Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Bianca
I stand in the doorway a second because my brain needs a moment to register.
I’m in a guest room. In Giovanni’s house.
I didn’t even know he had a house here. I thought: hotel for him, my apartment for me. Then we’d meet up at the end of the week to fly back.
Not… this.
Not staying in his damn house.
In Giovanni’s house.
I shake my head to snap myself out of the loop before it consumes me again.
I look around the room.
The room is grand without trying. Old lathe and plaster washed the color of cream. A ceiling framed in dark beams. Floors in broad oak boards, worn to satin. A bed that could stage a small wedding. High, ironwork headboard, white linen stacked deep and thick.
French doors stand open to a balcony; a sheer curtain moves in the draft.
Beyond: rows and rows of vines marching away under a moon that makes everything silver.
He owns a vineyard. Right here. In Bologna. Where I live. Where I work as a professional chef, for the love of God.
How the hell did I not know this?
I set my bag on a bench at the foot of the bed and just… stare. A low dresser, handsome and old. A standing mirror with a foxed edge.
On the nightstand: a carafe of water with two glasses and a small bowl of apricots. A slim book sits on it: a Bologna city history in Italian. What would I ever need that for? Did they get many guests staying here who are interested in the history of Bologna and know Italian?
The lamp throws a circle of warm light across the bed and floor. No clutter. No hotel art. Real art. Chosen and curated.
My fingers find the door handle behind me and test the swing once. It closes softly. The lock clicks with a strong, confident sound. I’m not scared; I’m… aware. Of him in another room nearby. The thought makes heat crawl up my neck as if I stood too close to a stove.
I cross to the balcony and step out. Night is cool and a little damp.
Below, gravel paths are braided between beds of rosemary and sage, giving off a delightful aroma; the herbs are dark mounds against pale stone.
Farther out, the vineyard drops away into orderly stripes.
A small light glows by a low outbuilding.
Maybe a bottling shed, maybe something else.
Somewhere, an owl keeps asking me who? Who?
All I want to know is how. How the hell did I get myself into this?
I pull the sheer curtain aside and come back in, toes already cold from the tile.
There’s a bathroom through a pocket door.
Marble sink, big shower, towels rolled in a basket, a small vase with two sprigs of olive.
The mirror shows a face that’s been up too long, hair in a quick bun that didn’t survive the flight, skin a shade paler from airplane air.
I head to the shower and turn it on before walking back out to the room for my bag.
Twenty minutes later, I walk out wearing pajamas and feeling more human.
The house is quiet in a way hotels never are. No elevators dinging. No neighbors fighting through a wall. No kids running up and down the hall, laughing maniacally.
Just the sound of an old house settling in the night. The silence is deafening. It makes me more aware than ever of Giovanni in another room somewhere nearby.
I sit on the bench and open my bag. Charger, a pair of socks, the little zip with moisturizer and lip balm, and the tiny vial of perfume that goes back and forth with me. I set my phone on the nightstand.
A message to my mother is already drafted: “Landed. Fine. Will talk to you tomorrow.” I almost write that I’m staying at Giovanni’s house, but stop. That will invite questions I don’t have the energy to answer. Instead, I send: “Buonanotte, Mamma.”
I hate that my brain pictures him without permission.
Is he sleeping? Or is he awake and thinking of me?
Or other things? Is he in bed? His throat bare where he leaves his shirt open—maybe no shirt at all—sheets low, the lines of him defined.
The way his hand felt braced on my waist when he caught me before I tipped off a stool.
The thumb on my cheek in the kitchen last week.
The kiss I keep refusing to think about and keep thinking about anyway.
No. I shut that drawer hard.
Plan. Tomorrow I go speak to Chef Sorrentino, then to my apartment. I open, I air out, I pack what I can in the short time I have. I collect my knives. I keep my head down in a house full of temptation and wine.
I walk to the balcony, close the doors, and latch them. Then I round back to the door leading to the hallway and double-check that lock too.
I climb into a bed that is exactly the right kind of firm and smells faintly like sun-dried cotton. The pillow is cool. My body sighs into it immediately.
I turn the lamp off and listen to the night.
Nothing but my own breath and the wind.
“Goodnight,” I tell the empty room, and then I let the jet lag take me.