Chapter Seventeen
SEVENTEEN
DARIO
“How was your night?” Michelle asks, sitting down across from Dario at the patio table for breakfast the next morning.
The rising sun scorches the lawn already with temperatures set to reach thirty-two degrees Celsius.
Over an untouched spread of orange slices, a hardboiled egg and a cappuccino, Dario cools himself with an artisanal fan decorated in a paisley pattern that was once his mother’s prop in an opera, the name of which he’s entirely forgotten.
As a boy, sitting in the darkened auditorium watching his mother perform, he became infatuated with it, and on closing night, his mother gave it to him as a gift.
“A fan for my number one fan,” she said with a kiss on his forehead.
When she’s touring—which she often is—he misses his mother with a childish fervor.
“Va bene,” Dario says, avoiding direct eye contact with Michelle, who carries a yogurt parfait to the table. He worries that she will see in his eyes that he and Charlie had sex last night. Once again, has he crossed an unconscionable line?
Rather than discussing that moral conundrum, they trade pleasantries, such as “How did you sleep?” and “It’s going to be a hot one.” It is a delicate dance of a conversation through which Dario doesn’t want to divulge too much for fear of upset or judgment.
After a while, Michelle pulls a sketchbook, not dissimilar to Charlie’s, out of a bag.
She flips past hundreds of designs for gowns.
Faceless women wear various corsets and veils.
Some have long trains and others show a lot of leg.
They whirl by in blurs of peach and pewter and eggshell until she stops on a page with the barest bones of what appears to be a wedding dress on a not-so-faceless figure.
This individual is Michelle, and the hint she’s giving is unsubtle.
“That is astounding,” he says. Because despite how obvious she’s being, her designs are some of the most beautiful wedding gowns he’s ever seen, and he’s seen a lot of them.
Many of the operas his mother has starred in featured big wedding scenes.
Even the work of top costume designers couldn’t compare to the work in Michelle’s book.
The illustrated Michelle on the page wears a jumpsuit with a train. The neckline plunges deep with an impeccably tailored waist from the back of which a tulle train fans out and flows to the floor. There are notes in the margins about velvet fabric and fuchsia accents.
“Thanks.” She smiles. “Ow.” Her still-healing sunburn crisps up a little more with her furious blush.
“I’ll try not to make you smile anymore today,” Dario says.
“That is impossible,” says Michelle with a laugh that rolls into a snort. She blushes harder. She ows louder. It is all painfully—pun intended—adorable!
Dario stands and comes around the table to claim the seat beside Michelle. “May I see more? How long have you been doing this?” he asks when she slides the book toward him, which feels like her first act of true vulnerability with him. He leisurely pages through.
“Since I was a girl. My mother was a seamstress, and her mother before her. My mother jokes I learned to sew before I learned to write properly. C’est probablement vrai.” Another laugh-snort combo comes out.
“Did they design clothes as well?” he asks.
“Non.” She shakes her head and some of her auburn hair falls out of her loose bun. “This was my, um, how do you say, secret?”
“You kept all of this to yourself?” Dario asks, disbelieving. Her pencil strokes are confident and create sensuous motion on the page. They are a far cry from the person Michelle presents herself to be. Perhaps on the page she releases her inhibitions.
She bites the end of her pencil, then says, “I came from a poor village and an even poorer family. Dreams like designing were not entertained. The seamstress business was good, steady work. I was told to stick to what I was good at.”
Dario stops on a dramatic design in a classical style with lace latticework up the clavicle. “You are very good at this.”
“I am working to be better,” she says. Her midnight blue eyes flitter over the page.
A crinkle appears between her plucked brows.
Her pencil taps the table as if itching to get back to it.
“I am a bit of a slow crafter. I blame my upbringing. I would steal fabric scraps of dresses we’d hemmed and hand-sew them together late at night in my room trying to create something lovely. ”
Her methodology reminds him of how he’s trying to utilize more of the cocoa fruit in his chocolate production. They have similar business minds.
“Surely you had sewing machines at your disposal,” Dario says.
“They were old and loud. I did not want to wake my parents. I couldn’t have them know.
I submitted one of those scrap dresses to design school.
That along with my story got me in and some financial assistance.
I am still a long way from making any of this my career.
