by Jill Blake
“We can explore Amalfi today,” Luca said, reclaiming her attention. “There’s a paper mill up that way. It’s a family-run operation, one of the few mills that wasn’t wiped out in a massive flood back in the fifties. They have a small museum there, if you’re interested. And not far from that is a trail that leads through the Valley of the Mills up to Pontone. From there, you can see all of Amalfi spread out below.”
“Sounds good. We’re walking, right?”
He laughed. “Today, yes. Tomorrow, we drive to Positano.”
Isabelle shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“It’s a beautiful town, Bella. You cannot visit la Costeria Amalfitana and not see Positano.”
“Fine, but isn’t there any other way to get there?”
His warm hand covered hers. “I’m a safe driver. But if you want, we can rent a scooter. Have you ever been on a Vespa?”
“You mean something like that?” She nodded at a powder-blue scooter zipping around pedestrians, heading toward a gap in the buildings nearby.
“For example.”
The man clearly had a death wish. She pulled her hand from his and resumed eating. “No, thanks,” she said, between bites.
Physicians tended to be cautious by nature. Coming from a family of doctors, Isabelle had recognized that early on, and spent years rebelling. Of course, time had tempered her attitude. But until now, she hadn’t fully appreciated how risk-averse she’d become. At least in some things.
Luca sipped his espresso and studied her. “How about a boat to Capri? A hydrofoil. We can be there in a half hour, forty minutes tops.”
What was it with men and speed? Her brother Marc was the same way, although now that he and Kate had a second child on the way, he’d traded in his sporty zero-to-sixty-in-four-seconds-flat BMW for a more sedate SUV model.
Well, at least on water they were less likely to get killed. She hoped. And she’d always fancied going to Capri, seeing where the world’s glitterati mingled with lesser mortals.
As Luca described the other sights he planned to show her, Isabelle savored her last bite of chocolate aubergine flan—apparently the chef’s signature dessert—and sighed. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d enjoyed a meal more.
It was only later, when they stood on the summit above Amalfi, gazing down at the toy-sized cluster of buildings and the sweep of coastline stretching in both directions, that Isabelle thought to ask about his home town.
Luca gestured vaguely toward the left. “It’s that way, about a half hour south. We can go there as well, if you like. The cathedral is pretty amazing, built in the eleventh century. And the Castello di Arechi is even older.”
“Does your family still live there? In Salerno, I mean.”
His slight hesitation made her realize she’d crossed a personal boundary. The question was perfectly innocent, but she could see how it could be misinterpreted as angling for an invitation to meet the parents. Assuming they were still alive, and together, and…
Oh, hell.
“They live just outside the city,” he said. “In Vietri sul Mare. My older sister and her husband run the vineyard, my younger sister handles the finances, and my mother oversees the tourist end of things. Wine-tastings, tours, supervising the meal preparation, hosting visitors.”
“Sounds lovely.”
He made a noncommittal sound and offered his hand for the climb down. “I’ll need to visit them at some point.”
“Of course.”
“A half day or so. Maybe an evening. You’ll be all right on your own?”
Well, that answered her question. She forced a smile. “I was planning to travel for two weeks by myself, Luca. I think I’ll be fine.”
“There are plenty of things to do within walking distance,” he said. “The beach across the street from the hotel is private, for Luna Convento guests only. And Atrani is right next door. Just make sure you use the pedestrian walkway to cross the bridge. I’ll show you later, when we get back.”
“I’ll be fine,” she repeated. “I’m not some child who needs to be entertained every minute of the day.”
“Bella…”
She sighed. “Luca, please. I’m enjoying this. I’m glad for your company. But I know what this is, and what it isn’t. So no worries, okay?”
His lips tightened and she wondered whether she’d been too blunt or not blunt enough.
The path down was steeper than she recalled, and for a moment, she stumbled on a loose stone. Luca moved to block her fall, keeping her hand in a firm grip and catching her around the waist with his free arm. She ended up plastered against him, nose buried in the hollow of his throat, breasts flattened against his chest.
His lips moved against her hair. “Stai bene? Are you okay?”
She pulled back with a breathless laugh, only to find his gaze locked on hers. His mouth descended slowly, giving her plenty of time to turn away or retreat, but she did neither. Heat flared in her belly as his lips took over. Her eyes drifted shut.
By the time they broke apart, they were both breathing hard.
“Tonight, we stay in,” he murmured. “Yes?”
###
If Capri was a study in white, with Moorish architecture and sun-bleached Roman ruins, then Positano was its pastel counterpart. The town rose against the turquoise backdrop of the Mediterranean: cliff-hugging villas in varying shades of peach, pink, and yellow, steep scalinatelle connecting narrow medieval streets crammed with shops, cafés, and hotels, climbing gardens that provided the occasional splash of red or green and some welcome shade from the heat.
Isabelle, who rarely had the time or opportunity to shop, felt almost giddy with excitement at the vast array of trinkets on display. She picked through vibrant scarves and towel sets, decorative ceramics emblazoned with brightly painted lemons, miniature wooden puppets, and bottles of Limoncello that looked like works of art.
