Chapter 24
ventiquattro
Francesca’s message prompted an uncomfortable self-awareness in him. Instinctively he stood up and flattened the front of his tee, cleared his throat and began pacing back and forth along the terrace, past the large circular lounger.
Why did this moment make him feel like this?
He had looked forward to seeing her all evening, but this excitement went beyond that.
Was it the way she had wrapped herself around him earlier?
Or was it the echo of her hand gripped around his hardened length, his longing for the rocking of her wrist to build and release him?
He was about to send a reply text, but she was already lifting herself up the stairs.
‘Eccomi!’ she said, puffing. ‘Sorry if I kept you waiting.’
Alessio saw straight away that she’d changed her outfit.
The dress she had worn to the competition was gone and in its place was a short daisy-print tea dress with generous V-neckline.
The delicate edge of a cream lace-trimmed bra cup was visible as she stretched her arms wide to catch him in a tight embrace.
It felt good. To have her hold him like that, with all her force and passion . . . it was as if she claimed him as her own.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ he forced himself to say, full of nonchalance and knotted nerves. ‘All done?’
‘Done. Mamma has gone home. Nonna is well and truly asleep.’
Something about this placing of everyone set his mind at ease. They were alone. ‘Ok. So, that drink?’
Fucking idiot. That makes you sound like you’re in a hurry . . .
‘Sì.’ She darted to the bar fridge, opened the little door dramatically and offered, ‘Coca. Chinotto. Vino bianco. Hmm?’
‘Bianco, per favore.’
She glanced over her shoulder at him. ‘Look who found some italiano today!’
‘I know.’ He ran his hands through his hair. ‘I’m so slack. I need to try harder.’
She plucked two wineglasses from the overhead cabinet and opened the bottle, pouring for them both. ‘A te!’ she said, proffering hers.
Clink.
‘Grazie.’ He took a sip. The wine was cool and dry and he exhaled. ‘Thank God.’
With a flick of her chin, Francesca guided him to the large lounger, and they sat down together. ‘You’re happy with the outcome?’ She sipped her wine and rested the flat foot of the glass against her thigh.
‘Relieved is the word I would use.’ The way she sat on the lounger, like a mermaid on a rock, Alessio could see her bare legs, halfway up her thighs. He quickly swallowed another mouthful of the bianco.
‘Where did you get the inspiration for the dish, Alessio? It was just perfect. All those elements together. As if . . . as if you had always been here. Like you know and understand Impastino. The land. Its—’
‘It was you, actually.’
She stopped. ‘Me?’
‘I just reflected on all the things you’ve taught me.
You would make an amazing teacher. It comes so naturally to you.
’ Alessio watched as, even under the blanket of night, her cheeks reddened.
‘The fazzoletti. How to cut them. The finocchio di mare. The garden with all the vegetables. That wasn’t me out there.
That was you. All you.’ He smiled into his wine.
‘I just got to be the one to show everyone how brilliant you are.’
‘Ale . . .’ She practically sighed this version of his name. It was familiar. As if they’d been friends and kitchen partners for years.
Ale.
Something about it chiselled itself onto his skin. As if it were a new tattoo, a branding. He’d never been ‘Ale’, but it felt so incredibly, deeply intimate. As if that might be what she whispered in his ear in the dark, cocooned in their body-warm linen . . .
He caught himself. This pull of desire was becoming ever stronger. He tore himself from the unhelpful thoughts and affirmed, ‘All you, Francesca. Please just take the compliment.’
She nodded humbly. ‘Va bene. Grazie. But perhaps we can just call it teamwork?’
Teamwork? There’s nothing remotely ‘leading’ about teamwork.
‘Sure,’ he smiled.
‘Lots of people have shared photos with me from today,’ she said, shifting closer to him on the lounger. Phone in hand, she opened the Photos app and flicked through so he could see the collection. ‘Do you mind if I share something to our Instagram profile about your success today?’
It hadn’t even dawned on Alessio that the restaurant might be on social media. But then something pricked his conscience. ‘Is that a smart move?’
Her brow gathered pensively for a moment. ‘Hmm. I hadn’t thought of it like that . . .’ With pursed lips she mulled this over, finally saying, ‘No, we need to do something. It would look strange if we didn’t.’ She kept flicking through the photos.
‘Stop. That one.’ Alessio caught her mid-swipe. ‘Just the dish. That’s what we should focus on.’
‘Bravo, Alessio! Yes. And perhaps we can add it to the menu as a special for the week?’