” She knocks her knuckle against the side of her sturdy book.
Dario’s heart goes out to her, and her story mule-kicks some much-needed perspective into his head.
All he has to do is marry someone to reap his life’s purpose, while Michelle and Charlie could use a financial boost to reach their potential.
Sure, he doesn’t want the only reason someone marries him to be his money, but he’s not naive enough to believe it won’t be part of it.
What good is wealth if it can’t be used for good?
Maybe Michelle would go on to design costumes for operas and join April Cotogna on the road.
It would be an interesting melding of worlds.
“How much longer do you have?” he asks.
“One more year of school and then I am on my own. Then I will have to make this work…somehow,” she says.
He flips back to the work-in-progress page.
A vision of her walking down the wedding aisle toward him in this striking number loops through his imagination.
Any man would be lucky to entertain that fantasy.
But his stomach does not flip. Nor does his heart flutter. No curlicue emotions tower high in his throat.
Could those feelings come with time?
Time is in such short supply.
Monday is two days away. Thirty-two—his inheritance deadline—is fast approaching. So too is Charlie Moore, out from the villa, fresh and clean. All red cheeks and blue hair. An American dream in a six-foot-two frame.
Except he had vanished like a ghost come first light.
“Good morning,” Charlie says. He appears to clock Dario’s closeness to Michelle. Dario squirms beneath the scrutiny. A clap of jealousy seems to cross Charlie’s features, so Dario shifts a bit. But not too much, so as to not offend Michelle.
Charlie asks, “What are we looking at?”
“Oh, nothing,” Michelle says, slamming her book shut.
“Michelle’s wedding dress designs,” Dario says at the same time, unaware these were secret.
Charlie sits across from them. Several boiled eggs almost roll off into the grass for Angelo to gobble up. “You design wedding dresses?”
“I want to,” Michelle says, sliding her book off the table and back into her bag.
Charlie nods while peeling an egg. “Cool. What’s on the agenda today?”
Dario falters for a moment, both from the question and the coolness with which Charlie carries himself this morning. Dario’s grandfather told him to drop his armor, but he fears sword fighting with Charlie might’ve been an act of self-sabotage. That empty bed this morning, it plagues him.
“Yes, what are we to do today?” Michelle asks, sounding less enthused but interested, nonetheless.
Dario pushes his plate away. “We were set for another chocolate lesson back at the factory, but I fear with just the three of us it might be a little dull. Do either of you have any ideas for what you might like to do?”
Charlie jumps in right away. “Since we only have two full days left, I was sort of hoping to explore the city of Perugia. I love it out here in the country, but I’d love to experience a little more Italian culture up close. I hear they have an incredible art museum.”
Dario freezes at the thought, then cramps even worse under Charlie’s bright, hopeful gaze. It is like the Selina and Solomeo situation all over again. Can they see the hives cropping up beneath his collar?
Strolling the commercial streets of Perugia and visiting galleries to escape the heat would be a pleasant way to pass the time, but the presumed crowd levels stop him from agreeing.
Luckily, Michelle shirks the idea first. “I do not think I could spend the whole day out in this sun and heat in my condition still.” She peels in unseemly places.
Charlie’s expression falls. “I have SPF 100 sunscreen back in my room, and I’m sure we could get you a big hat and a parasol or something to carry around.”
“I am still not sure it is a good idea,” Michelle says, eyelashes fluttering.
At once, she reminds Dario of a wedding gown—delicate, diaphanous fabrics stitched together with strong construction.
Fragile yet lasting with the right upkeep.
She is most certainly the kind of creative, attractive, well-spoken person the Cotogna family wants for him.
But still, what does he want for himself? A firm answer evades him.
“Dario?” Charlie asks, voice peppered with anticipation.
His fan hand can’t keep up with the speed at which he sweats. “If Michelle stays here, perhaps I should as well.”
Charlie’s lips tighten into a frown. “Okay, that’s fine.”
“Do not let us stop you,” Michelle says, sounding pleased. “Is today the day you sit down and watch The Ladies with me?”
“Of course,” Dario says, aware of Charlie’s disappointment steeping on the far side of the table. Last night had been heady and wonderful, but he should give Michelle a chance to spur some sparks, too. She came all this way. It’s only fair.