Chapter 13
IT WAS MUCH LATER when they finally finished cooking the risotto. So late that the sky was tinged with dusky colours and the heat of the sun had mostly faded, leaving only a pleasant balmy warmth in the air.
Ally sat curled up, in one of the large, white armchairs that were on the deck, legs beneath her, as Luca carried over their expensive-looking bowls, seasoned generously with parmesan cheese and olive oil.
He placed them down on the low coffee table, then retrieved two glasses of crisp white wine, and handed one to Ally.
She took a small sip then placed it to the left of her plate, shifting a little in her seat so she could see him fully, in the chair beside hers.
The boat rocked gently and she expelled a sigh of deep contentment.
He turned to her and cocked a brow.
“I’m happy,” she explained, and a smile smudged across her lips to prove it. “And for such a long time, I thought I never would be.”
He reached out, cupping her cheek. “You deserve to feel that.”
His comment made her heart soar. “It’s because of you, you know.”
He tensed visibly and her happiness slipped slightly. But his reaction was all about protection. Protecting himself, and her, from the kind of attachment he’d warned her from the beginning just wasn’t possible.
“I mean, this marriage. The chance to travel, to start fresh. It’s exactly what I needed.”
His jaw was still clenched so she rolled her eyes and reached for her risotto. “Relax, Luca. It’s not a declaration of love. I’m just saying, this feels good.”
He laughed too then, but she heard a hint of restraint in the sound, that gave her pause for thought. Was he reacting to her words, or to his own thoughts? And feelings?
Did Luca have feelings? Was he even capable of that?
She dug a fork into the risotto without really thinking and lifted it to her lips, but then, she moaned, as the full assault of flavours exploded in her mouth. “Oh, wow,” she said. “This is incredible.”
“It’s simple.”
He’d made a saffron and scampi risotto, explaining as he cooked about the housekeeper who’d taken him under her wing and taught him to cook.
It sounded to Allegra as though the older woman had seen what was happening in the walls of the Di Santis home, after the deaths of the brothers—the boys’ fathers—and had tried to intervene.
To give love to boys who badly needed it.
“What about your grandmother, Luca?”
He angled his face to hers, expression thoughtful. “What about her?”
“You don’t really talk about her. Were you close?”
“She was my grandfather’s world.”
“That’s how he felt about her. What about you?”
He hesitated. “She was a very smart, driven woman.”
Ally compressed her lips. That didn’t exactly ring with affection. “So you weren’t close.”
“My grandparents were not like you might imagine grandparents to be.”
“In what way?”
He dug a large forkful of risotto into his mouth and relaxed back in the chair—or imitated the pose—as he looked to the horizon.
“We were not children to them, so much as heirs. I have always been aware of the lessons they were teaching us about generational wealth, our duty to care for and grow the empire, to understand that we are merely caretakers for future generations.”
Ally tipped her head to the side, mulling on that. “But your father and uncle were not business-orientated?”
Luca had explained, in the beginning of this, about their disinterest in the company, even before their deaths.
It had turned up the pressure dials on the next generation, to be groomed to take over.
To fight to earn that privilege, to prove to their grandparents that they deserved to be the one at the helm.
“No.”
“Yet your grandparents presumably instilled the same lessons in them?”
“Perhaps, but not as effectively. I think their failure there made them more persistent with us. Every holiday we had from school was spent in my grandfather’s office.
If we travelled as adolescents, it was only to see our business interests abroad.
We were made to understand that our sole purpose in life is doing the right thing by the family. ”
A shiver ran down her spine. “But that doesn’t include actually acting like a family?”
“Meaning?”
“I mean, you know I’m completely alone. I don’t have siblings or cousins or aunts and uncles, I’ve got no one.
But I always imagined…no, I’ve seen with my friends, that usually, families are in each other’s lives.
They don’t always get along, but there’s something there.
A sense of having come through the same experiences together, and having each other’s backs when necessary. ”
Luca took another big mouthful of risotto and Ally sipped her wine, waiting for him to say something.
“That’s not my experience.”
She toyed with her fork then slowly ate a little more.
“Nor yours,” he pointed out. “Every family is different.”
“But this kind of dog-eat-dog mentality is just plain stupid,” she said, and realised that she’d been thinking it all along.