‘Excellent. Do it.’
Francesca opened Instagram and it defaulted to Trattoria dei Fiori’s profile. She selected New post, uploaded the photo and typed some text in Italian. She added some hashtags, a backing track, and hit Share.
‘Do you have Instagram?’ she asked.
‘I do. But under a pseudonym.’
‘Ha!’ she chuckled. ‘Me too! I’m @fatina.fusilli. Who are you?’
‘I’ll tell you, but please don’t use it against me.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘I can’t promise you that.’
Through a smile, he said, ‘@goose_ranieri.’
‘Goose? The bird? L’oca?’
Alessio dropped his face into his hands. ‘Why the fuck did I just give that away so easily? How do you always manage to do that?’
‘Goose?’
‘Yes. Goose. When I was younger, in high school, my nickname was Goose.’
Her laughter filled the air. ‘Why Goose?’
‘Because of this schnoz!’ He grabbed hold of his aquiline nose and gave it a honk. ‘Like a goose. That name followed me everywhere. Even to soccer on the weekends, through my chef training. My friends and some of my family still call me Goose.’
She cocked her head to the side and assessed him kindly. ‘You have the most perfect nose.’ Giving it a gentle caress, she added, ‘I hope you’re not offended by it.’
‘I was initially. Not anymore. The honking got annoying really quick, though.’
‘Immagino.’
‘What about you? Nonna Maria calls you Francé, and your mamma, Cesca. Is that as far as it goes?’
She was mid-swallow and shook her head. ‘No. I too have a “Goose”.’
‘Let’s hear it then.’
‘It’s not as playful, though.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘I have a lot of hair, yes?’ She grabbed at her curls with her free hand. ‘When I was younger the other children called me what I guess would translate to, “Fusilli Head”.’
‘The pasta shape? The spirals?’
‘Eh, sì!’ She sighed. ‘I was already so self-conscious of my wild, crazy hair. And the humidity here, no?’
Pulling at his slightly damp round-neck collar, he nodded. ‘It’s terrible.’
‘Well, I was Fusilli Head. Over time I just learned to ignore it. And now as a woman I have embraced my curls. So, I am @fatina.fusilli, which means, Little Fusilli Fairy. And I have this . . .’ She passed her wineglass to Alessio, shifted on the lounger and shimmied her right shoulder out from her dress.
Jesus Christ . . .
Alessio felt his breath hitch as she peeled back the fabric, revealing the defined slender line of her collarbone, the plump ridge of her breast . . . and there, just millimetres from her darkened olive nipple, sat a little fusilli tattoo, perhaps two centimetres wide.
‘Let’s call it, how would you say? A need-to-know situation?’
‘Yeah, that’s what I’d say.’
Well hidden from view, that tattoo was for privileged eyes, hands, mouths . . .
My tongue . . .
His hand gripped the stem of the wineglass with such force he thought it might snap.
Fuck, that’s so damn sexy. And her nipple . . .
‘Mamma doesn’t know. She would kill me. But she will never see my breasts, so . . .’
Alessio couldn’t help but wonder who else had seen the fusillo. Something so very intimate. Partners-only material. And she had just shown him so willingly. Was he meant to say more? What he wanted to say was, Let me at it night and day! But he restrained the words and his mouth.
Francesca straightened her dress and picked up her phone again. ‘I’ll follow you.’ Typing, she asked, ‘This is you?’ She held the screen so he could see.
‘That’s me.’
‘Good.’ She hit Follow and he caught the request on his end.
‘Accepted and followed back.’
Francesca rose from the lounger. The hem of her dress, stuck to the back of her legs, dropped a second later. ‘It is time to rest now, I think.’
Really? Is that it? Maybe she’s nervous. Uncomfortable?
Alessio finished his wine and passed the glass to her waiting hand. She set both glasses in the wash trough and gestured to the ladder. ‘It’s been a big day.’
Together they walked the length of the terrazzo, but something felt different between them.
It was as if their brief rendezvous had set in motion a new start.
As if a switch had been flicked. It wasn’t just fatigue after the long, emotional day.
It wasn’t relief at the excellent outcome for the trattoria.
It was more organic than that. More natural.
At the top of the ladder, Alessio stopped first. He held Francesca’s gaze for just a moment before saying softly, ‘You changed your dress.’
Her gaze dropped to her feet and she caught a curl, tucking it behind her right ear. Alessio watched her neck flex as she swallowed. ‘I did.’
