by Tacie Graves
Bleakness crept over the world and Mina felt her shoulders sag. She didn’t know what she expected--she’d seen Marco kissing that woman--but some tiny part of her had held out hope that he would come after her, would tell her it was all a terrible misunderstanding, and that he’d never betray her like that… not for a beautiful woman, nor for his mother.
“Did Marco say that?” Her mouth felt like it was full of sand. She didn’t want to hear the answer, but she couldn’t stop the question.
Giovanni stopped patting.
“Actually, he wasn’t there.” His voice was carefully neutral, and he watched Mina’s reaction closely. “Cinzia handled everything.”
Mina’s eyes flew wide. He wasn’t there? Why wouldn’t he be there? Her mind flew through possibilities--he’d forgotten the final arrangements, he’d been called away on business, he’d been abducted by aliens--but she couldn’t help but come back to the obvious answer: he didn’t want to see her.
A shudder ran through her like a shock wave. He wasn’t even there. It didn’t seem possible. She’d been prepared for persuasion, or temper. She’d role played through conversation after conversation where she explained that they had to go back to being just business associates. They were too different. She couldn’t be with a man who put so little value on their relationship.
She just never believed he put that little a value on it.
He knew she had to finalize the last of the shipments. Knew the insurance forms had to be filed, and the security people had to be briefed. He knew…
“Cinzia told me she hadn’t seen him since the party. He left a message with her to handle everything--that he’d be out of touch for a few days--and that was the last she heard from him.”
Mina’s heart slammed back to life in her chest. Maybe…
“Have you heard from him?” She held her breath, not sure what she wanted him to say.
Giovanni let out a strangled laugh. “You mean after he took a swing at me in front of Mamma and lo sindaco?” He shook his head and rubbed his jaw in painful memory. “No, Mina. I told him to stay away, and he has.” He leaned forward and took her hand in his. “If you’re going to address this, I think you’re going to have to make the first move.”
Mina squeezed his hand but didn’t speak.
Make the first move, she thought. You mean put myself back in the line of fire? Yeah, because that makes so much sense.
She tuned back into what Giovanni was saying.
“It isn’t like him, this silence. Marco has never been one to sit back and let someone else dictate the action.” He laughed. “He’s always been more likely to block all the exits and flank his opposition so they have no choice but to do what he wants them to.”
Like going to a museum and offering someone the opportunity of a lifetime--just to convince them to give him a chance. Mina bit her lip. Hard.
“And he’s always been almost devoutly monogamous,” Giovanni’s train of thought carried him further afield. “Mamma and Babbo had more than a few questioni di fedeltà when we were growing up. It bothered him, I think. It certainly affected his relationships. Once he was involved he never strayed--and he had no patience for others who did.” He looked at her face and realized what he’d said. “Or at least that’s what I thought. But then, what do I know? I’m a physicist, not a psychologist, right?”
Mina didn’t answer and he sighed, his expression apologetic. “I’m sorry, Mina, truly I am. I just don’t understand any of this. Marco and I have had our differences in the past, but this?” He shook his head. “This is so far from the brother I know, that I can’t help but question it.” He looked at her intently. “Serafina hasn’t been in the picture for months--almost a year! And while Mamma and Serafina weren’t happy about it, I never got the impression that Marco regretted ending that affair.”
The fact that Marco had been involved with someone as stunning as the aforementioned Serafina just made Mina more certain that she had no place in his life. How could she compare with that?
“I saw what I saw, Gio. And it wasn’t finished--not by a long shot.” Mina scrubbed a hand over her face. “It isn’t like he couldn’t have told her to stop it, or even push her away if he wanted to.” She pushed herself up from the couch and forced herself to stand up straight. “She was clinging to him like a poison ivy vine, and he wasn’t doing anything to stop it, so I have to assume he was a willing participant.”
“That’s just it,” Giovanni said. “It’s all an assumption--a hypothesis, if you will. Doesn’t Marco deserve a chance to explain? Isn’t whatever was between you two worth fighting for?”
