“Ten years,” she groaned sleepily. “It has been more than ten years since I had a meal that good.” She stretched both arms overhead, then forced herself to sit back up. “Thank you for finding this place. It really is so much better than overpriced room service.”
“Anything for you, doll,” I said just as lazily as I swirled the last of the white Montepulciano around in my glass.
I’d gotten over my jet lag yesterday, but right now, under the haze of wine and food, I was feeling it a little more. I wanted to collapse into a bed. Preferably with Nina. But since there was no way she would let me, I was content to not stargaze a little longer.
I tossed back the rest of the wine, allowed it to sit on my tongue for a moment. Then, without thinking, I pulled a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of my jacket pocket and flipped one into my mouth.
“What is that?”
I froze at the sudden sharpness in Nina’s voice. “What’s what?”
“That.” She pointed a slender finger at my mouth.
I took the cigarette out and looked at it as if I hadn’t realized it was there. “Oh. This.”
Nina was sitting up straight now. “When did you start smoking? I’ve never seen you do that before.”
For a second, I wanted to retort that there were a lot of things she’d never seen me do. Things she’d never let me do because we were too busy sniping at each other or trying to keep me a dirty secret. Things like kiss her or hold her hand in public. Things like sleep with her more than one night in a row or keep her from running the fuck away when I pissed her off.
But instead, I looked down at the cigarette. “I…I guess I hadn’t for a long time when we met. Not since I was on tour.”
“You smoked in Iraq?”
And just like that, the rest of the evening’s levity disappeared, replaced by the black cloud of anyone mentioning that hellhole.
I put the cigarette back between my lips and lit it, then took a deep pull and exhaled away from the table.
“You’d be surprised what men do to cope with being over there,” I said. “A smoke here and there was the lesser of a lot of evils, believe me.”
Nina watched me a bit longer, her full mouth twisted in displeasure. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the pity—and mild disgust—in her eyes either.
“So, why now?” she asked after I was halfway through.
I took another deep inhale, watching the end of the cigarette turn to ash, the paper burn away. “Honestly. It just seemed necessary. After you—after you turned yourself in.”
Her forehead crinkled with confusion. “Why would that make you do it?”
“Probably because not being able to save someone I love is a giant fucking trigger,” I said, a hell of a lot more calmly than I felt whenever I thought of Nina sleeping in a prison cell. “I loved my men too, Nina. And losing them…well, I won’t say it wasn’t as bad as when I had to watch that footage of you being taken to jail. But you were a close second. Especially thinking that maybe I could have prevented it.”
She stayed quiet while I finished my cigarette. I used it to light the end of a second, then put the butt out in the ashtray at the center of the table. Great, now I was chain smoking.
“Give me that,” Nina said.
Before I could stop her, she had plucked the cigarette out of my mouth and put it to her own. Her cheeks hollowed as she sucked on the end, then exhaled through pursed lips. I stared, hypnotized. Watching Nina de Vries smoke was like watching a swan do back flips.
“Okay, okay,” I said. “Give it back. You shouldn’t be doing that.”
She took another pull on the end. “Why?”
“Because it’s going to give you fucking cancer, Nina, that’s why. I don’t want you smoking, and that’s it.”
“Well, I don’t want you smoking either for the same reasons. How does that sound?”
I scowled. “What does that matter?”
Didn’t she understand how hard this was going to be? Didn’t she understand that I needed something to keep me from grabbing her, from loving her, from doing the only other thing in this godforsaken life that made me feel even a little bit at ease with myself? Cigarettes were a poor substitute for the calm I found in worshipping Nina de Vries. But right now, they were all I had.
“Because,” she said as she held the cigarette up and watched the ash slowly forming at its tip. “I don’t like to see people I care about hurting themselves either.” She tipped her head to one side, as if daring me to take it. “So. I’ll stop. If you stop. Do we have a deal?”
We stared at each other hard across the table. Suddenly this felt like a test. And as soon as I realized that, I also realized there was only one right answer.
People she cared about. Which meant she still cared about me.
Well, then.
“You little minx,” I muttered, as I took the cigarette out of her hand and stabbed it in the ashtray. “Yeah, all right, duchess. We have a deal.”
And just like that, Nina grinned. And I grinned back with the triumph of passing yet another test with flying colors.
Chapter Eleven
Nina
We left bright and early for Florence. I had fallen asleep sometime just after nine o’clock, though I was woken twice in the night by loud thumps on the wall next to me, and once more by an unintelligible shout. That time I crept out to investigate.
“Matthew?” I had called cautiously through the door.
For a while, I thought he was asleep. Perhaps I had imagined that shout, or else he really was just dreaming.
But then, he answered.
“I’m fine, doll,” came his groggy voice.
I had paused. “Are you—are you sure?”
Was it my imagination, or did he sigh?
“Yeah, baby, I’m fine. Go back to bed.”
So I did, hard as it was. Because something had changed the night before when I stole his cigarette. It had been automatic—watching him do something that he knew was self-harming produced a protectiveness I couldn’t hold back. So now, I could no longer pretend I didn’t care about Matthew. It was ingrained.
