Chapter Forty-Eight The Lake House
"You're kidnapping me," Elena accused, laughing, as Dante steered the car off the highway and onto a winding, tree-lined road she didn't recognize, her overnight bag already packed and loaded into the trunk before she'd even known they were leaving.
"I'm surprising you. There's a difference.
" He glanced over, something boyish and pleased tugging at his mouth — a look she still wasn't entirely used to, on a face that had spent thirty-some years perfecting coldness.
"You've had a hard year, tesoro. I thought you deserved a few days where nobody threatens you, nobody photographs you, and the only thing either of us has to do is exist."
The lake house, when they arrived, was smaller than Larkspur Row by a staggering margin — a modest wooden cabin at the water's edge, no staff, no cameras, no Marco trailing three feet behind. Just the two of them, alone, for the first time since the wedding.
"Whose is it?" Elena asked, wandering through the small, sun-warmed rooms with open delight.
"Mine. Privately. Nobody in the family knows it exists — not even Sofia, and she knows nearly everything.
" He caught her from behind, arms wrapping around her waist, chin dropping to her shoulder as they both looked out at the still, silver lake through the kitchen window.
"I bought it four years ago, when I first started to suspect the life I was building for myself might eventually suffocate me if I didn't have somewhere to simply breathe.
I never brought anyone here. I didn't think I'd ever want to. "
"And now?"
"Now I can't imagine coming here without you." He turned her in his arms, pressing his forehead to hers. "I want this place to be ours, Elena. Not the Don and his wife. Just Dante and Elena, for a few days, being nothing more complicated than two people who love each other."
They spent the first afternoon doing nothing at all — swimming in water still cool with early summer, Dante laughing, unguarded and radiant in a way Elena had never seen in the city, splashing her without warning and then catching her against his chest when she retaliated, both of them breathless and soaked and unable to stop smiling.
They ate dinner on the dock as the sun went down, feet dangling over water gone gold and pink, Dante's guitar-playing — badly, self-taught, utterly without shame about it — filling the quiet evening air with something clumsy and sincere.
"You're terrible at this," Elena told him, delighted, as he butchered his way through a song she half-recognized.
"I'm aware." He didn't stop playing. "I've never played for anyone before. I find I don't mind being terrible at something, as long as it's for you."
"That might be the most romantic thing you've ever said to me."
"I have several more, if you're interested.
" He set the guitar aside, drawing her into his lap on the dock, the last of the sunset catching gold in her hair.
"I love the way you laugh with your whole body, like you've forgotten to be careful about taking up space.
I love that you still read the last page of every book first, even though you always tell me you won't do it again.
I love that you told a dangerous, powerful man to his face that he didn't scare you, in your father's study, when you had every reason to be terrified and chose defiance instead.
" His hand cupped her jaw, thumb tracing her cheekbone.
"I have an entire list, Elena. I've been keeping it since before you knew my name. "
She kissed him then, slow and unhurried, the lake gone dark and quiet around them, and thought that this — this small, private, guitar-badly-played, laughing-until-her-sides-ached version of happiness — was worth infinitely more than anything Larkspur Row's grandeur had ever offered her.