“You’re obviously very smart and good at what you do, driven like your grandparents, I guess.
But Paolo seems pretty switched on as well.
I didn’t get to speak much to Dante, but I imagine he’s the same.
What if you’re damaging the business by not including them? ”
“Damaging how?”
“You have a half-brother and a cousin who might be more like you than you realise. Wouldn’t you be stronger if you worked as a team?”
“You are quite remarkable,” he said, but in a way that had her breath snagging in her throat.
She couldn’t say that it was a compliment.
“Even after all you’ve been through, you can still be such an idealist. How is that possible?
” Scepticism tinged his words. “You are right. We are the same. Too similar to ever work together. Our grandfather trained us to fight to win, to always seek the supreme position. I could never trust them not to want to destroy me.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“You don’t know them.”
“I know human nature. I know that people can change, that you could let them in—,”
“Therapy again?”
She ground her teeth then sucked in a breath, turning to face him carefully. “I’m all alone, Luca. I have no one in my life. But you’re not. You have a family, and if you let them, they’d be in your life in a way that’s meaningful. I’m sure of it.”
“I have no interest in that.”
“I can’t imagine turning my back on what you have.
” She ignored the pang in the region of her heart.
She ignored the fact that they would both be turning their backs on this marriage in eleven and a half months.
“If I had what you have, I’d reach out and grab it with both hands, to hell with how I’d been raised. ”
“I can guarantee you wouldn’t.”
She blinked across at him, and saw the determined set of his features. “I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.”
He reached out then, putting his hand on her knee, running a finger over the skin there so goosebumps lifted and her contentment wrapped around her anew. “I’m glad you don’t want to be alone.”
For a second, hope flared inside of her.
It was the work of an instant, and yet it was enough.
Enough to make her realise there was a danger between them she had underestimated.
A desire and need that she would be wise to carefully guard against. Because that idea of reaching out and grabbing something with both hands?
For a moment, she had that feeling about their marriage, and Luca.
“You deserve all the things you described. A family. People in your life who love and cherish you; people who have your back, just as you said. When you go home, I hope you find that, Allegra.”
Home. But not here. He was no longer talking about his villa as home, but rather describing her life in America. A life that felt somehow distant, as though she were viewing it through a fogged up mirror. She could see yet not really recognise herself anymore.
“Me too,” she said, as he seemed to be waiting for an answer, and in that moment, a simple white lie seemed safest.
“What’s your earliest memory?”
She felt him shift beneath her, hours later, as they lay staring up at a starlit sky, naked and exhausted, bodies satiated yet stirring with renewed desires.
“I’m sorry?”
Her lips tugged to the side. “Is that a weird question?”
“In the sense that it’s come out of nowhere, yes.”
She laughed softly. “You don’t have to answer.”
She dropped her head back to his chest and listened to the solid, steady beating of his heart, and the reliable rippling of the waves at the side of the boat.
It was hard to believe that they were here, somewhere in the Tyrrhenian sea, between his grandfather’s island and Luca’s home, just the two of them. No staff, no pressures.
“I was eating strawberries.”
She shifted a little, to hear him properly.
“They were wild grown, and sun warmed. They left stains down my shirt and my legs, pink blotches.”
Ally’s tired smile stretched. “That sounds beautiful. Were you in Italy?”
“I cannot remember, but I imagine so.”
She dropped her head again.
“What is your earliest memory?” His hand stroked her back, running over her spine, and each movement gave her an unmistakable sense of comfort.
“Hmmm,” she murmured. “I have several.”
“Several earliest memories?”
She rolled her eyes at his scoffing tone. “I mean that I remember a lot from my childhood; I don’t know which memory is earliest.”
“And yet you asked me,” he pointed out.
“You chose to answer.”
“Where you are concerned, I sometimes feel I have no choice.” His tone held a firmness, and a hint of complaint, but it was belied by the way that he slid his arm beneath her and wrapped Ally’s body against his chest, holding her there.
“I remember building Lego with my father,” she said, slowly. “I liked to make people.”
“People?”
She nodded once. “Three dimensional people. I would use all the blocks we owned to sculpt them into shapes that stood. Dad helped.”
His fingers stroked down her arm. “What else?”