Chapter Twelve Guinevere #2
“I called Raffa that day,” she continued, staring down at our hands and then offering me a thin smile. “He knew the moment I said hello that something was wrong, mostly because I had been avoiding his calls until then. Somehow, I didn’t cry when I told him what Umberto had done.”
“He must have been furious,” I murmured. “What did he do?”
“He told me to check into a hotel, where a doctor he trusted would meet me to do an exam. He said not to waste time on packing anything, to get out of the house as fast as I could. When the doctor came, he was holding a plane ticket and my passport. I caught a night flight out of Naples to London, and Renzo and Carmine were waiting for me at the airport.”
At my frown, she huffed out a breathy laugh. “Raffa wasn’t there because he was already on a flight to Naples. By the time he came home two days later, I had been honorably discharged from the armed forces, and Umberto was dead.”
Her stare burned into mine, holding my gaze without flinching. She had her chin tipped, eyes narrowed, shoulders squared as if she was daring me to come for her or Raffa.
“Depending on your perspective, Raffa could be seen as the hero or the villain of that story,” she said in a low hiss that undercut the cacophony of chatter at the table.
“The truth is, he’s often both, or one in order to be the other.
Life is so much more complicated than slotting people into boxes, don’t you think? ”
I swallowed, my dry throat clicking. “Yes.”
“Don’t give him hope if you don’t mean it,” she said, kinder this time even though she took her hand from mine. “He deserves someone who is willing to be both the hero and the villain for him as well.”
I nodded a little woodenly as Martina turned away to accept a platter of papa al pomodoro. She ignored me completely as she filled her plate, and I mutely did the same, layering the ceramic with fragrant Tuscan delicacies that made my mouth water even as my stomach was tied in knots.
“Stai bene, cerbiatta mia?” Raffa asked, sliding a palm over my thigh under the table.
I nodded, summoning a thin facsimile of a smile to my face. “Yes, tired. But happy to be a part of this.”
Raffa’s answering grin was small but genuine, a closed-mouth curling of that firm pink mouth. Without thinking, I reached out to press my thumb to his lips.
When he arched his brow, I answered the unspoken question. “I like the shape of your smile.”
“Bene,” he responded against my finger. “Because this smile is only ever for you.”
My heart throbbed like a wound in my chest at his words. His eyes crinkled as the smile deepened before he bit the tip of my thumb and then leaned back to raise his wineglass.
Even when he turned to talk to Renzo again, he kept one hand on my thigh, eating his dinner with only the right.
After everyone had finished, a group stood from the table to set up a makeshift stage for their band.
I watched in awe as five men set up and started to play using an interesting mix of guitar, bass, flute, drum, and violin.
To my surprise and joy, Angela Romano stood up to take the microphone, launching into a smoky version of “O sole mio.”
“May I interest you in a dance?”
I blinked before looking over my shoulder at Leo, who stood with his hand extended and a slightly sheepish smile on his face. Raffa squeezed my thigh, drawing my attention, and inclined his head as if to encourage me to dance with his friend if I wanted to.
I didn’t, not really, but I figured it would be rude to refuse, so I slipped my hand into Leo’s and stood up.
He grinned as he led me to the section of the stone terrace where a few other people had started to dance, including Stacci and Emiliano. With sinuous grace, Leo pulled me into his arms and moved us into a simple box step.
He smelled good, like expensive cologne, and even among the candle flames and twinkling strands of lights poorly illuminating the space, his blond hair glittered like gold.
I was sure most people thought Leo was handsome and charming, but I was still wary around him.
Though I knew he was making an effort for Raffa’s sake, I still wondered if he didn’t like me very much.
He had been kind to me during the grape picking earlier that day, trying to joke with me about Italian traditions and American slang, but the rapport was not as natural as it was between me and the rest of Raffa’s crew.
Maybe we had too much baggage to ever truly be friends for our own sake instead of Raffa’s.
It was strange that Raffa, dark and intense looking, with a permanent scowl and guarded personality, could have made me feel so much more comfortable even from the beginning.
“Raffa told me he calls you his fawn,” he said with a wan smile. “But that recently, he is trying to convince you to become a huntress.”
“Yes. He wants me to stay, and the only way that is possible is if I embrace the darkness in myself as well as him. In order to survive all this,” I said with an inelegant wave of my hand to encompass everything and everyone around us.
