Chapter 12 Home is Where the Heart is
Home is Where the Heart is
Aria Amora
Afast, sexy red car with dark tinted windows waited for Rocco and me at the airport. Painted on the lower side of the driver’s door was the Fausti emblem. I wondered for a second if the lion was done in real gold and the rosary in real silver.
A crisp wind blew, and I turned my face toward it. My hair rustled behind me as autumn leaves trembled around my feet. My long, caramel-colored trench coat took off with my hair, and I secured the belt around my waist before I closed my eyes and breathed in the scent of the smoky air.
The colors of fall were all around me, and I couldn’t wait for Rocco to open my door, help me inside the car, and get racing so I could see more of my new home.
Yes, home.
I’d always consider New Orleans home, but…
I knew the moment I stepped off the plane, my husband’s hand in mine, that his home in Tuscany would be my forever home from that point forward.
I knew how much he loved Tuscany, his winery, and maybe because I was in love with how much he loved it, it already felt like home to me too.
The feeling went past bone.
It was like the first time my fingers touched the keys to write our love story, before I’d ever met him. The first time my eyes met Rocco’s. The first time I saw my wedding dress, saw him as my husband.
When you know, you know, and I knew Tuscany was going to be the new background to our love story.
A place we would live in and love for years to come.
A place we would return to after visiting other places, and even though we’d enjoy our time, we’d be glad to be home—sleeping in our bed, our own pillows and blankets, cooking in our kitchen, watching as the seasons changed from the many windows.
Call it a hunch, but I could already picture our home in the Tuscan hills.
Rocco pulled me in by the belt around my waist, kissing me passionately on the lips, before he helped me into the car. Pisolino jumped in the back seat, and Rocco closed the door.
My eyes instinctively followed the man fixing his suit as he made his way to the driver’s side door.
It lifted and he slipped inside, then closed with a wave of his hand.
The interior was filled with the toasted scent of pumpkin leaves and emerald gourds, his rich cologne and hair products, and his power…
yes, to me, power had a scent, and it clung to Rocco Fausti like it was part of his natural makeup.
I imagined it was all that beautiful, truthful, courageous blood pumping through his veins.
Sighing, I turned away from the real scenery, my husband, and stared out the window.
He had to be traveling at an obscene speed around twists and turns that snaked in the hills, but I was still catching glimpses of the season turning hillsides, some full of terracotta leaves and pastel grass, and some that reminded me of oatmeal, pink apples, cinnamon, and cream.
Lifting my hands, I admired the nail job Violet had done.
After the concert, she said she wasn’t ready to stop partying, so…
we all went shopping at an all-night pharmacy for nail polish.
She gave us all manicures and pedicures while the men sat outside and smoked cigars and drank whiskey.
I went with a color like ripe figs, more on the purple side of the color wheel.
I was in my feminine era, and the color suited me and the new season upon us.
Rocco pressed a button on the steering wheel, and the dash lit up before a seductive female voice whispered, “When I Fall in Love,” and we were serenaded by Nat King Cole.
She almost purred it out. I lifted an eyebrow at Rocco and he grinned, lifting my hand to his mouth, as the romantic song began to serenade us.
Some of the faded green hills tilted in the distance, and rows and rows of amber-colored grape leaves rustled with the Tuscana wind.
Tall but thin cypress trees shimmered with the oncoming cold.
In the distance, some near and some far, were stone villas, some sand colored, some chestnut colored, with all different colored shutters.
They had probably been standing since Medieval times.
I rolled my window down when I heard a church bell ringing. The sound of it echoed for what seemed like miles, and I closed my eyes, squeezing my husband’s hand.
It felt like a welcome home gesture.
I took a deep breath in, and it easily flowed out of my mouth.
No weight to it.
No labored breathing.
No trembling inside of my chest.
The world, my world, just felt…right, at least for that one moment in time.
It was a foreign feeling that I instantly fell into, like a soft cloud at my back.
Even though I loved my grandparents with all I had, I never truly had a complete moment where the world just seemed…
perfect. Maybe because I had to experience Rocco and his love to have the piece that completed it all for me.
My other half that made me whole.