But the next morning, I couldn’t help noticing the dark circles under his beautiful green eyes, though the rest of him was as gorgeous as ever in a pair of fitted black pants, a bright white shirt, and a brown leather jacket. Casual, yes. But with his ever-present fedora, Matthew managed to be as effortlessly debonair as ever while he sipped his morning espresso in the courtyard, waiting for me to finish my own coffee and sfogliatella before we checked out.
How one person could make something as simple as a white Oxford shirt look so good was beyond me. Was it the contrast of the color with his inky dark hair and the two-day stubble outlining his sculpture-worthy jaw? Maybe it’s the way it matched the flash of his teeth in a crooked smile that made my stomach turn not once, but twice?
Luckily, I seemed to have a similar effect on him. I had chosen a form-fitting gray skirt, and yes, it was partially to enjoy the way his eyes dilated whenever I recrossed my legs and exposed my left thigh through the slit that reached well past my knee. He couldn’t quite keep himself from leering whenever I stretched my arms and thrust my chest outward. And I particularly enjoyed his expression when he noticed the three-inch silver heels I’d chosen to go with this outfit.
“You all right over there, doll?” he asked when he caught me staring at him instead of the flaky pastry.
I looked up. “Hmmm?”
His gaze managed to be both sympathetic and slightly dangerous beneath the brim of his hat
“You looked a little lost in thought,” he replied before pushing my plate toward me. “You need to eat, duchess. We have a long drive ahead of us.”
Yes, I was aware. Three and a half hours or so to another pensione Matthew had found in Florence, where I would mentally prepare myself for the first step on my agenda: finding Giuseppe’s wife and revealing our affair. I sighed, not because of the impending drive, but because I did feel
a little lost.
I was here. In Italy. A place I hadn’t visited in more than ten years—not because I couldn’t have or didn’t want to, but because I was terrified of the ghosts I might confront. For more than a decade I had kept the memories of this country at bay, blindly trying to forge ahead with the lies that were supposed to protect my daughter and me, but instead they ended up nearly strangling us.
Now I was cutting us free—but was the truth just as dangerous? Other shadows were cast by the sunlight shining through the bougainvillea. They hid in the lilt of the language, in the cracks of the limestone facades.
They were even evident in the Roman nose and burnished skin of the man sitting in front of me.
Every desire I had ever felt in my life was here. There was no running away now.
So yes, I was a bit overwhelmed.
“I’m all right,” I said instead, picking up the cream-filled pastry and taking a generous bite.
I was going to gain ten pounds at the rate I’d been indulging, but found I didn’t really care. Not when Matthew watched me lick a stray bit of the orange-flavored cream from my lip like it was the most fascinating thing he ever saw.
The Ferrari purred on our way up the boot, and might have made for good conversation if we had had any. Instead, we just kept alternately leering at each other and daydreaming, like we were each waiting for the other to make the first move. After an hour of watching his forearms flex every time he gripped the steering wheel, I was having a hard time not asking him to pull over so I could jump into his lap like a crazed teenager. What was the matter with me? I was still so angry at him.
Wasn’t I?
Matthew cleared his throat as a road sign informed us we were entering Tuscany.
“So,” he said a bit awkwardly. “Did you get to see much more of the area when you were in school here?”
I looked up from where I had been staring nakedly at his Adam’s apple. Why was the muscle on that part of his neck so bloody sexy?
“What? Oh, um, a little. Mostly Rome, Venice, and a few of the other big tourist hubs. I went to Milan for the couture shows and fittings, but otherwise, I only saw a little outside Florence and a few school-organized tours. Giuseppe took me to Siena once—it’s close to the farm. That was very pretty.”
Matthew glowered at the mention of Giuseppe. “Well, maybe we don’t have to go to that town this time.”
“What about you?” I prodded, ignoring his obvious jealousy. “Do you know the area well? You were stationed in Sicily, weren’t you?”
He nodded. “I was, yeah. But Sicily is a bit different than the rest of Italy. I tried to explore whenever I had leave. Went to Naples to visit family on weekends, some other parts of the country on longer liberty. I came up here once to see the Cinque Terre after a few people told me it was one of the prettiest places in Italy.”
“And is it?” I asked. “I never went there, but I heard nice things too.”
Matthew smiled. My heart gave an extra thump.
“It is. There are no cars allowed into the towns, you know, because they’re all carved into the cliffs. No big chains or resorts allowed either—almost everything is local. You have to either hike down or take the train in, which runs through these tunnels. And then you can hike between the five towns. Or pick your favorite and just stay there.”
“Which is yours?” I wondered. I loved hearing him talk like this about things he so clearly enjoyed.
“Well, everyone likes Vernazza because of the church and the castle,” he said. “And the pretty photo-ops. It is nice, the way it curls around this little marina. Some people vote for Monterosso because it has the best beach and an actual resort. But my favorite was the fifth town, Riomaggiore. It’s quieter than the others. When I went, I stayed in this hostel that was actually owned by a woman from the Bronx, if you can believe that. Her father was from Riomaggiore, and she decided to move back and take over his business when he died.”
