16. Vivi
VIVI
Giovanni stalks off. Elio has vanished. No guards have taken his place. No one has arrived to make sure I go back to my room.
I’m alone with the other woman. Francesca. The scary one from the plane.
I don’t look at her. I can’t tear my gaze from the bloodstain darkening the tablecloth where that awful man was just sitting.
“Well, that was a complete disaster,” Francesca hisses. “Your first official appearance as Giovanni’s wife, he decides to kill someone, and you don’t even let him.”
Let him?
Her comment surprises me so much I forget to be afraid of her. “Let him? Why would I let him? Why the heck would I want him to kill someone?”
Francesca has me pinned with those hard, dark eyes. “Jesus, where did he even find you? I’ll never understand…”
She gets up, swiping her hands down her beautiful linen dress. I know next to nothing about fashion, but even I can tell that Francesca’s outfit is elegant, expensive.
She’s gorgeous. She hates me. And she clearly thinks I’m all wrong for my husband.
But maybe, if I’m lucky, she might dislike me enough to be honest and tell me why.
She’s leaving the dining room, sweeping across the ground floor of the villa.
“Wait!” I call after her. “Francesca, wait up!”
She doesn’t, though she does lose speed when she gets to the central staircase, pounding each foot with such force I’m surprised the heels don’t snap off her stilettos.
“Francesca, please.” We’ve ascended two floors before I’m close enough to reach for her elbow. “I just want to talk.”
She jerks away, glowering. We’ve reached a room—presumably hers—and I expect her to barge through the door. Instead, she turns on me, expression incredulous, angry. “What?! What is it? What can you possibly want from me?”
“What you said back there, about how you don’t understand—what did you mean?”
Francesca inhales through her nose, nostrils flaring. She looks like an enraged bull. “He should never have married you. You aren’t what he needs. You aren’t what the Family needs. You’re meek, so despicably docile and weak.”
She practically spits the words at me. Rage makes her entire body tremble.
“Gio needs a woman who will have his back when he needs it, who isn’t afraid to stand by his side when he has to do battle.
What happened back there at lunch was a test. You failed.
The Romanos insulted you and, by extension, Gio and the Marchetti name.
Insults like that can’t go unpunished. And yet, naive little Viviana did exactly that. ”
Her eye roll is epic. “He tested you. You failed. Is that clear enough for you, ragazzina?”
Little girl. Those are Francesca’s last words before she shoves open her door and disappears inside, the click of the lock all the punctuation she needs.
It might be clear to Francesca, but it isn’t to me. I’ve been on the island for more than two weeks, and I’m no closer to finding the answers to my ever-growing list of questions.
All of which center around one man.
“Giovanni.” I whisper his name at the same time a door slams above me on the third floor. Steps pound; a gathering storm headed toward the staircase.
I tuck myself against the wall, stay as quiet as possible.
From my viewpoint, I watch Giovanni descend the staircase. His movements are jerky, the crease between his brows cavernous, tension radiating off him in waves.
Well, that’s different.
In the little time I’ve spent with my husband, one thing has become pretty clear: control is his default setting. Whether it’s his emotions, his people, or the situation around him, he manages them with an iron fist.
But not today. Attacking his lunch guest with a table knife was the first visible crack. His glowering mood as he tears out of the house is the second.
Something is troubling him, and whatever it is, he’s struggling to contain the fallout. What the heck could cause a man like him to snap so suddenly? I’m running a dozen different scenarios in my head as I reach the villa’s top floor and see that one of the doors is ajar.
My footsteps slow, stop.
Is it the same one Giovanni slammed before leaving? Could he have done it so hard the door bounced out of its casing, the lock failing to engage?
I stop just shy of the threshold. The room beyond is silent. So are the stairs behind me.
Whatever Giovanni stormed off to do, it must be keeping Elio and the other guards busy too. I’m alone. Giovanni’s room is unlocked. I’m unguarded, and I doubt I’m going to get this chance again.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I go through and quietly shut the door behind me. Slowly, I turn, my mouth falling open as I take in my surroundings.