His small smile was twisted. “He’s right. I called the woman I love my little dove. But doves are too easily caught in cages and kept as pets. You want to be something strong enough to break free.”
I could imagine Leo calling his lover something so romantic. Despite our chilly beginnings, it was clear to see he was handsome and personable enough to have nearly any woman he wanted.
“I wanted to apologize again for the night in Impruneta,” he said quietly, real distress marring his brow. “I truly thought you would find something lovely on top of the bell tower, and instead you found only danger and death.”
I shivered at the memory of killing that man, the lack of resistance as my shove forced him back over the half wall into open air.
“You are very brave,” he continued solemnly. “Brave enough to stand with Raffa against whatever comes, I think. He deserves that.”
I swallowed thickly, because he was right about Raffa’s merit, but I was not so sure I was strong enough to take whatever chaos would come, even though I wanted to be. The face of the man on the bell tower haunted my dreams.
“Ludo told me your family is originally from Tuscany.”
I was surprised by the non sequitur but nodded. “My father’s family, though I don’t know exactly from where. My mother’s people were Albanian.”
“Is that what brought you to Italy? A desire to know where you come from?” His voice was innocent, but his body was stiff as we danced.
He was a big guy, leaner than Raffa but just as tall, and it hurt my neck to look up at him, so I settled for looking straight ahead instead. His shirt was unbuttoned to the top of his chest, and the corner of a tattoo scrawled in black ink peeked out beneath the blue fabric.
“Mostly,” I agreed.
He waited for me to go on, but I didn’t.
Leo hadn’t liked me from the start, so there was no way I was opening up to him.
“Ludo was having trouble searching for information,” he continued conversationally. “He said you only knew your father’s birth name was Mariano Giovanni. I suggested he might have translated his Italian last name to the English equivalent.”
“Oh, that’s actually a good idea,” I said, brightening. “Sasso isn’t that common a last name either.”
“No,” he agreed. “It isn’t. But there are many ways to say ‘stone’ in Italian. Sasso, roccia, masso—”
“May I cut in?”
Raffa’s uncle and Leo’s adoptive father, Tonio, stood beside us with a pleasant smile on his creased face.
The only resemblance he had to Leo was the same pale-blue eyes; otherwise, he was a blandly handsome man, with a tanned complexion and a thin mouth that became lovely when he smiled.
He might once have shared Leo’s golden hair, but his pate was bald and shiny now, speckled with age spots.
We hadn’t spoken properly at all, so I was surprised by his request, but Leo seemed overly irritated by it. He tried to move me into dancing again as he shook his head at his dad.
“No, we were just in the middle of enjoying Angela.”
As if on cue, Raffa’s mother finished the song and bowed at the influx of applause before handing the microphone over to another woman.
“She’s finished, and I would love a dance with the woman who has stolen my nephew’s heart,” he insisted, stepping closer so that Leo had to let me go in order to move out of the way.
I let Tonio take my hand and touch my hip, keeping a respectable distance between us as a new song started, and he swept me deftly away from his son, who stood staring at us from the dance floor with his jaw ticking.
“You speak Italian, don’t you, cara?” he asked, and then shifted into the other language when I nodded. “Well, it is good to finally have a moment to get to know the woman who has taken Raffa by storm.”
I arched a brow in an imitation of Raffa’s haughty disbelief. “Hardly by storm. He helped me when I was down on my luck, and we became . . . friends.”
“Friends do not look at one another the way he looks at you,” Tonio said with a sly smile and touch to the side of his nose.
When I opened my mouth to argue, he spun me purposefully so that I could see Raffa standing by the side of the dance floor with his arms crossed, ostensibly talking to a few young men from the village as his eyes tracked me darkly across the terrace.
He looked voracious, like a man who had not eaten in weeks, despite the fact that we’d just finished a Tuscan feast.
Even though he’d just filled me with cum an hour earlier, the remnants of which were still damp on the insides of my thighs beneath my dress.
“You are the first woman who has ever stood a chance of taking him away from it all,” Tonio continued, as if we were having a two-sided conversation.
I frowned, stumbling a bit so that I stepped on his foot. “I’m sorry.”
“Do not worry, dear,” he said with a big smile. “It can’t be surprising to hear what you must know. Raffa would give it all up for you, I’m sure.”