I couldn’t help but smile with him at the recollection. Everywhere he went, Matthew seemed to find a connection with someone. “That sounds like a nice inheritance.”
“Bit of work, but yeah. It was nice, so far as hostels go.” He side-eyed me. “Have you actually stayed in a hostel, duchess? Packed in with all the other poor students?”
I reddened, unsure exactly why. “No,” I admitted. “I haven’t.”
“Eh, you’re not missing much. Maybe smashing into a room with ten other eighteen-year-olds is fun when you’re young and stupid, but it gets old fast when you’re a twenty-six-year-old officer and tired of barracks. At this one, though, I only had to share a room with two other guys. And it had a really nice rooftop deck, just a few houses up from the sea. Made for a good place to eat. Alone.”
“What did you have?” I genuinely wanted to know. Matthew’s face lit up when he described food. And I wanted him to keep talking.
“Nothing fancy. I didn’t have much money, so I went across the street to the little deli. Picked up a half a loaf of bread, a carafe of wine, a couple slices of prosciutto, and a little container of the pesto they made fresh every day. They’re famous for it in Liguria, you know.”
“I didn’t know,” I murmured, waiting for him to continue. He really was a good storyteller.
“I took it back to the hostel, climbed the five flights of rickety stairs up to the roof. And on the little deck that was maybe ten by ten square feet, I ate my pesto and bread and prosciutto and wine and watched the sun set over the Mediterranean.” His brow wrinkled as he recalled the memory. “That was my last leave before we were deployed to Iraq, actually. Funny.”
He was quiet for a few minutes afterward, brooding on some other unspoken memory that he clearly didn’t want to share.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to monopolize the conversation.”
“You didn’t. It just makes me want to see it with you.”
“It’s not much. Food and a view, that’s all. Maybe one day I’ll show you.”
“Show me now,” I said without thinking.
I couldn’t help it. It was Sunday. Florence could wait a few more hours if this sense of ease could continue.
Matthew looked at me and grinned. “All right, doll. I will.”
After parking at the top of Riomaggiore, we changed into more appropriate walking attire and then scrambled down the steep streets of the tiny city until we reached the deli from Matthew’s recollections. (“It’s still here!” he hooted in triumph.) We bought the exact same meal he described and enjoyed it atop one of the huge slanted rocks jutting out over the water. It wasn’t exactly the balmy summer sunset from his last trip, as the wind forced us to bundle up in our coats. But my belly was warm with food and something else by the end of it. Something that seemed quietly like happiness.
We decided to walk the main trail along the cliffs to the next few towns over, exploring first Manarola and Corniglia. We found ourselves in Vernazza after the path popped us into the town center next to a jumble of brightly painted fishing boats and a church just after they had let out the afternoon Mass.
“Do you mind?” Matthew asked, nodding toward the open doors. “I won’t be long. It is Sunday.”
“I’ll come with you,” I said and followed him into the small medieval basilica.
Our footsteps echoed on the stone floors. Matthew dipped his fingers into water in the font by the entrance and crossed himself, then quickly found a row about halfway to the altar, touched his right knee to the ground, then slid into the pew. I followed, but by the time we were both seated, he had already arranged himself on the kneeler and folded his hands in prayer over the top of the pew in front of us. His lips moved wordlessly, but otherwise he was still, head bowed, eyes closed.
I sat back, content to look around like the other tourists who had ventured in while parishioners were still praying or lighting candles on a stand near a small wood confessional box. It was a relatively simple church compared to some of the much more ornate cathedrals in
Europe—a traditional basilica in the shape of a cross, where the seating was arranged between rows of thick columns of crooked limestone bricks that matched the walls, upon which hung small carved pieces of Catholic iconography, the largest of which was a prominent and bloody crucifix.
And still, for all its humble appearance, there was something quite beautiful about the place. As I watched dust swirl in a stream of light shining through one of the small arched windows, I was struck with awe. There was something sacred about this place and others like it that people erected for nothing more than a spirit they believed in. Whether or not I thought that spirit, that God was real, I did believe their faith—Matthew’s faith—was worth honoring.
Beside me, Matthew crossed himself again, then sat back on the pew with me.
“Better now?” I whispered.
He flashed another heart-stopping grin. “Much. Thanks for humoring me, doll.”
“What do you say when you pray?” I wondered quietly when he relaxed against the hard wooden back. I had never done it myself, unless you counted the services I’d been forced to endure a handful of times at First Presbyterian Church.
“Oh, the usual stuff,” he said, watching a clergy member walk around the church, nodding to a few people, speaking quietly to others. “If I’m doing penance, then there are the standard Hail Marys, Our Fathers, Glory Bes and all that. But when I’m on my own, I pray for my grandfather’s soul, and for my father’s too. For Nonna, my sisters and their families; for my friends, some of them. And I pray for my mother and the grace to forgive her.”
I opened my mouth to ask more about that. Matthew never really talked about his mother, who had essentially left him and his sisters after the car crash that had taken their father. But I knew those wounds ran deep. And I could understand that. I too had a parent who had abandoned me as a child. I knew what it was like to have someone who was supposed to love you the most leave you to the wolves.
The Honest Affair (Rose Gold Book 3) Page 13