“You could get this for a fraction of the price in Salerno,” Luca told her as she handed him a bag with yet another purchase.
“Yes, but we’re here now,” she said. “And if I don’t get something for everyone back home, I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“Well, then, I guess it’s a good thing we came by car, eh?”
Good, thing, indeed. Especially since dinner that evening was in the tiny hamlet of Sant’ Agata, another forty minute drive along the coast.
The restaurant was a study in understated elegance. Marble columns, muted lighting, pristine linen, and tables set far enough apart for conversations to remain private. Waiters in formal wear circulated amongst the diners, unobtrusively refilling wine and water glasses, replacing course after course of such exquisitely plated food that Isabelle wasn’t sure what she enjoyed more: the feast for the eyes or for the palate.
At one point she actually moaned over a spoonful of espresso-flavored mousse.
Luca chuckled. “I take it Don Alfonso’s meets with your approval?”
She licked her spoon slowly, dreamily, in a way that had him shifting in his seat. “Is there such a thing as gastronomic nirvana?”
The following day they slept in, missing breakfast. They wandered hand-in-hand through the neighboring town of Atrani, found a hole-in-the-wall place that served thin-crust pizza so good that Isabelle considered asking for the recipe. Even though she didn’t cook.
That night, Luca lured her out to a private cove, hidden behind the fifteenth century Saracen tower that housed the hotel’s restaurant. It didn’t take much to coax her out of her clothes and into the water.
He silenced her brief protest over the lack of towels by covering her mouth with his, in a kiss that went on and on as they treaded water. Later, they snuck back to their room under the indulgent gaze of the night concierge, their wet clothes clinging to chilled bodies.
It wasn’t until Saturday that Luca went off to visit his family, leaving Isabelle to sleep off her exhaustion from overindulgence in good food and amazing sex.
By the
time she woke up, it was past noon. In Luca’s absence, she was loath to expend the energy needed for another day of sightseeing. She parked herself instead in a shaded lounge chair by the hotel pool, and leafed through a book without absorbing a single word.
When she’d envisioned her ideal holiday romance, it had been with some faceless local, someone who by necessity would have to be left behind once her vacation ended. But with Luca, she could enjoy an exotic Italian lover without having to give him up when she returned to real life. After all, their worlds overlapped courtesy of mutual friends. And Princeton was practically next door to Philadelphia.
She felt giddy, like a teenager with her first crush, just imagining all the possibilities.
Chapter 5
In the end, Luca had no choice but to introduce Isabelle to his family.
It was his mother who clinched the deal, with her persistent questions about why he was spending all his time with some Americana who was not his wife. Especially when he so rarely visited home, and God knew when he’d be back.
Tired of having to remind his mother that he was divorced, was in fact coming up on the one-year anniversary of that, Luca decided that bringing Isabelle to the family compound was the most expedient way of proving to Mama that his marriage was definitively over, and that he was not about to sink into a depression over it.
Despite his mother’s initial grim-faced silence, the ice was quickly broken by Luca’s rambunctious nephews, ages eight and ten. Isabelle won them over with a disappearing coin trick she’d learned in order to keep her own niece and nephews entertained. Luca followed up with several card tricks. The boys eventually ran off to play video games, reappearing intermittently throughout the evening to refuel when each new course was served.
Without the diversion of the children’s antics, adult conversation floundered until Isabelle took the reins. Employing the few words of Italian she’d picked up over the last week, she praised his mother’s signature dish of stracotto with porcini mushrooms, and the perfectly balanced Vitemenia his older sister had paired with it.
Thankfully, given the number of American and British tourists the vineyard regularly hosted, everyone at the table spoke at least passable English, which allowed Isabelle to continue charming Luca’s sisters and brother-in-law.
Elena, his older sister, was glad to answer Isabelle’s questions about viticulture, and the effect Salerno’s climate had on the choice of which grapes to cultivate.
“We are lucky to have hot dry summers and mild winters,” Elena said. “It makes for a longer growing season. And because of the volcanic soil, we’ve managed to avoid the problems with phylloxera that wiped out vineyards in many other areas.”
Elena’s usually taciturn husband, Pino, walked Isabelle through the vinification process, from the soft pressing and fermentation, to the aging in French oak barrels and bottling of the perfect Piedirosso/Aglianico blend.
Luca’s younger sister, Teresa, chatted happily about the business side of things, which she managed. Besides the marketing, sales, and distribution of wine, the estate also hosted a steady stream of tourists and events, and participated in a regional wine tour.
Isabelle’s eyes lit up. “How far in advance do those get booked?”
“It depends on the season,” Teresa said. “Did you have something particular in mind?
“I’d love to send my parents here. Dad just retired, and he’s moping around over it, driving my mom crazy. It would be great to arrange something like this for them. Ideally in the next month or two, before my sister-in-law delivers and all travel is off the table for a while.”
“You have a large family?” Luca’s mother unbent enough to ask.
“Oh, yes,” Isabelle laughed. “The DiStefanos are like your volcanic soil, very fertile.”