They were all arguments she’d had with herself: Do you want him? Is he important to you? Is he worth fighting for? And the answers were all easy enough--yes, yes, yes! The harder questions came after, though: Do you trust him? Do you love him? Do you deserve him? The answers to those questions were usually: Let me get back to you on that.
“It isn’t that easy, Gio.” Mina headed towards the kitchen. Giovanni’s apartment was almost spartan in comparison to the Genovese compound, but what it lacked in size it made up for in style. She stopped in front of an enormous lithograph--an artist’s interpretation of an atom, the solid center surrounded by particles, never stopping circling.
“That’s you, you know.” Giovanni stood behind her and pointed at the picture. “At the center you’re complex, positive, stable, maybe a little boring even--but around you is nothing but a storm of negative effects.” He placed his hands on her shoulders. “You’ll never be able to connect with someone else until you let some of those negative things go. Or at least share them with someone. They’ll keep you isolated until you decay, becoming less and less until you’re unrecognizable.”
Tears had threatened to overwhelm her when he started, he was so serious and caring, but she couldn’t get over how ridiculous it all sounded and she ended up snorting in disbelief.
“This is your idea of motivation?” She rolled her eyes and grinned half-heartedly at him. “Dr. Phil does physics, the newest show to take Italy by storm.”
She turned her back on him and made it the rest of the way to the kitchen. She opened the freezer and grabbed some gelato with a disgusted face. “You’d think in a country obsessed with love and food that you all would have better break-up ice cream.” She opened a drawer searching for a spoon and the doorbell rang. She pried the lid off the carton and waved the spoon in the direction of the door.
“You’d better get that. I’m busy.”
Giovanni watched her stab the gelato and shook his head, but he knew better than to get between a woman and her comfort food.
“Are you expecting a delivery?” He called, and she made negative noises around a mouthful of strawberries. “I didn’t tell anyone I was staying here.”
When he pulled the door opened Mina half-expected it see his mother standing on the doorstep, ready to drag her baby boy away from the terrible influence of the American floozy.
It wasn’t.
“Buon Giorno, Signor Genovese. I am sorry to drop in on you like this, but my name is Ivy Fielding. I’m a friend of Mina’s. May I come in?”
Chapter Four
“What do you mean he’s in the car waiting?” Giovanni’s voice rose to a volume that Mina had never heard from him. Red edged his cheekbones, and his hands clenched and unclenched in what appeared to be an effort not to shake the woman in front of him.
Ivy wasn’t impressed. She stood ramrod straight, barely reaching Giovanni’s chin as he towered over her, and refused to let him intimidate her. Their dark heads were almost identical in color--one curly, on straight--but that was where the similarity ended.
“I convinced him it would be better if I came in first. I was afraid he would not receive a very warm welcome, and if your reaction is anything to go by, I was right.”
Ivy’s tone was perfectly even, but Mina could hear the “screw with me and I’ll rip your face off--politely” note that she reserved for the abs
olute lowest of her acquaintances. Like Ethan.
Giovanni opened his mouth to yell some more, but Mina held up a finger to stop him. When Ivy got like this yelling never got you anywhere.
“Ivy,” she said, digging deep to find a shred of calm to hold onto, “it isn’t that I’m not happy to see you, I am.” She leaned forward and tried to meet Ivy’s eyes through her protective sheet of hair. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you, Ive, really.” Her earnest tone soothed some of Ivy’s ruffled feathers, but she couldn’t stop there. “The thing is, I talked to you two days ago, and you were in Miami. And now, you’re here. With Marco.” Mina’s throat closed around his name and she had to clear it to continue. “It’s a little hard to follow.”
“And even harder to understand,” Giovanni stuck in mulishly, unwilling to be relegated to the sidelines. “I thought you were her friend!”
Ivy’s posture became even more rigid, if possible.