Giovanni’s suite is everything my dark, barren one isn’t. Large, light-filled, gorgeous.
On one side is a living area with a collection of low-slung white sofas and coffee-colored leather chairs. Beyond the sitting area is a set of doors open to a large dressing room. The matching set on the opposite side of the room leads to a stone and marble bathroom.
Between the bathroom and dressing room are two additional sets of French doors, both swinging out onto a spacious terrace that, even from where I’m standing, provides stunning views of the grounds, all the way down to the cliffs and the sea.
The most impressive element, however, is the oversized canopied bed that dominates more than half the sleeping area.
Gauzy white curtains are tied back around the posts, and the cream and blue pattern of the bedspread complements the colors in the giant seascape paintings that hang on the wall on either side.
With the soft lighting and the distant sound of the waves, the room is stunning, soft, and welcoming. Nothing like the cold, hard man it belongs to.
I’m cautious as I move through it, not wanting to disturb anything or leave signs I’ve been here.
A watch and some cufflinks have been left out on a bedside table. A handful of books are stacked on another, a pair of glasses sitting on top.
This is where Giovanni lives. Thinks. Breathes and sleeps, maybe even dreams. For the first time since arriving on the island, I feel like I’m glimpsing the human being I married, the heart and mind concealed by the impossibly hard exterior he presents to the world.
That feeling intensifies when I spot a framed photograph. It’s on the table just inside the entrance, positioned so it’s the last thing Giovanni sees as he leaves the room.
Hands trembling, I pick it up. A little girl with a toothy smile grins up at me.
She’s holding an ice cream cone. What’s left of one.
Streaks of strawberry pink drip down the sides of the cone and weave between her fingers.
More are smeared across her face. She looks sticky, sweaty, and giddy with happiness.
Caramel eyes sparkle at the camera, walnut-colored curls frozen mid-bounce around chubby cheeks.
If I had to guess, I’d say she’s around three years old in the photo. There’s no discernible background or any clues to where or when it was taken. The photo could be five months old or five years. It’s impossible to tell.
The frame is worn in a few places, like it’s been touched frequently. The table beneath it is slightly scuffed from where it’s been picked up and put down repeatedly. This little girl means something to Giovanni, her framed image a token of love as much as it is a frozen memory.
It makes my heart swell, until I remember the empty child’s bedroom.
Did it belong to this bright, beautiful girl?
If so, where is she now?
I’m so lost in my troubled thoughts that I don’t hear the footsteps until it’s almost too late. They’re out in the hall, almost to the other side of the door, when they come to a stop.
I hear the faintest clanging of metal.
Giovanni is retrieving his key.
The man was on the verge of killing a lunch guest because of some thoughtless insults. It doesn’t seem likely his mood is going to improve when he finds me in his suite, uninvited and most definitely not where I’m supposed to be.
I’ve got to run. Hide.
He doesn’t need the key to open the door. It’s unlocked. But in the time it takes Giovanni to realize that, I dash across the living space and tuck myself into the dressing room.
The scent of his cologne hits me immediately. Amber and sandalwood. It’s as subtle as it is intoxicating, and I inhale through my mouth, doing everything possible to avoid getting drunk on it.
There’s a clamor out in the main space. Giovanni. I can hear him moving through the suite, muttering.
Shrinking back, I clutch the frame tight to my chest.
Oh, crap. The picture frame.
Bad mood or not, it’s not going to take him long to realize it’s gone. I’ve got to put it back and get the heck out of here.
Slowly, cautiously, I poke my head out of the dressing room. Giovanni is on the other side of the suite, his back to me as he goes into the bathroom. One second passes, then another. I hear water running. I can’t see what he’s doing, but he sounds occupied.
This is my chance.
On tiptoes, I move through the room as fast as I can, skirting the luxuriously upholstered sofas in the seating area and skidding to a stop at the entry table.
I put the photo down with one hand, the other already white-knuckled around the door’s handle.
I’m so close to escaping unnoticed when, from behind me, comes Giovanni’s voice. “Well, well, well. Here’s the Viviana I’ve been waiting for.”