Chapter 19
GIANNA
Dinner and the subsequent arranging of my laundered and dry-cleaned new clothes did put me in a better mood.
After a while I even stopped beating myself up for it, deciding to just take Maria’s sage advice to heart.
Make the most of every situation. Take the good.
Disregard the bad. That’s pretty much what everyone in my family has been advising since I learned that I would have to make sacrifices for my family.
Like entering a loveless marriage. Stay inside and not have much in the way of personal freedom for the rest of my life.
Have children that would suffer the same fate as me.
And how’s that any different to the life I’m living now?
At least I’m with a man I thought I could love forever.
But I didn’t let my thoughts stray too far in that direction. Because in that direction lies all the blackness, hate and doubt, and I’m so tired of feeling it.
I fell asleep easily, and I was having the most pleasant dream. It was summertime and I was lying on my back in the water, looking up at the sky, at the pretty, puffy white clouds, enjoying it so much my whole body vibrated and pulsed in joy.
But I suddenly woke up to the darkness of the strange bedroom that is my prison. And Matteo gently stroking my hair. The feeling of joy from my dream didn’t go away. It intensified.
And that stung. So much I moved away from his touch and closed my eyes, wishing the dream would come back.
It didn’t, but he came closer.
His breath is hot on my cheek as he whispers in my ear, “Good, you’re awake.”
“I wish I wasn’t.”
But that’s not the whole truth. I also don’t want to be anywhere else but here.
He gives my cheek a soft kiss then moves back, his weight retreating to his side of the bed, so far, I no longer feel him in the bed beside me.
I turn to face him automatically. Instinctively. Because I want him close. As much as I don’t.
He’s sitting with his back against the plush white headboard and now that my eyes have grown accustomed to the moonlight, I see his face clearly. His eyes seem to glow. And there isn’t darkness in them, but something else equally hard to look at.
“What’s it gonna take, Goldie?” he asks and leaves it at that, as if I’m supposed to know what he’s talking about.
I just look at him, still wondering why I’m not lying with my back to him and trying to get back to my dream. Is it because this is actually my dream? The one I want to live most of all.
“For things to be like they were,” he adds. “For you to stop pushing me away all the time.”
“I’d think that answer was obvious,” I say and sit beside him, leaning against the headboard. Not close enough for our sides to touch, but almost.
“You want to see your family, be with them,” he guesses correctly. But not quite.
“I want my freedom,” I say. “I don’t want to be a prisoner anymore.”
“It’s for your own protection now,” he says. “You need that more than ever.”
“Because I’m caught up in your war now?”
He nods. “You all are. Your whole family. Things are different. So different there’s no going back.”
“There’s your answer then,” I say and cross my arms over my chest. There’s a chill in the air I didn’t feel before, but it’s practically cold enough to make me shiver now. “That’s why things can’t go back to the way they were.”
The look he gives me is filled with so much sadness and longing, it enters my chest, trickling down like a slow waterfall that seems like it will never stop flowing. I was angry before, then I was confused and now I’m just sad.
Sad for the girl I was, the woman I thought I’d be with this man.
Sad for the family and life I lost. Sad for the war that’s about to come.
Sad for all the loss he’s suffered. And for all the loss he’s made me suffer.
Sad for the cruel fate that made some things so easy for me and others so impossible.
“You have about as much freedom now as you’d have when your father married you off,” he says. “Maybe even more. At least I love you.”
Those words again. The words I so much want to repeat back to him.
“Do you love me? Or do you love the idea of me?” I ask. “A woman all your own, at your mercy, one you don’t even have to marry?”
He’s only wearing a pair of sweats, no shirt, and I glance down at the diamond ring hanging on the leather band around his neck. He grabs hold of it and yanks on the band so hard it comes loose.
“Is that what you want? A ring?” He takes the diamond ring off the leather band and offers it to me. “Will you be my wife, Gianna Codelli?”
A proposal of marriage has been my worst nightmare for years. But the proposal from a man I want to spend the rest of my life with… that’s been my biggest dream even longer.