The rest of life?
Lagniappe, as people in New Orleans would say when something was given as a bonus.
Rocco slowed then stopped for a flock of sheep to cross the road.
They didn’t seem to be in a hurry, and neither was I as I waved to the man crossing the street with them.
He smiled at me and tipped his hat, then he tipped it to Rocco.
Rocco acknowledged it with a tip of his own, and when he pulled off, I covered my mouth with my hands, then shouted, “I love it here!”
Rocco’s smile could’ve lit up the darkest depths of the sea, and when another song began to play, this time a male voice whispered, “(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons,” by Nat King Cole, Rocco cleared his throat and tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
“From this moment forward, the musica will play without introduction.”
“No voice then?”
“Perhaps only yours, ah?”
“Ah,” I breathed out in agreement, and a grin lit up my face. “Maybe for some of the songs you can announce them?”
He chuckled. “Sì.” He lifted my hand, moving the emerald, diamond, and ruby bracelets he’d bought me to match the band on my right hand, along with a watch encrusted with diamonds, and kissed over my pulse.
Only him and I.
Rocco smoothly turned into a long drive, dust floating behind us, as the (race?) car climbed the steep driveway without a whisper of complaint.
It reminded me of a sexy cat that ate up the distance with its dangerous speed.
My actual cat, Pisolino, stared out the window as if he were a dog, watching as the scenery passed by.
The turn toward home made my curiosity pique, just as it did Pisolino’s, and my eyes almost devoured the land. The scene almost felt as if it was a dramatic song, and this was the crescendo of it. I felt breathless, almost strangling my husband’s hand.
The land was already getting to my heart, which was beating as fast as it was the first time I found Rocco standing in the window of the seaside castello on the island.
I hadn’t even seen him yet then, as I hadn’t seen his actual home yet, but I knew without a doubt that anywhere with him would be my home.
On each side of the rising driveway, a line of cypress trees kowtowed to the wind, and for as far as the eye could see, the land spread out in a rolling manner that belonged to the grapes my husband cherished so much. The ones my eyes found first were purple, hidden underneath amber-colored leaves.
The land opened, accommodating an enormous villa hidden by more cypress trees, and ones that I didn’t have a name for. Their leaves were turning the same color as the grape leaves around the home itself.
The villa was made of apricot stone and had black shutters. Three arched windows were on the second level, and above them were what reminded me of lion door knockers, but imprinted in stone. The gardens surrounding the villa reminded me of a labyrinth, ancient statues included.
This was no mere villa—it was a luxury estate with a winery.
My husband came to a complete stop, as smooth as if the car had been in park, as dust clouded before it settled around us. I leaned forward a little, my eyes trying to take in the humungous property.
Rocco studied me.
After a few moments, he opened his door, fixed his suit, and walked around to my side.
He opened my door, offering me his hand to take.
I did without hesitation, even if his…home was a bit overwhelming.
I wasn’t sure if I was going to get lost inside of it.
I’d never lived in a…place of that size before.
He untied the belt of my coat, sliding his massive warm hands against the pale plum sweater dress I wore. His hands slipped even further down, against my waist, before they landed on my hips. He pulled me in, and I gasped.
“Share with me all that you are thinking and feeling, my wife, about your new home.”
“Our home,” I whispered.
“You melt my heart,” he whispered in Italian.
My eyes locked on the villa. “It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen, Rocco.
” And I wasn’t understating it. I just…I saw him in something different.
I knew it fit his role in the family, but I was thinking of him.
He was passionate about his grapes and wine making, something he seemed to enjoy doing in the time he had to himself, but the estate…
it was gorgeous, of course it was, and more than any “normal” person could even dream of, but again, it seemed almost… lonely.
Not as cold as the villa on the sea on Aria Island, not as burning hot as the mansion in Maranello, but…just there. It almost reminded me of a tourist attraction, and when I looked into my husband’s eyes, my heart broke for the umpteenth time.
He was exactly that his entire life.
A mere attraction to women.
A mere solider for the family.
I wrapped my arms around him, squeezing so tightly, he made a breathless noise. Not that I’d had stolen his breath, literally, but someplace deeper.