“How dare you! I travel halfway across the world to try to save her from making the stupidest mistake she’s ever made,” she turned to glare at Mina, “and you’ve made some doozies, let me tell you,” and then snapped back to Giovanni, “and you, you testosterone drowned asshat, have the nerve to question whether I’m her friend?” Ivy rarely lost her temper, but it had slipped its lead and was long gone. Her chest was heaving with indignation, and bright pink spots colored her cheeks under exhaustion induced dark circles. Giovanni turned to Mina and mouthed “asshat?”, but she wasn’t paying any attention to him.
“The stupidest mistake I ever made was signing on with Mr. High and Mighty in the first place.” She set her lips in a stubborn line. “If you’re here to stop that, you’re a little late.”
Ivy rolled her eyes and groaned in frustration.
“Of all the hard-headed, narrow-minded, short-sighted…” she stopped exercising her vocabulary of insults and took a deep breath.
“First, think about this: how did I get here?” When Giovanni opened his mouth to answer she shushed him. “No, I don’t mean by car or plane or boat, I mean… how did I get here?” She waved her hand to indicate the apartment.
Mina looked at her and shook her head. “I’m not sure. I’m assuming Marco told you where I was.”
Ivy gave a satisfied nod, and Mina felt like a kindergartener who’d just gotten a gold star for coloring Clifford the Big Red Dog.
“Now, since I was in Miami, how did Marco tell me this?” She raised her eyebrows in anticipation and Mina frowned at her.
“I don’t know--telephone? Skype? E-mail?”
Ivy made a show of looking disappointed. “Try again.”
Mina thought about it--how Cinzia hadn’t seen him for two days, how Giovanni hadn’t talked to him, how he hadn’t been at the offices for the final museum arrangements.
“He flew to Miami?” She looked at Ivy and got a nod in return.
“Good! I’m glad to see that brain hasn’t completely melted in the Italian sun.” Ivy leaned forward. “He arrived on my doorstep Saturday afternoon.”
Saturday afternoon?
“But that means he left first thing Saturday morning!” Wheels within wheels began turning in her head. “Why would he have done that?”
Ivy pulled the throw pillow off the chair behind her and threw it at Mina.
“Because he loves you, you moron!”
Ivy was yelling. Ivy never yelled. Ivy was always calm and cool and collected--the voice of reason in a world of idiots.
“But he was kissing someone else!” The words came out in a cry, her pain almost palpable. “I saw them, Ivy--with my own two eyes! They were in his office, up against his desk. She was practically in his lap!”
Tears welled up in her eyes.
“I can’t do that again, Ive. I can’t. It was bad enough with Ethan--I didn’t really love him, I know that now, so the hurt of him cheating on me didn’t last. But Marco? I …”
Her voice faded away and Ivy slid forward to kneel on the floor at her feet.
“You what, sweetie?”
Mina knew the look on her face. She wasn’t going to let her out of it.
“It’s different.” Silence filled the space between them. Mina twisted her hands together, and Ivy clasped hers around them.
“It’s different because you actually love him.”
The words were said softly, but they hit Mina like a hammer. Her heart slammed painfully in her chest, and her breath was uneven.
“I can’t…” she whispered, begging Ivy to understand, but Ivy was relentless.
“You have to.” Her hands tightened and she forced Mina to look at her. “You have a chance--a beautiful, terrifying chance--to fulfill every dream you’ve ever had. A true happily ever after! All you have to do,” she raised a finger, tilting Mina’s chin, “is trust him.”
She made it sound so easy--trust him. Like she could just flip a switch and all her worries would disappear.
“It isn’t that easy.”
Ivy gave her a serious look. “It is, actually. He’s out there waiting. He wants to explain. Hell, he explained to me, and I believed him, and I don’t even know him.”
She stood up.
