to tell you all about Gio,” Vanni says after he’s talked for about ten minutes straight.
I look at Claudio for answers. “Gio?”
Claudio suppresses a smile at his son.
“Yes, Gio,” Vanni says. “He’s me but in another timeline. As you know now, Giovanni is my real name and I was named after my dead uncle. So, I’m Vanni and he is Gio, and we are both me.”
My head spins a bit. The sun and wine don’t help. “I’m sorry, another timeline?”
Vanni frowns at me. “You are familiar with the multiverse, yes?”
“Okay, okay,” Claudio says, getting up. “Vanni, this is too much for after a meal. Could you please clean up while I take Ms. Har–Grace on a tour?”
Vanni grumbles but says, “Yes, Papà.”
Claudio walks over to me and grabs the back of my chair, pulling it out.
“Thank you,” I tell him, momentarily taken aback at the old-fashioned gesture, just as Vanni noisily piles the plates on top of each other. “Grazie!” Vanni corrects me.
Claudio puts his hand out for me, and I stare at it for a moment, admiring it, while I’m wondering what’s going on. Then I put mine in his, the warmth of his palm and his calloused fingers as they close over mine causing a current of electricity to run up my arm, making me feel like I’m standing at the edge of a thunderstorm.
He helps me to my feet, which is just as well because suddenly it feels like I have no feet.
Then he drops my hand, because all he was doing was being gentlemanly and polite and oh so Italian, and starts to walk across the grass. “Come. We’ll start with the garage first.”
I take a deep breath before I walk after him, using the moment to get my head on straight. I’m going to be with this man for a month, the last thing I need is to have any sort of feelings, physical or otherwise, every time he’s around.
I mean, he ticks all my boxes, and that’s not just a euphemism. He’s handsome as hell. Incredibly sexy. Built like an athlete, trim with broad shoulders, muscular and strong. Charming as sin. All of our lunch, I couldn’t keep my eyes off him, and yet I had to keep looking away. He’s like the sun, where giving him too much attention might be dangerous, and yet your gaze is drawn there anyway.
There’s nothing wrong with admiring his looks, I tell myself as I walk alongside him. You admire hot guys all the time.
Though not when they’re your agent’s ex.
And not when you’ll have to be in close proximity with them for a month.
I steal another glance at him as we walk, and his eyes catch mine. I know that for all the staring I was doing of him, he was doing the same as me, though he seemed completely unapologetic about it. Might just be the way he is.
I’m sure you’ll get used to him in a day or two. Then he’ll be old news.
I’m counting on it.
He leads me to a path lined with potted cypress, then through an old iron gate along the stone wall. We step into what looks to be another gravel parking lot, perhaps where guests would park back in the day, and then to the barn.
He motions for me to stay where I am and walks to the barn doors which he unlocks with a key he pulls from his pocket. Then, in an impressive display of strength, he pushes one of the heavy doors open, the muscles in his arms and shoulders popping, and flicks on a light.
“Here we are,” he says, waving for me to come forward.
I slowly approach him and peek inside.
There are five cars, four of them vintage sports cars, then a modern green Range Rover SUV. The vintage cars are all two-door, one of them a convertible. I don’t recognize all of them, but from the insignias I see a Maserati, a Lamborghini, and an Alfa Romeo.
“Wow,” I say breathlessly. “This would be my father’s heaven.”
His brows raise appreciatively. “Your father likes cars?”
“Yes. Growing up he had a 1968 Jaguar and I think now he might have an Aston Martin. I’m not sure. I haven’t seen it.”
“You don’t see your parents very often?”
“Uh, well, not really. I live in Edinburgh but my mother is in Ullapool. That’s on the West Coast, the
Highlands, and my father lives in London. He remarried a long time ago.”
“Ah,” he says.
“So this is all yours?” I can’t help but ask.
He shrugs. “More or less. My father had the Maserati Ghibli there and the Lancia Stratos. He gave them to me. Has no room or no need for them anymore.”
“But you collected the rest? Including the Ferrari out front?”
He nods, scratching at the stubble on his strong jaw. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“What?”
“How does someone in the arts afford all of this.”
“You’re right. I am thinking that. No offense.”
He gives me a lopsided smile. “No offense taken. But it all started with my father. Have you ever heard of Sandro Romano?”
I shake my head. “I know Sandro Botticelli.”
“Personally?”
I burst out laughing, and without thinking, I reach out and smack his arm playfully. “No. Not personally. Anyway, go on.”
His grin widens, seeming to appreciate my outburst, and I have to wonder what’s wrong with me, because I am definitely not one of those reach out and smack someone playfully people. I keep my arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times.
“Sandro Romano is my father,” Claudio says. “He’s a famous painter here in Italy, and I guess around the world in certain circles. His paintings are worth a lot of money.”
“Oh,” I say softly. “That’s where you get it from.”
He lifts a shoulder. “Maybe. I paint sometimes, but it looks pretty amateur, especially compared to him. He opened an art gallery in Lucca a long time ago, and now I run it. He’s somewhat retired and living on the island of Elba with my mother.” He pauses. “I say this for context, because if it wasn’t for my father, I wouldn’t have had the training and education and exposure to do what I do. And what I do is create art that people pay large amounts of money for.”
He’s downplaying his success and talent, attributing it to his father. “I’m sure you have talent that would have come out some other way, had your father gone on a different path. Don’t sell yourself short.”
Claudio runs his fingers along his jaw, pinching his square chin as he studies me. “Let me ask you something, Grace, from an artist to an artist.”