Chapter 31
trentuno
Just as Francesca was loading the last of the dishes into the dishwashers at ten o’clock that evening, her phone buzzed in her apron pocket. With service done and Maria on her way upstairs to bed, it was just her and Elena still pottering around.
She reached into her pocket and found a message from Alessio: Come to the terrazzo when you’re done, per favore. Need your opinion on something.
She could only imagine that he had lost himself upstairs in that ill-equipped little terrace kitchen of hers.
Was he stress-cooking? Was he experimenting with pasta shapes in a last-ditch effort to prepare for tomorrow’s huge second round?
Perhaps the pressure of tomorrow had finally hit him and he was panicking?
Remembering how triggering he had found the thought of setting foot back in the kitchen at all, she thought it best to hurry Elena along to bed, too.
‘Alessio is asking for help,’ she said, holding up her phone. ‘Will you be able to . . .?’
‘Go. I can’t use my arms, but I have my hands. I can lock up. But can you help me with these buttons first? The angle is awkward.’ She gestured to her black cropped-sleeve button-down cardi. ‘Just in case Mamma is asleep by the time I get up there.’
Francesca slipped her phone down her top and untied her apron, looping it over the hook on the wall by the saloon doors.
‘Sure.’ She turned and stepped forward, catching the first of Elena’s buttons between her fingers.
Francesca undid it, then the next, and another two, revealing a soft pink cotton camisole underneath.
Colour. She’s wearing colour! Her mourning black . . .
A fizz of delight bubbled in Francesca’s chest and she bit down on her lower lip with a firm press of her teeth to mask the overwhelming sensation.
Should she say something? Should she acknowledge this enormous shift? Or would that simply draw attention to something Elena perhaps wasn’t ready to speak about?
Francesca swallowed. ‘Is this fine?’ She let the cardigan fan delicately open.
‘Yes. Thank you.’ Something softened behind Elena’s eyes, and it teased the echo of a smile across her cheeks.
‘The pink . . .’ Francesca nodded humbly. ‘It looks lovely on you.’
‘Baby steps, Cesca. They’re all I can take.’
‘Take them one at a time.’ She gave her mother a gentle kiss on the cheek. ‘Buonanotte, Mamma.’
‘Buonanotte. And whatever it is Alessio needs help with, remind him about tomorrow. He needs to rest.’
‘He knows, Mamma.’ With a kind smile, she left.
The long day on her feet and worry about tomorrow’s proceedings suddenly caught up with Francesca, and she felt tired as she pulled herself up the ladder.
But the scene that awaited her on the terrazzo stole the breath from her lungs.
‘Ah, you’re here. Welcome.’ Alessio stood from his perch on the lounger and made his way over to her.
‘What is all this?’
Illuminated by strings of festoon lights, Alessio had transformed the terrazzo into a makeshift cinema.
The lounger was decorated with cushions and blankets from her apartment, and he had pegged one of the bedsheets to the retractable washing line as an improvised screen, weighed down at the lower corners by well-placed saucepans.
Over his shoulder Francesca noted their projector from the restaurant storeroom, blasting a dust-catching beam of light onto the bedsheet. It took her a moment to realise that it was actually projecting the opening shot of a film frozen on the cotton, billowing ever so gently in the light breeze.
Ma no . . .
She clasped her hands over her mouth, and behind them she gasped, ‘Cinema Paradiso . . .’
Alessio closed the gap between them and caught her waist in his hands. ‘I promised we wouldn’t go to the cinema, but not that the cinema wouldn’t come to us.’ His game face was replaced by a sheepish smile, and she reached out to playfully grab his nose.
‘Ale . . .’
‘Tonight is about us. For us to have some time to explore this.’
She melted as his right hand crept around her back and trailed a seductive line up her spine, pulling her in more tightly.
This close she could smell that he was freshly showered, that soapy clean kick tangled with his crisp cologne.
She allowed her tired eyes to close, and he pressed his lips gently to hers.
‘Would you like to be my date tonight?’ he eventually asked.
‘Ale . . . this is too much.’ She turned and gestured to the magical scene. ‘You are too sweet and kind.’
‘It dawned on me today that if we’d gone to the screening, I wouldn’t have been able to make out with you during the credits. So, don’t think me too noble just yet.’
She laughed into his shoulder. Francesca knew they should be focusing on other things.
She knew tomorrow would be a massive day, and rest ought to be their first priority, but this .
. . It was just beyond anything her imagination could conjure.
And on the terrazzo, too, a space that had formerly been only hers, but which she now gladly shared with Alessio.
It was where they had started this journey of closeness.
Their first meal. Their first cooking session.
They had had their ups and downs, their moments of tension, and their first lovemaking.
That mind-blowing, toe-curling sex . . .
Alessio lowered his lips to her ears, and she felt his hot breath caress her cheek. ‘I made snacks. Good snacks.’
‘You know I’m a harsh critic.’
‘You tell me how it is, I know.’
‘How good is “good”?’