I freeze, unable to react, every thought in my mind bumping into and clashing with every other thought, none of them coherent.
He’s seriously asking. I can see that much in his eyes. Which are quickly filling with darkness as I just sit there silently, staring at the huge diamond ring sparkling in the moonlight.
I close my hands over his, hiding the ring.
“You can’t do this,” I say. “You can’t ask me to be your wife. My curse will kill you if I say yes.”
The curse that has been the bane of my existence since the first man my father chose for me died a brutal death shortly after getting engaged to me. The same thing happened to the second and third and after that my father stopped trying to find me a husband. And I became known as Gianna the Cursed.
If I truly hated him, I’d say yes, take the ring, and just wait for my curse to kill him. Then I’d be free. Then my family would be free. But things would still not be better.
“I told you before, I don’t care about your curse,” he says. “My own will take care of me faster than yours. So take the ring if that’s what you want. You’re the only one who will ever wear it, whatever else happens.”
And there it is. Him saying exactly what I wanted to hear, needed to hear. And being honest about it. He deserves a direct answer. A truthful answer.
Yes, Matteo Rovina, I want to be your wife.
That’s what I should say. That’s the truth. I know it deep in my heart, the only place that matters. But I don’t say it. I let go of his hand, but don’t take the ring.
“I won’t be responsible for your death, so I can’t take this ring. And besides, you already have me.”
He gives me a searching look and if I wounded him horribly by refusing his ring, it’s not the only thing in his eyes. Finally, he sighs, then places the ring on his nightstand table.
“See? Freedom’s not all it’s cracked up to be either,” he says. “It involves making your own choices. And mistakes. For better or worse.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I just lean back against the headrest.
After a while, he moves closer so our sides are touching. His skin is as hot as that look he sometimes gives me, hot enough to ward off any and all kinds of chills. Even the one still gripping me now.
He puts his arm around my shoulders and I let him, even lean against him a little more. Just doing what feels natural without too much thinking.
“I’m going to visit my sister soon,” he says. “You can come too. I want you to meet her.”
The mention of his sister brings Chiara’s pale sleeping face to the forefront of my mind. Her blood pooling on the floor.
But like so many things, that is behind us now too.
“Maybe the two of you can have your own conversation about freedom and choices,” he says darkly when I don’t respond. “And the bloodshed it can bring.”
The darkness in his voice isn’t directed just at me now. I can sense that. But I am a part of it too. I’ll probably forever be a part of his darkness from now on. Just like he’ll always be a part of mine.
“Sure, I’ll come with you to see her,” I say. “Beats sitting in a room all day.”
And after he introduces me to his family, maybe he’ll better understand my need to see my own.
“I think sitting in a room all day has its merits,” he says and holds me closer. I let him.
“We could do exactly that all day and night,” I say. “If you just stopped chasing your revenge and your war. If you just stopped and put everything back the way it was.”
I didn’t know I still had fire within me until those words just gushed out like lava from a volcano. A very dormant, very still, and silent volcano.
He looks at me, all that everlasting sadness and regret back in his eyes.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
“Why? It’s so simple. You have your house here, your men, we could just start a new life. You can let my family go and we can both be free.”
He holds me tighter still, but his skin isn’t so nicely hot anymore. It’s cold now, like stone in winter is cold.
“It’s not that simple, Goldie,” he says. “I have too many enemies here. They’ve taken everything from me once and they’ll do it again if I let them live. But it’s a nice thought. Let’s hope it comes true one day.”
His voice says he does hope so. But also that he doesn’t think it’ll ever happen.
And now I’m just tired again. Tired and cold. Maybe the last of my fire went out with making that suggestion. And who knows what is left now. But his arm around me feels nice, his strong body to lean on feels nice too, and knowing he wants me to be his wife, that feels very nice too.
Maybe Maria is right about this too. Maybe all these good things and feelings are God’s way of showing me he still thinks of me and wants the best for me. And maybe that is enough.