CHAPTER 46
"I'd never laughed in a man's bed. I thought sex was something serious, or dangerous, or both. No one had told me that with the right person it's also funny."
VALENTINA MORETTI
Breakfast on the terrace turned into tea.
Donna Beatrice had decided that on her own—she showed up with the pot of chamomile and took the espresso away from in front of me without asking, in her way.
I'd already given up arguing. The whole house now looked after my belly as if it were collective property.
Luca was beside me, an unlit cigar in his hand—he'd stopped lighting them near me since Capri, without my asking.
"I want out," he said.
"Out of where?"
"Out of the dark." He set the cigar down on the table.
"Slowly. The legal businesses stay—the hotels, the shipping, the import.
That's clean, that's ours, that's what I pass to our child without shame.
" He looked at me. "The rest, I'm getting out of.
In ten years Raffaele takes over the part you can't drop all at once. "
I looked at him for a while.
"Can you really get out, Luca?" I asked. "Of something like this?"
"Slowly, bella mia. No one gets out all at once, but I don't want our child growing up in a fortress." He rested his hand on my belly, over the table, with no disguise at all now.
"Cognatina."
Raffaele's voice came across the terrace—linen pants and an open shirt, charming as ever, with that smile that had greeted me on the staircase months ago.
"Raffaele."
"Did the fratellone tell you?" He pulled out a chair and sat down across from us. "That I've become the official workhorse while he goes off to play golf with the Greek shipowners?"
Luca almost smiled.
"I don't play golf."
"You'll learn." Raffaele took a cornetto from the tray. "A legitimate businessman plays golf, fratellone. It's part of it." He looked at me, and the smile softened. "I'll take the ugly part, cognatina. So you can raise this child in a house where you can open the windows."
I swallowed hard.
"Raffaele. Thank you."
He shrugged, light. But I saw it—saw there was weight under the charm.
"I've always been the one who does the dirty work so he doesn't have to," he said, and winked.
"Only now it's official. There's even a title.
" He stood and kissed the top of my head—a brother-in-law's gesture, finally with no edge to it at all.
"Take care of my nephew, cognatina. And that one too.
" He pointed at Luca. "Because without you he goes back to being unbearable. "
Then he left.
"You're treating me like porcelain," I said.
We were in the room, the light coming in golden through the window. He'd laid me down on the bed with such care that I almost laughed—like a man setting down an antique vase.
"You're pregnant," he said, serious.
"I'm six weeks pregnant, Luca, not eight months." I rolled my eyes. "I'm not going to break."
"Bella mia…"
"I spent three months imagining a way to stab you while you slept." I pulled him by the shirt. "I think I can handle you kissing me like you mean it."
He laughed.
Laughed for real—that short laugh, down in his chest, that had turned into an out-loud laugh somewhere along the way. He leaned in and kissed me, and he meant it, and I felt his smile against my mouth.
"Bossy."
"You like it."
"Madonna, I like it."
He unbuttoned the dress with his fingers, slowly, but this time with no solemnity at all—lightly, kissing every bit of skin as it appeared, and when he kissed just below my ribs I laughed, because it tickled, and he raised an eyebrow.
"Ticklish?" he said. "The dangerous signora Moretti is ticklish?"
"Shut up."
He kissed the same spot again, on purpose, I squirmed, smacked his shoulder, he laughed too, and for a second we forgot that sex was supposed to be a serious thing.
The other times—the first, after the attack; the second, with the confession; the third, on the honeymoon; the one at the Hotel Lucia, on the eve of the war—there had always been weight.
There had always been blood, fear, goodbye, or a secret. It had always been the thing people do in wartime.
Now there was no war.
The dress came off, his shirt came off. He moved back up my body, and his hand went to my belly—again, always—but this time he spoke:
"Allora." He put his mouth against my belly. "You in there, close your eyes. Papà's working."
I howled and smacked his shoulder.
"Luca!"
"What?" He lifted his head, all innocent. "I'm just giving notice. It's rude not to give notice."
"You're an idiot."
"I'm your idiot." He came up and kissed me. "Bella mia."
And then he went slow again—because even joking he treated me with that new care, his hand always passing near my belly, his weight on his elbows so he wouldn't crush me, but there was lightness under the care, there was a smile, there was that thing I didn't know, making love with someone at peace with life.
"I want to be on top."
He laughed.
"Of course you do."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means you always want to be on top, bella mia." He rolled over, brought me up onto him, his hands open on my waist. "I've learned by now—you're bossy even in bed."
"And you're complaining?"
"I give thanks every day," he answered, smiled, and settled me on top of him.
I moved slowly, my hand open on his chest, over the tattoo.
And for the first time I wasn't crying, wasn't afraid, wasn't thinking about Mamma, or death, or war.
I was laughing. We were laughing, both of us, in the middle of it, and when I lost the rhythm and we almost came apart I laughed even harder, and he held me by the hips and said, "focus, signora," and I said, "shut up, padrone," and we laughed together.
Then it started turning into something else.
It got deeper, more serious, the way it does when the body takes over. His hands moved up my waist, his black eyes locked on mine. Our breathing sped up together.
"Bella mia," he murmured, and now there was no joke in his voice.
"I know."
"Ti amo."
"I love you."
I leaned forward, forehead against his. My hair falling around both our faces. And then there was no more playing—there was just us, deep, together, in the room golden with light and the sea down below.
I came first, my mouth on his to smother the sound. He came right after, his hands gripping my hips, his forehead buried in my neck, saying my name low against my skin.
Then I collapsed on top of him, laughing again, for no reason, just out of happiness.
"What are you laughing about?" he asked, his hand moving up and down my back.
"Because I'd never smiled like this," I answered, my head on his chest. "With anyone."
We stayed in bed until the sun went down.
Talking nonsense, the kind of nonsense I'd never talked with anyone.
Whether it would be a boy or a girl, his name or hers. Luca wanted a name that didn't belong to anyone dead—"no Marco, no Lucia, a child doesn't carry a ghost."
I agreed. We kept making up names and laughing at the bad ones.
At some point, he talked about turning his dead mother's room—my old room, the nonna's now, when she came—into a child's room. "The nonna will understand. She'll want it."
"Capri tomorrow," he reminded me, his hand on my belly.
"Capri tomorrow," I repeated.
I laid my head on his chest. I listened to his heart, slow now, under my ear.
The house silent—not war silence. Peace silence.
I'd never laughed in a man's bed, I thought. My whole life I'd believed sex was a serious thing, or a dangerous one, or both.
No one had told me that with the right person it's also funny.
That you can lose the rhythm and laugh. That he can talk nonsense to my belly and I can smack his shoulder. That you can be happy—just like that, simple, with no ghost in the bed.
I closed my eyes. And for the first time in my life, I wasn't afraid to be happy.