He turned her around to face the lounger. ‘See that bowl on the right? That’s full of popcor—’
‘Ma dai! Popcorn is a standard-issue cinema sna—’
He pressed a silencing finger to her lips. ‘Oh no. Nothing standard about my crunchy salted-caramel popcorn. The salt is coarse and plentiful, and from the Adriatic. I made the caramel from the town’s honey. You will recognise the citrus perfume from the local flora.’
Francesca’s eyes widened. ‘Signor Ranieri, you have my attention.’ She pointed to the other bowl. ‘And that is?’
‘Hand-cut potato chips, fried in Impastino’s extra virgin olive oil, dressed generously with crispy parmesan crumbs and lashings of freshly shaved black truffle. Plus thyme sprigs from the garden.’
While she hadn’t arrived on the terrazzo with an appetite, Francesca suddenly found one. ‘And what will you be eating, eh?’
She loved to watch him throw his head back when he laughed. He had done it a few times since his arrival; enough times now to register that it was a rare sign of his genuine joy and release, of elation and letting his guard down. To see him do it now made her want him even more.
Through a cheeky, squinted eye, he said, ‘You’ll be my dessert.’
A bolt of adrenaline shot through her middle, stockpiling between her legs. ‘Alessio!’
‘You complaining?’ He nuzzled her neck, pressing a kiss to her collarbone.
‘Assolutamente no!’
With both arms he lifted her from the ground and tossed her over his shoulder, eliciting a fit of giggles. He gave her bottom a tap, and even through the fine layer of her simple linen dress, she felt the warmth of his hand on her skin. The adrenaline morphed into -delicious throb-bing tingles.
Will we actually watch any of the film?
In the moment it didn’t matter to her if they did or didn’t. Seeing him go to so much trouble for her, to stage such a sweet and thoughtful evening for them to share . . . Well, that was prize enough.
Alessio carefully sat her down on the lounger and, taking her feet one by one, he pulled off her sandals, setting them aside. ‘Signorina Fiore . . .’
‘Sì?’
‘Vino bianco? Vino rosso? Acqua?’
Francesca grinned into her palm and took another look at the irresistible gourmet popcorn, then said, ‘Bianco.’
Alessio raced to the bar fridge and produced two pre-poured glasses of white wine. He returned to her side and passed her one. ‘You would have broken the spell if you’d chosen the red or water.’
Francesca’s sultry chocolate eyes simmered. ‘You are the magic here.’ She proffered her glass and they clinked.
Alessio took a sip then turned to face the screen, with Cinema Paradiso’s opening frame still frozen on the sheet.
‘We are actually going to watch this. I had a sneak peek at the trailer on YouTube and I’m sold.
Move over.’ He kneeled on the lounger and sat all the way back, pulling the two bowls of snacks and his wine with him.
‘Come here.’ He beckoned her with an inviting flick of the chin, and she complied.
Gathering her hair as best as she could with her free hand, Francesca said, ‘I hope you take your cinema with a side of curls. They might get in the way.’ She snuggled in beside him, immediately allowing her curves to mould against his form.
With eyes that suddenly filled with deeply concerned sincerity, he said, ‘Your curls are never in the way. They are never too big. Or annoying. So please stop talking about them like that.’ He caught her chin and tilted it to the sky so he could trap her gaze.
‘Please. I think they are beautiful. And you . . .’ He stopped for a second, and Francesca could feel the thump of his heart reverberating through his torso, pressed so closely against her side.
‘You are beyond any kind of gorgeous I have ever come across in my life. Inside and out. So please never sell yourself short.’
Francesca felt everything shift. The sun. The moon. The stars. The pull of the ocean’s tide rippled up through her, sending her blood rushing to her head, only to recede and leave a delicious light-headedness in its wake.
Nothing between them could ever be the same again. Because she didn’t want it to be.
‘Ale . . .’
‘Francesca.’
She turned and tucked her legs under herself on the lounger so she could face him.
With the back of her hand she caressed his cheek, and he returned the gesture, nuzzling into the warmth of her delicate skin.
‘You’re a very generous, caring man. Hearing you say that means a lot.
’ She felt her cheeks warm. ‘Thank you for always being so open with me.’
‘It’s just how I am.’
‘I know.’ She smiled. ‘I appreciate it. And I appreciate you. You are the most delicious man to have ever set foot in my life. Ever. And I don’t say that because of the snacks.’
He chuckled softly. ‘You’re more than welcome.’
Francesca leaned in and the two shared a long, passionate kiss, her curls falling across her shoulders on cue. For the first time ever, she didn’t fight them. She let them dangle by her cheeks, sure Alessio would be feeling them tickle. The moment was liberating. Freeing.
And wrapped in that tender, familiar embrace, their legs tangled, their arms knotted securely, they watched Cinema Paradiso together under the star-studded summer night sky.
It wasn’t until Francesca’s favourite scene – the epic sweeping closer in the dark cinema, a film reel churning out the hypnotic montage of black and white censored kissing scenes to the sound of Ennio Morricone’s iconic, incredibly fitting musical score – that Francesca had a realisation.
I love Alessio.