The curl refused to stay behind her ear, so he reached across and tried for her. This time it stayed put. ‘Why? You don’t need to change for me. It doesn’t matter if you are dirty from serv—’
‘I wanted to . . .’ She took a step closer to him, her gaze now trailing up the middle of his tee, eventually coming to meet his eyes. ‘I wanted to look nice. For you.’
For the first time she looked nervous with him. Vulnerable.
‘Why, Francesca?’
‘I . . .’ Her lips parted before closing again.
‘Please, tell me.’
‘Because . . . I want you to find me attractive.’
Alessio almost laughed. He took a step forward until she was pressed against him.
Feeling the heat radiating from her made his insides churn with desire.
‘You don’t need to do anything for me. Understand?
You are already . . .’ He tried to express how he felt, but couldn’t.
‘Words don’t exist to describe what you do to me. ’
‘Alessio . . . but this arrangement . . . this charade means we can’t—’
‘Tell me. How is it that you . . .’ He stopped, his eyes moving over her face, down her neck, trailing across her decolletage. ‘. . . are single?’
She broke their stare for a moment and pushed out a loaded ‘Ha!’.
Alessio’s hands caught her forearms, holding her steady. His voice low and breathy, he whispered, ‘Tell me.’
‘Because sharing a life with me involves sharing me with a kitchen. That’s where so much of my heart is. No man from my past has truly understood that.’
‘Some of us do.’ He watched as her eyes gently closed for a moment. But then it was all about her lips. Alessio could practically taste her kiss. And there was no doubt in his mind that he wanted it. ‘I can be very discreet.’
Glancing up at him, Francesca rose on tiptoe. With her face achingly close to his, she allowed their cheeks to meet. Pressing a solitary kiss to his warm skin, she whispered, ‘Buonanotte, Alessio.’
She pulled back slowly, and gave him the hint of a smile. Then, she descended the ladder.
In the darkness of his apartment, trying to sleep, Alessio tossed and turned. It wasn’t just that the oscillating fan could barely stir the stifling heat. It was that slow, calculated kiss on the cheek. The tiny smile. The tattoo on her breast. That nipple he wanted to catch between his teeth.
He grunted and rolled onto his side, suddenly remembering how her near-bare chest had practically glowed under the low lights of the terrazzo, and a pang of desire bloomed out from his core.
The fusillo.
Fusilli.
Fatina . . .
Alessio reached for his phone and opened Instagram.
There was Francesca’s quiet little corner, curated for her family and friends.
She followed a handful of Italians with vowel-rich names; a few he recognised, but the rest were mostly foodies, chefs, restaurants, cookbook writers, purveyors and artisans.
And her photos? They were mostly of food, and some landscape shots of Impastino and its surrounds.
There were none of the usual ‘posed’ perfect Instagram selfies, coloured with filters and strategically cropped to just the right angle.
Alessio tapped the Tagged tab, and suddenly there she was. Caught, captured and shared by others. Not by herself. A sign of her humility and grace.
He scanned them, until he arrived at one which pulled on his heartstrings.
Francesca in her bikini, curvy legs crossed on the beach, sitting atop a fluoro-pink beach towel and holding a huge bite-marked rind of watermelon to her lips.
Her eyes full of joy. Her cheeks full of the fruit.
Juice dripping down her golden olive arms. She resonated all the hope and happiness in the world in that moment.
Her curls, extra defined and tight, blew wild and free in the breeze.
Alessio imagined her laughing just as the photo was about to be taken, trying to smush down some of the watermelon in her mouth.
Click! Then, wiping her chin with her forearm to catch the juice in vain.
A girlfriend had posted the photo, and in the rest of the selection he found photos with other friends, including Simona.
Something deep inside his chest found relief in the lack of male company.
His eyes landed on what he could see of her chest beyond her outstretched arms. No fusillo in sight.
But that photo did something to Alessio. It made him long for that energy and joy, for her spirit to wrap itself around him. Not only was he very attracted to her; he suddenly felt that he was falling for her.
Now that came as a surprise.
He took a screenshot of the photo and opened WhatsApp. Finding his conversation thread with James, he added the photo to the feed and typed, This is Francesca. The woman I’m staying with.
He watched as the singular Sent tick doubled. Delivered. It then tinted blue to Read.
A fire emoji suddenly appeared on the bottom corner of Francesca’s photo.
James is typing . . .
Jesus Christ, mate. You’re in trouble.
Alessio exhaled, set his phone on the side table and said into the darkness, ‘Tell me about it.’