“I’m going to open that door, and you are going to swallow your pride and your fear and you are going to sit and listen to what the man has to say. If, after that, you still don’t believe him I will drop the subject and never revisit it. If, however, you do not listen to him, I swear on my black cashmere trench coat that I will make every day of the rest of your life an utter misery. For both of you!” She stabbed a black-manicured finger at Giovanni and he retreated as far as the couch would let him. “And don’t you think I couldn’t do it.”
“You’d better listen to her, Mina mia,” he said, a glimmer of his old twinkle lurking in his eye. “I don’t think either of us would survive very long with this virago after us.”
Ivy nodded once in satisfaction at his agreement, and then turned back to her friend.
“You’ve run away from him twice, Mina,” she said, rising from her chair. “I don’t think you’re going to get a third chance. ”
Mina stared at her. Ivy was the one person she had always trusted. Scary smart, hard-working, and snarky, she hid the biggest heart in the world under seventeen layers of black. She was no one’s fool, and had said, “fuck off” to more than one pretty face, but she wouldn’t steer Mina wrong if she could help it.
“You believed his story?” Her voice was soft but steady, and Ivy nodded. “I did.”
Mina stood up and straightened her shoulders.
“I guess I’d better to talk to him, then.”
As soon as the words escaped she wanted them back. Her bravery was tissue thin, but fear pressed down on her like a mountain. Her heart was beating erratically, and her hands were shaking. Marco was sitting outside, waiting--something he didn’t do well at the best of times. Fifty feet separated them--fuck, the streets here were so narrow it was probably more like twenty--but she wasn’t sure she could make it.
Ivy was standing across from her, watching her closely. Probably getting ready to trip her if she ran.
She is in for a world of payback. Mina met her gaze and Ivy smiled. “I’d like to see you try it, Hemingway. I can outplot you seven days a week, and you know it.”
Mina laughed in spite of herself. “Yeah, but you know me. Queen of Ignoring the Obvious.”
She stepped forward and gave her a quick hug. “Thanks. No matter how this works out.” She looked down at Giovanni and said, “Keep an eye on her, okay? There’s no telling what kind of trouble she’ll get into now that she’s here.”
He looked up at her, his face serious again. “If you want me to go out…”
Ivy poked him, “Stop that! She doesn’t need you sticking your big nose in the middle…”
Mina turned away from them, letting the squabble fade away behind her. One step… two… It seemed to take forever to reach the door, but she finally made it. Blood pounded in her ears and she
forced herself to take a deep breath and open the door.
The street looked so normal--apartments and cars and a fat orange tabby cat sitting on the patio wall watching her suspiciously.
Yeah, I’m not sure why I’m here either, bud.
She walked down the three steps to the street and saw him immediately.
He was standing in a beam of sunlight, leaning against the bumper of a low-slung Italian sports car she didn’t recognize. His eyes were fixed on her and her breath hitched in her chest at what she saw there.
He looked wonderful and terrible, his dark eyes full of longing and anger, and she wondered if she looked as conflicted as he did.
She forced herself to put one foot in front of the other, every instinct screaming to turn and run the other way, and before she thought it possible she was beside him.
They stood there like there for what seemed like forever. She soaked in his scent, the heat of him so familiar and comforting that she had to fight the urge to lean into him to let it thaw the ice that had swallowed her for days, and she wondered that she’d ever thought she could have abandoned that feeling forever.
“You haven’t been sleeping.” He sounded accusing and she shook her head. It was pointless to deny it. “No. Not much.”
More silence. She looked up at him and made herself speak
“Thank you for bringing Ivy here.” It wasn’t what she expected to say, but it was true. Marco looked at her, and she could see him trying to gauge what she was thinking. Good luck with that, her inner voice mocked, if you figure it out, make sure to let us know.
“It was no trouble,” he said stiffly. “I was returning and there was more than enough room.”
Mina sighed. This wasn’t working.
“So, the only reason you brought her along was because you had extra carry-on space?”
Marco looked frustrated, a tinge of red creeping into his skin. “Of course not.” Irritation clipped his words and she could tell he was angry. “I thought,” he looked down at her, “you might need a friend.”