The sun was starting to set, and the massive plaza had already started to fill with water. With a city destined to sink into the ocean sometime in the next hundred years, the Venetians were used to the sight, while tourists tossed off their shoes and made light of the water rising from the drains normally used to rid the square of seawater.
But for today, the city wasn’t sinking. It was simply enduring another day of lovers strolling the city and small vignettes of six-piece orchestras playing everything from classical music to modern pop while tourists drank their wine.
Trina paused in the moment.
She slipped off her sandals and walked through the ankle deep water in the center of the square.
A stranger in a wedding dress held the train of her gown and smiled into a camera.
Trina walked around until she stood at the space between the church and the sea.
I’m hiding, she thought while the world moved by. Here she was, a single woman walking the streets of a touristy Italian city where not one soul knew who—or what—she was. The anonymity of it all drove her here.
Learning the language had been an excuse.
Still, she walked through the crowd, purposely forgetting.
Here she was just Trina.
She accepted the occasional appreciative glance from the opposite sex, smiled, and moved along. Never once did she stop to try and see if that glance could turn into something else.
She wasn’t interested.
As the streets thinned out and the last of the scammers attempted to pawn their final trinkets to unknowing visitors, Trina made her way back to her nondescript hotel.
She pushed through the swinging doors of the hotel and made her way up the two flights of stairs to her corner room with a double window view of one of the canals below.
Locking the door, she tossed the key, which was still a key and not a card, onto the secretary. Moving to the windows, she opened them wide and pushed back the shutters.
The occasional pedestrian walked over the bridge closest to her room, their words muddled in her ears.
She flopped on the bed and glanced at the grandiose glass chandelier above. It was something Trina would expect to see in a hotel in Vegas.
She closed her eyes and ignored the loneliness that knocked on the back of her skull.
Everything was fine.
A loud voice had Trina shooting out of bed.
She blinked a few times, orienting herself to the room.
“I’m working here!”
“Make way!”
The voices came from outside her window. Trina glanced at the clock in the room and winced. Six thirty was too early for shouting.
While the men outside her window kept yelling at each other in Italian, she gave up and moved to see what they were arguing about.
The canal below had two side-by-side delivery boats that were manned by half a dozen men unloading supplies. Sacks of flour, cases of paper goods, everything a restaurant would need to stay in business. The man doing half the yelling was a gondolier, standing at the back of his gondola, waving a hand in the air.
“The tourists are still in bed.” This from one of the men trying to unload his boat. “You can wait.”
The problem was the lack of room between the two delivery boats for the gondola to pass.
“For God’s sake, move so the man can get through and the rest of Venezia can sleep!” Trina yelled from her window.
Seven pairs of eyes looked up at her.
Trina lifted both hands in the air as if emphasizing her point.
Three men started yelling at the same time, a mix of arguments of being in the right-of-way.
Trina leaned out farther and added her complaint to the chaos. “A bunch of grown men acting like children,” she growled.
Another window from across the canal opened and a woman twice Trina’s age let out such a rapid stream of Italian she only caught every fourth word. While Trina hadn’t been able to put it all together, it was obvious the men unloading their goods did.
A few minutes later, one of the larger boats had moved enough to allow the gondolier to pass through.
“My apologies, beautiful lady,” the gondolier said with a dramatic bow in Trina’s direction.
Tall, dark, and Italian. The man’s smile had Trina grinning back.
“You’re ignoring me!” Avery Grant paced around her high-rise condominium in downtown Los Angeles with her cell phone pasted to her ear. The connection to Trina, halfway around the world, was surprisingly clear.
“I’m not ignoring you.”
“Three text messages and two phone calls. If that isn’t the definition of ignoring, then I don’t know what is.”
“I’ve had bad Wi-Fi.”
“Lame-ass excuse, lady. How long are you planning on being in Venice anyway?”
Avery stood looking across the city skyline as the sun dipped across the buildings. Sunset was always worth watching from this high off the ground.
“How . . . how did you know where I was?”
“Oh, please. I have you on Friend Finder, remember? So you know where I am when I’m out on a date.”
“Oh, yeah . . . I forgot.”
Avery rolled her eyes and walked away from the window, giving Trina her full attention. “Lotta good that app is going to do for me if you never look at it.”
“Sorry. I’m . . . I’m in a weird place right now.”
“I know you are. But you need to find your way out of it. The First Wives meeting is this weekend, and it’s your turn to host. Or have you forgotten?”
“I, ah . . . didn’t forget.”
Avery sucked in a deep breath, knowing damn well Trina not only forgot, she hadn’t planned anything either.
“Uh-huh . . . right. Tell you what. You just get back to the ranch and I will plan everything.”
“I have six days.”
“None of us wanna see you sleep off jet lag. So start working your way west, woman!”
“I’ll be okay.”
“Don’t make me come there and get you. Cuz I will!”
Trina laughed, which made Avery smile. “I know you will. Just give me a few more days.”
