Chapter 32
Ten months later.
I stretched my arms, up before my phone alarm, per usual. I jumped out of bed, the hardwood floor cool beneath my feet. I opened my shades and looked out into the busy Seattle street.
The sign for the Holiday Apartments sparkled in the fog. Someone had put up Christmas Lights. I wondered if it was an attempt to draw attention to the vacancy sign out front. My phone beeped. It was Leo.
This place is fucking cold. I thought you were picking me up at the airport?
I typed back.
Look for the driver
I put on one of my favorite dresses. Odessa encouraged me to show off my curves more, and I’d been working out with Shea ever since I’d agreed to take a room here. In Seattle, I exchanged the winding streets of Venice for the flat circular walking path around Green Lake.
I opened my laptop for a quick video chat with the team in Venice. A few seconds of a wagon wheel and there was Roberto on screen.
“Ciao, Bella,” he said. “How are things in that frozen tundra.”
“It’s not a tundra,” I said, used to his teasing. “It’s quite temperate and I firmly believe the people who live here tell lies about the weather to keep people like you from moving here.”
He laughed. “Okay, so let’s go through the numbers.”
Roberto managed the Mia Sorella in Venice as well as our Florence property. My mother promoted Paolo and gave him oversight of the property in Milan. Auntie Aurora still managed Andiamo and Lissa was the head of operations for Bella Baci. I was the brand and face in North America.
“Has Leo arrived?” Roberto asked.
“Not yet. Where is Lissa? Is she joining the call?”
“Morning sickness,” Roberto said, wiping his eyes. “Bella, the twins are going to be born in about three months and I am terrified. Lissa is like a moody mama bear already, too hot, too cold.” He’d dropped his voice to a whisper.
“I heard that!” Lissa called. Her lovely and round shape come into view. “I’m a goddamn bitch, Bella,” she said. “Who knew that making two humans in my belly would take so much work.”
“Yes, darling,” Roberto said.
“I am making humans,” Lissa said, her hands landing on the blue Murano heart around her neck. “Not just one, but two. Two humans, Roberto.”
“I know, my love.” Roberto leaned over and kissed her temple, his eyes meeting mine on the screen, wide eyed. He mouthed the word “help.”
Lissa saw it and laughed, playfully swatting him and following it up with a kiss.
“Is Leo there yet?” Lissa said.
“No, he arrives this afternoon. I sent a car for him.”
“He has the samples.” Lissa played with her necklace, resting the other hand on her enormous belly. “How did the meeting with the buyers at Nordstrom go?”
“They would like to feature Bella Baci in their holiday catalog,” I said, grinning. Bella Baci now shipped internationally.
“Perfect,” Lissa said. “After this shipment, I am going to have these babies and we are all going to go on holiday.”
“Are you on with Bella?” I heard my mother’s voice in the background. “I told you to interrupt my show.”
“Ciao, Maria,” Roberto said, rolling his eyes. “Can you see what you’ve left me with here? Managing these women.”
“And you are managing them well,” I said. Sitting at my desk in my new apartment talking to my family back home, I loved my new life.
The blue lagoons of Venice would forever be in my heart, but so were the foggy gray skies of Seattle outside my window. Making the decision to leave Venice had been one of the hardest things I’d ever done, and the best.
“Are you eating?” my mother asked. “You look thinner. Please don’t tell me you are turning into a vegan or doing that no-glooobie thing.”
“It’s Gluten,” I said. “Some people can’t eat it, Mama.”
“Nonsense.” She pushed her small round face in between Roberto and Lissa. “There is no such thing as a gluten problem. We Italians eat it all the time, and we have no trouble. The government wants you to think there is trouble.”
“Okay, Mama,” I said, laughing. “Is Papa there?”
“No, he left for Milan yesterday. I’m going to join him later this week.”
My parents were still together and my father and I had started the process of healing our relationship. “Tell him I love him,” I said.
“I will, my darling.”
I heard keys jingle at the door. “I’ve got to go,” I said. “The driver is here with Leo.”
“All right, amore,” my mother said. “When are you coming home?”
“Carnival, Mama,” I said. “You know I wouldn’t miss it.”
“I love you, my darling.”
I disconnected the call. The door opened and Leo walked inside. Behind him stood my driver, Dylan.
“Hello baby,” Dylan said. He walked across the room and gave me a long slow kiss.
Dylan was writing music again and working on his first solo album as Dylan Street. Of course, he bought a music studio in Fremont because he could, but I did convince him to rent an apartment like a normal person.
“But I’m not a normal person, Bella,” he’d said, sighing.
“And that’s what I love about you.”
We spent most nights together, but I wanted to have my own space too. Strand was not as well known in Seattle as in Europe or Los Angeles, so we were able to walk around Seattle incognito.
Once or twice, someone recognized Dylan, as the unmasking of Strand went viral on YouTube. But like everything else, the news carried on, and soon the world was talking about other celebrities behaving badly.