Luca listened with half an ear as she went on to paint an amusing picture of her large boisterous family. Siblings and cousins, nieces and nephews, aunts and uncles—so many, apparently, that every year her parents hired a caterer and tent and something called a “bouncy castle” in order to host everyone under one roof.
He sipped his wine and watched the animation of her face. The impish twinkle in her eyes as she described her Aunt Lucia, who penned bodice-rippers, much to the chagrin of her very proper and prominent physician sons. The exaggerated expression of surprise as Luca’s sisters competed with each other in retelling the most outrageous stories from Luca’s own childhood.
As evening stretched into night, and limoncello replaced the wine, Luca lounged back in his chair and reflected on the past ten days. The conversation continued to flow around him. Several times his mother tried to catch his eye, but he pretended not to notice. Elena, Pino, and Teresa seemed to like Bella, and for now that was enough. And if his mother had reservations, that was fine too.
He wasn’t looking for a replacement wife. He was simply looking to move past the fallout from his disastrous divorce. A year later, almost two years after he’d discovered the depth of Cristina’s betrayal, and he still found himself getting angry. Not so much in the last week-and-a-half, perhaps…
But still, no matter how charming Bella was, no matter how gamine her grin, how engaging her banter with his family, how good in bed she might be, he wasn’t ready for anything serious.
Maybe someday he’d be ready again. After all, he still wanted kids. That had, in fact, been one of the major points of contention between him and Cristina. He’d thought they were on the same page, both interested in starting a family. She’d paid lip service to it, at least initially. But then she’d gotten caught up in her career, in getting ahead, in racking up ever more billable hours.
“Next year,” she’d say, whenever he raised the issue. “I’ll make partner, then we can talk about it.”
But next year came and went, and still she hedged. “You don’t realize how demanding it is to be a junior partner,” she’d tell him. “I can’t slow down just yet.”
And so he’d waited, all the while fooling himself that they still wanted the same thing, while she’d been busy making plans behind his back. Plans that didn’t involve him. Plans to rid herself of an accidental pregnancy and permanently ensure that such a thing wouldn’t happen again. Because the man who’d been her mentor at the firm, whom Luca and Cristina had hosted in their home, who’d flashed his white-veneer-capped smile and slapped Luca on the back and told him how lucky he was to have such a beautiful and intelligent wife, such an asset to the firm—that man was also married, with adult children, and not interested in having any more, particularly not with a woman who wasn’t his wife and whom he wasn’t planning on making his wife, no matter how much he praised her beauty and intelligence. Cristina apparently knew the score, and was fine with the status quo. She was aiming for the man’s job, not his heart, and had no qualms about banging him after hours and lying to her husband about it for however many years it had been going on.
So, no, Luca wasn’t eager to tie himself to anyone anytime soon.
His mistake had been marrying too quickly, too young, and believing in his wife long after everyone else of his acquaintance had known what was going on behind the scenes. He wouldn’t be doing that again.
No, this time he would take as long as he wanted to enjoy himself. And when he’d had his fill of playing the field, he’d pick some willing little thing who didn’t have any ambitions beyond being a wife and mother, who didn’t have any competing interests or loyalties, who’d be compatible not only across the dinner table and in bed, but also in terms of understanding what he considered important in life, and he’d settle down with her and start raising little Santoros.
He tuned back into the conversation just as Isabelle mentioned some hospital in which she worked.
“You’re a nurse?” Pino asked.
“A doctor,” she replied. “Ob/gyn.”
“Ostetrico/ginecologo,” Elena translated, in response to her husband’s blank look.
For a moment, Luca felt like he’d been sucke
r-punched. His vision swam, and then he blinked, and air rushed back into his lungs.
“You didn’t tell me,” he said, his voice hoarse in his ears.
She turned to him, eyebrows lifting in surprise. “I’m on vacation. It didn’t come up.”
He felt his heart beating double-time, the pulse throbbing in his ears. She was a doctor. Not a party-girl, like he’d assumed. He flashed back to the miniature tattoo he’d noticed on her hip while making love. A snake coiled around a wooden staff. She’d laughed it off at the time as a memento of her wild college days. But he recognized it now, in retrospect, as the ancient Greek symbol of medicine.
For the second time in his life, he felt duped, betrayed. She was a career woman, like his ex-wife. She probably worked crazy hours, delivering babies whenever they came: during the day, in the middle of the night, on weekends.
Dio. He should have known it was too good to be true.
There was no question now of what had to be done. No question about anything, except when and how he would end things.
Too bad she was friends with Jane and Samantha, the spouses of his new business partners. It would make for some awkward questions. They’d been seen together at the wedding, and the morning after. Samantha had even commented at breakfast that it was a shame they’d both missed the bouquet and garter toss the night before. They would probably run across each other at social gatherings in the future.
But it had to be done, before things got any deeper.
Tomorrow. He’d enjoy one last night with her before letting her go. It would be a natural end, the return to the real world, to the States. His flight back was scheduled for tomorrow afternoon anyway.