“Okay, but if you flake, not only will I come and retrieve you, Lori, Shannon, and Sam’s team will be right there with me.”
“I heard you, Avery. I’m hanging up now.”
“Why? Do you have a hot date?” For a brief second Avery wondered if her joke was an actual possibility.
“No. Of course not.”
“Well, that’s a damn shame. You’re in Italy. The men there are gorgeous.”
“They are.”
Lotta good that did for her friend, the woman who hadn’t so much as smiled at a man in the year Avery had known her. “Try and kiss one for me.”
“I’ll do that.”
Never gonna happen.
“I’m stalking you until I see you blip online in Texas.”
“I’m hanging up now, Avery.”
Hearing the fight in Trina’s voice was better than the sorrow.
“Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Avery disconnected the call and immediately called Lori.
When her neighbor, lawyer, and fellow First Wives Club member answered the phone, Avery drove right to the point. “I got ahold of Trina.”
“Is she okay?”
“I think we need to do an intervention.”
Chapter Two
The deep baritone of a man singing woke her the next day. The clock said seven. The sun streaming through the window suggested another hot day lay ahead.
Trina pushed out of bed when the voice didn’t stop or move farther away.
Unlike the day before, the canal had only one occupant.
Mr. Tall, Dark, and Italian looked up from his gondola to her room while he sang.
Words of love and inspiration lifted to her ears. He made grand gestures with his hands as he finished the song.
She clapped a
nd smiled when he took a sweeping bow.
“A free ride for you, beautiful lady. For aiding me in my plight yesterday.”
“That isn’t necessary,” she replied in Italian.
“You’re American.”
“I am.”
“Americans love our gondolas.”
She leaned against the window. “Another day.”
Her words gave him the hope he needed. “What is your name?”
“Trina.”
He placed a hand on his chest. “I am Dante. I will see you tomorrow.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but he pushed away from the dock and started to sing.
Trina’s day buzzed by, faster than the previous three weeks. Because she hadn’t given herself an end date to the trip, she realized how little of the island she’d seen. Trina felt the sudden need to start touring.
A short boat trip brought her to the neighboring island of Murano, famous for its handcrafted glass. While mosquitoes nipped at her ankles, she took a reprieve from the sun by stepping into several stores. She’d never been much of a shopper, but with a pocket as deep as the one her late husband and his mother had left her, Trina took advantage of the merchants’ offers to ship goods to the States. She knew, as she was shelling out three thousand euros apiece for the four vases that had caught her eye, that the gifts were going to be an I’m sorry I missed our quarterly meeting. Still, the sculptures were phenomenal and would help her friends forget her flaking on them.
She was already practicing what to say when they gave her hell.
“As soon as Avery reminded me of the meeting, I went on a quest to see all of Venice. I bought these gifts in my rush to see everything.”
Avery wouldn’t buy it.
Lori, a divorce attorney by day, would know damn well she was lying but wouldn’t call her out.
Then there was Shannon. She was harder to read. She’d probably just thank Trina, pat her on the back, and then let her know if she ever wanted to talk, she’d be there.
Avery was going to take some work. Considering Trina and Avery were the closest out of all of them, Trina would do her best to sweeten the pot.
Maybe tomorrow morning she’d take the gondola ride with Tall, Dark, and Italian. She’d snap a selfie of the two of them and tell Avery she was distracted by Dante. Just the thought of Trina smiling at the opposite sex would help Avery get over her absence.
With a plan in motion, Trina finished the paperwork on the expensive glass and strolled the rest of the island without a worry in the world.
Dante was much better looking up close. “No singing today?” Trina asked when she exited her hotel at seven o’clock sharp. If she asked enough questions, she’d forget that she was on a kinda date. Or maybe she was reading into the situation.
He jumped off his gondola and approached her as if they already knew one another. First a kiss on the right cheek, and then another on the left. Trina stepped back to regain her personal space.
“If it is song you want, then song you shall have.” Before she could laugh and tell him she was kidding, he let out a note that shook the walls of the buildings around them.
Trina put a hand on his arm. “Kidding. I was kidding,” she said in English. “Shh, you’ll wake everyone.”
“You’re right. I want to keep your beauty to myself.”
He had a sly smile and a playful wink. “Come . . .” He extended his hand to help her into the small boat. “Have you been on a gondola before?”
“No.”
He shook his head, the white-brimmed hat casting shadows on his face. “Such a shame.”
“You really didn’t have to do this,” she told him.
“It is my pleasure. I’ll show you many hidden gems in my city.”
She settled into the seat facing forward. Dante stood in the back and used a single paddle to power and steer the handmade vessel. “I’ve been here for almost three weeks. I think I’ve walked every street.”
“But you haven’t sailed every canal.”
She glanced over her shoulder. “True.” Before she forgot, Trina slid her cell phone from her back pocket and pretended to take a picture of the scenery in front of her. Instead, she snapped a selfie, capturing Dante behind her. That would hold Avery over.