Fans still swarmed Dylan from time to time, but recently, I’d gotten stopped by a woman while walking around Green Lake who had read about my company in a small business journal. It seemed we were both building our own celebrity following.
Leo grinned and dropped his bags. “Am I staying here?” He looked around my small apartment. “There’s no room for both me and my bag, Bella.”
“You are in a spare bedroom next door, but come hug me,” I said, jumping to my feet. “I am sure you’re exhausted. I made coffee.”
“If you give me coffee in a paper cup, I may just die,” Leo said.
“We would not dream of it. Let me make you a proper drink.” Dylan kissed the top of my head as he passed by on his way into my tiny kitchen.
“Lissa has messaged me three times,” said Leo. “She wants me to show you the latest samples. She says it’s important that you see them before you go to the buying season in New York.” Leo scrolled through his phone.
“We leave tomorrow,” I said. “So, good timing.”
“Ahhh look.” Leo, cocked his head to the side and held up his phone. It was a picture of Ari blowing a kiss. When Leo touched it a series of big, colored hearts moved across the screen. “Ari made me a kiss video,” he said. “I love that big snuggle bear.”
“And he loves you,” I said. Leo had not stopped glowing since the night he started officially dating Ari at the Eros Crossing Ball.
Leo opened his bag. He took out three jewel toned boxes and set them on the table. “The new boxes,” he said.
“I love them.”
“Shhhh,” he said, “Wait for it.”
He opened the lid, revealing a Murano glass ornament hanging from a thin gold string inside the top of the box. The glass was solid, but small and thin enough to lay flat. It was a circle of color, and inside you could see the faint gold lines of a mask.
“Limited edition,” Leo said. “For the holidays.”
“Are these necklaces yours?” I asked, touching the glass charm.
“Well, yes.” He grinned. “I did the prototypes, and I have an army of people ready to make more. If you approve, by the end of the month we should be able to match normal production numbers, box for box.”
“These are extraordinary,” I said. “We need to call these, the Bella Baci ‘Hidden Mask.’ It’s perfect.”
Dylan stood behind us in the kitchen sipping coffee from one of the small espresso cups that he’d insisted we pack from Venice. “It’s bloody gorgeous,” he said. Catching my eye, he mouthed the words “like you.”
He handed Leo a cup.
“So, you like them?” Leo said. “Because this is your company.”
“It’s our company,” I said. “I approve.”
“Oh, thank God because I greenlit production yesterday.” Leo laughed and exhaled, taking a sip of his espresso. “We already have three big orders from the Christmas markets in Milano.”
Dylan handed me an espresso and raised his cup so we could toast. “To Bella Baci,” he said.
Someone knocked on the door. “Answer it,” I said to Leo. “It’s your American girlfriend.” I had immediately recognized the vibrancy of Odessa’s knock.
Leo opened the door and Odessa jumped into his arms, kissing both of his cheeks. “My gay Italian boyfriend is here,” she said. “Oh, I’ve missed you.”
“And I you.” Leo glanced over his shoulder. “I need to go spend some time with my best most fashionable girlfriend.”
“Of course.” I laughed.
“Where is Shea?” He asked.
“She and Troy are in Eastern Washington doing some sort of extreme run. She is running, and Troy is checking in on the Salishan winery.”
Dylan raised his eyebrows and nudged me at the mention of the winery.
“It is a lovely place,” I said, sipping my espresso.
“Wouldn’t you all say it’s perfect for a wedding?” Dylan said.
“I don’t know,” I said, acting coy.
“I was asking Odessa,” Dylan said.
“It’s amazing,” Odessa said, “but you know, so are the beaches of Sayulita.”
“And what about the bridges of Venice?” Leo grinned.
“You all are impossible.” I laughed.
Odessa ushered Leo outside. I stood beside Dylan, his arm snaking around my waist.
“It’s nine in the morning ,and I haven’t asked you yet,” he said.
“Oh, is it?”
I turned and looked at him, this gorgeous, chiseled man who made my body feel like a goddess. Nights with Dylan had only become hotter. Our bodies moved in sync now with the fire and passion we’d discovered in Venice.
We spoke the same language when we moaned. There was an intimacy and deepness in the way we loved each other that took my breath away.
Dylan kept his promise. It was a promise he held sacred ever since our wedding night in Carnival, a promise we invoked every time we tumbled beneath the sheets or kissed under the stars.
I loved this man with every fiber of my being. He was my lover, my partner, my soulmate.
My husband.
“Isabella Carmen Uzano, will you marry me today?”
“Yes, my husband, I will marry you today,” I whispered.
“And tomorrow?”
“And tomorrow.”
“And the next day.”
He lifted me in the air and carried me toward my bedroom, toward our bed. He lay me down on the sheets and gently slid me out of my clothes.
And with his lips, with his tongue, with his body, I loved him and took him inside me, my body saying “I do” with every kiss.
THE END