Chapter 43
Ava
This night will forever be branded on my senses. Every time I hear Phantom of the Opera, I’ll be transported back to this table, the pianos on either side of the square softly pulling the notes of the “Music of the Night” back and forth across the piazza. Every time I see a candle, I’ll be transported to the square, hundreds of arched windows above me, a single flickering flame in each creating the most haunting glow. And every time someone touches me, I’ll feel James’s fingers tracing circles on the inside of my wrist. This night has ruined me.
And the day was no less ruinous.
I climbed books into a bookstore—actual stacks of novels made into a staircase to get inside the most amazing and unorthodox shop I’ve ever seen. Canoes and kayaks hung from the rafters, all inundated with books kept aloft to prevent acqua alta from damaging the goods. It was unreal. Much like the dozens of bridges and alleys James and I wandered down with no place to go and nowhere to be. And dinner—squisito—the word dinner doesn’t do it justice. Mind-numbingly delicious cioppino aside, the setting was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. We ate a foot from a narrow canal, nestled in the archway of the loggia of some ancient building that apparently housed Vivaldi for some time. I couldn’t have invented it if I tried. Walt Disney couldn’t have invented it. The whole day was enchanting. Pure magic.
Through all of it, James smiled beside me, pointing out this or that, explaining some delectable piece of Venetian culture or history, and taking pictures of me like I might float away in the Adriatic with the vaporetti. The way he looks at me now, the candlelight catching the flecks of amber in his dark eyes, makes me want to drag him back to our palazzo and finish what we started today.
“The first time I came here the square was flooded,” James says, tugging me from my trance. “It was up to my knees. There were makeshift plywood bridges and walkways everywhere. It was a mess. The couple I was photographing were so upset.”
“I can imagine. She’d probably bought engagement shoot heels and an adorable dress and had to wear muckers instead,” I say, grimacing at the thought of rubber overalls.
James smiles, and that familiar slow spread of heat creeps through me. I don’t know what it is about his mouth that makes me melt into something resembling the leftover gelato on my plate. Which, if we’re counting, is my fifth gelato today.
“The photos ended up being gorgeous. The candles’ reflections in the floodwater added another dimension to the shoot. It was surreal,” he says, picking up the pitcher of house red and topping off my glass.
“All of your photos are gorgeous, so no surprise there. And everything about Venice is surreal.” I gesture to the crisp white awnings that run around the piazza, then to the bell tower stabbing at the blackness above. “All of this is like a dream.”
James laces his fingers between mine and squeezes my hand as the couple at the table beside us stand to join the others dancing on the gray stones in the middle of the square. It’s all incredibly romantic. The sort of scene you create for yourself to escape to when you’re stuck behind a desk reading case law.
The thought smacks into me so hard I flinch. Is that how I feel? Stuck?
James stands, flicking my inner questioning off into space, and I think he’s going to ask me to dance, but he doesn’t. He tells me he’ll be right back and disappears inside the restaurant leaving me to do my new favorite Italian thing. People watch and drink wine.
The melody shifts to “It’s a Wonderful World,” and I watch an older couple spin slowly, the woman’s gray head bathed in gold as she rests it on the man’s shoulder. They are perfectly at peace; I imagine years of this exact sort of intimacy is ingrained in their movements as they step in unison. Spin in unison—until a random man pushing through the dancers makes them misstep and open their eyes.
I’m vicariously annoyed for them, but they seem less so. They get right back to it while the golden-haired man in a perfectly tailored gray suit doesn’t even spare them a glance. In fact, he spares no one a glance because he’s staring straight at me—heading straight for me. And the warm fuzzy cloud of warmth and beauty that I’m floating on suddenly dissipates into tiny cotton ball–sized puffs that float out over the bell tower into the darkness as the handsome man shoots me a striking smile.
“Buonasera, Ava,” he says when he’s close enough for me to toss a bread stick at.
And the only thing I can manage to say seems to escape from somewhere deep within, my tone so tight it’s barely recognizable.
“What are you doing here, Ethan?”