The city had yet to wake, and the temperature had cooled down quite a bit from the day before. “This is the best time of day,” he told her.
It was easier talking without looking at him. “How long have you been doing this?”
“Five years.”
“You enjoy it?”
“What’s not to love? I see beautiful women like yourself. Spend my days on the water and sing for a few extra euros.”
A simple life. “You make it sound romantic.”
“It’s Venezia. Even the buildings drip of romance.”
Trina looked up at the vertical brick and stucco walls in varying colors and stages of decay. “Is it really sinking?” she asked him.
“Sadly. But our government has vowed to keep the city afloat.”
One good earthquake off the coast and that government effort wouldn’t mean a thing.
“Let’s hope their efforts aren’t in vain.”
Dante put his foot to the side of a building and steered them down a smaller canal.
“Your Italian is impressive. Have you lived in Italy?”
“No. I’ve visited a few times.”
“Then you have family who taught you as a child.”
She leaned back. “I’ve only studied Italian for six months.”
He stopped rowing briefly. “Again, I’m impressed.”
His shameless flirting brought a lightness to the inside of her chest. She didn’t take him seriously. Not completely, in any event. The flirtation had to be limited in light of the fact that she needed to make an effort to leave Venice in a few days. Even if she had to switch planes in Paris, and perhaps end up delayed there for a few days, or a week. She had half a chance of convincing the First Wives that she was sincere in her struggle to get home, even though she’d be channeling Pinocchio while she smiled.
“What are you thinking of, Bella?”
“That my trip here is coming to an end.”
He grunted, and she looked over her shoulder.
His bottom lip was pushed out in a childish pout.
Trina rolled her eyes.
“We just met, surely you can stay a little longer,” Dante pleaded.
She shrugged, looked forward again. “We’ll see.”
“These words I can work with.” And with that, Dante started to sing.
Halfway through his song, the wind kicked up, and the sky above them started to darken.
“It appears that we must cut this short,” he said as he pushed the gondola toward the nearest dock. Luckily for him, the docks were on every corner.
A boom of thunder brought her attention to the change in Dante’s smile.
He secured the gondola to the dock with a single rope and used his weight to hold the rocking vessel steady while helping her onto dry land.
Lightning flashed, and the thunder rolled quickly behind.
Dante scrambled over his boat to cover the seats with a fitted tarp. He was halfway through when the rain started to pelt down.
Trina wanted to help but knew she’d just be in the way.
Instead, she stood in the warm Venezia thunderstorm and proceeded to get soaked. There was something cathartic about purposely standing in the rain and letting the water run down her hair. Standing there with someone, even a someone she didn’t really know, was better than being there alone.
The second Dante finished covering the gondola, he jumped to her side, grasped her shoulders, and rushed them down a small alley that opened into a plaza. As in most of the squares in Venezia, there was a church with a large overhang to protect them from the rain.
Not that it mattered—they were both dripping in the shadow of the building.
Thunder ripped through again and the ra
in flew at them sideways.
They both moved as close as they could to the door, and still the rain managed to reach their feet.
Looking down at her soaked shirt and cotton shorts, Trina started to laugh.
Soon Dante joined her.
“This is nuts,” she said in English.
“It can last for hours or minutes,” he told her.
She poked her head out from under the eaves and looked at the gray sky.
“I think we’re somewhere in between.” When she looked at Dante again, he was standing closer. He reached out and pushed a wet strand of hair from her face.
Kiss one for me. Avery’s voice buzzed like an annoying fly in her head.
“You are so very beautiful.”
“And you’re a player.”
“Guilty,” he said as he stepped closer.
Just one kiss. It wouldn’t kill ya!
“Shut up, Avery,” Trina whispered in English.
Dante licked his lips. “Talking yourself out of my attention, or into my affections?”
She shivered, knowing before he leaned in that she would not have to lie to her best friend.
He moved slowly, giving her time to back away.
Trina didn’t.
And when Dante kissed her, she forced her eyes to close and her head to tilt back.
It was nice . . . okay, maybe a bit more than just nice. It had been so long since she’d kissed anyone, she thought maybe she’d forgotten how.
Dante, on the other hand, knew exactly how to kiss.
When his hand reached around her waist, and he pulled her into his arms, Trina panicked.
“Bella. You’re so lovely,” he said again, his lips set close to her ear. “We could make beautiful love.”
Yeah, that wasn’t gonna happen.
She put a hand on his chest. “I don’t think . . .”
“No one needs to know. Just you, and me. I won’t tell your husband and you won’t tell my wife.”
Trina froze, her gaze moving to the hand she had on his chest.
Fedor’s ring stared her in the eye.
She pushed. “I’m not.” Oh, God. “But you are? You’re married?”
Dante didn’t stop smiling. “Don’t deny. It’s okay. I don’t care.”
Half Empty Page 2