2. Cielo
— ? —
Cielo
Three days. That’s how long it takes for the vacation to become something I endure rather than enjoy.
“I’ll be back by dinner,” Giovanni said this morning, dropping a kiss on my hair as I pretended to read.
“You said that yesterday.”
“Yesterday was complicated.”
“And today?”
“Today will be simpler.” He checked his watch, already moving toward the door. “I promise.”
That was hours ago. Dinner came and went. The candles I lit burned down to stubs. The pasta I made - his favorite, the one I learned from his housekeeper in Milan - congealed on the plate.
Now it’s nearly midnight, and I’m sitting on the terrace with a glass of wine I’ve barely touched, watching the moon make a silver road across the water.
The household staff whispers when they think I can’t hear. The villa has strange acoustics - voices carry in ways people don’t expect - and I’ve learned more from standing in doorways than I ever wanted to know.
“They go back years, those two. Before the wife, even.”
“I heard she was supposed to marry him. Some arrangement between the families.”
“Well, she certainly looks at him like she owns him.”
“And he lets her. You’ve seen them together-”
I stopped listening after that. Some things you don’t need to hear twice.
The front door opens just past one in the morning.
I don’t move from my chair on the terrace. I just wait, listening to his footsteps move through the house, pause at the kitchen where he must see the untouched dinner, then continue toward me.
“You’re still up.” He appears in the doorway, his silhouette backlit by the interior lights.
“I was waiting for you.”
“Cielo-”
“Don’t.” I hold up my hand. “Don’t tell me the meeting ran long. Don’t tell me it was important. Don’t tell me any of the things you’ve been telling me for three days.”
He’s quiet for a moment. Then he crosses the terrace and sits in the chair across from me, close enough that I can smell cigarette smoke and something floral - expensive perfume that isn’t mine.
“What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to tell me the truth.”
“I’ve been telling you the truth.”
“Have you?” I meet his eyes in the moonlight. “Then tell me why you came home smelling like her perfume. Tell me why there was lipstick on your collar two nights ago. Tell me why the staff here look at me like I’m the interloper in my own marriage.”
“The perfume is from the club where we meet contacts. It’s ambient - everyone comes out smelling like that.”
“And the lipstick?”
“She kissed my cheek at a meeting. I didn’t encourage it.”
“But you didn’t stop it either.”
“Stopping it would have made her suspicious.” He leans forward, his voice low and urgent. “I’m playing a role, Cielo. The role requires certain - flexibilities. But I have never touched her. I have never wanted to.”
“Then why does she act like you’re hers?”
“Because I need her to believe she has a chance.” His hands clench on his knees. “The Falcones have information I need. Ludovica is my access to it. As long as she thinks I might choose her someday, she keeps talking. The moment she realizes the truth-”
“What truth?”
“That I would burn down the world before I’d betray my wife.”
The words hang between us, and I want to believe them. I want to believe them so badly that my chest aches with it.
“The staff says you were supposed to marry her,” I say quietly. “Before me. Some kind of arrangement.”
“Ancient history. Clan politics. Nothing that was ever real.” He reaches for my hand, and I let him take it because I’m not strong enough not to.
“Cielo, I know I’ve been failing you. I know this trip hasn’t been what I promised.
But you are the only thing that matters to me. Everything else is just-”
“Strategy?”
“Survival. The Falcones have been threatening everything I’ve built for years. If I don’t neutralize them first, eventually they’ll come for everyone I love. That means you. That means any children we might have someday.”
Children. The word sends a cold spike through my chest, because I’ve been thinking about the future lately - about what kind of mother I might be, what kind of father he might be, whether this life could ever be safe enough for a family.
I don’t have answers yet. I’m not sure I want to find them.
“One more week,” he says. “Maybe less. The deal is almost done. And then I take you home to Milan and spend the rest of my life making up for every moment I’ve missed.”
“You keep saying that.”
“I keep meaning it.”
“Then prove it.” I pull my hand free. “Tomorrow. Be here for dinner. Not midnight, not ‘after the meeting,’ not ‘as soon as I can.’ Dinner. Seven o’clock. Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
“Promise me, Giovanni.”
“I promise.”
I want to believe him. I decide to try.
The next evening, I set the table with the good linens.
I found them in a cabinet in the dining room - expensive cloth with an embroidered border, the kind of thing you use for occasions.
Not the ornate L monogram I saw at Ludovica’s place setting at Corrado’s dinner, but something simpler, more elegant.
The villa belongs to Giovanni’s ally, not the Falcones, and I’m grateful for that distinction.
I light candles. I wear the blue dress he loves. I make the same pasta as last night, because I refuse to let it go to waste twice.
By seven-thirty, the candles have burned down half an inch.
By eight, I’ve called him twice. No answer.
By eight-thirty, a messenger arrives at the door - a young man in an expensive suit who won’t meet my eyes.
“Signora Salvatore?” He holds out a folded note. “From your husband.”
I take it without a word.
Cielo - Urgent development. Can’t get away. I’m sorry. Will make it up to you. -G
The young man is still standing there, waiting for a response.
“Did he tell you anything else?”
“No, signora. Just to deliver the message.”
“Where is he? Right now, at this moment, where is my husband?”
“I - I’m not certain, signora. A meeting, I believe. With contacts.”
“With Ludovica.”
He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to.
“Thank you,” I say, and close the door.
I stand there holding the note, reading it again as if the words might rearrange themselves into something different. Then I walk to the phone and dial the number I’ve called a hundred times since we arrived.
Delphine picks up on the third ring.
“It’s me,” I say, and my voice comes out wrong, too high and too thin.
“Cielo.” Her tone sharpens immediately. “What’s happened? Are you hurt?”
“No. I’m not - I’m fine. I just needed to hear your voice.”
“You don’t sound fine. You sound like you’ve been crying for an hour.”
“Only twenty minutes, actually.” The joke falls flat even to my own ears. “He canceled dinner again. Through a messenger, Delphine. He couldn’t even call.”
“That bastard.” I hear movement on her end - a door closing, the creak of a chair. “Where is he now?”
“I don’t know. Another meeting. With her, probably.”
“The Falcone woman?”
“Ludovica. Yes.” I sink into a chair, the messenger’s note still crumpled in my fist. “The staff here whisper about them. Apparently they go back years. There was some kind of arrangement between the families before he met me.”
“And you believe household gossip over your own husband?”
“I believe what I see. He’s with her constantly. He comes home smelling like her perfume. He looks at his phone like it might bite him every time I walk into the room.”
“That doesn’t mean-”
“I know what it doesn’t mean. But I also know what it feels like, Delphine. It feels like I’m losing him. Like every day he spends with her, he drifts a little further away from me.”
She’s quiet for a moment. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. Wait, I suppose. What else can I do? We’re in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by his contacts and his operations and his-”
“You could leave.”
“And go where?”
“To me. Lyon isn’t far. You could be here by tomorrow if you wanted.”
“I can’t just-” I stop, frustrated with myself, with the situation, with the inadequacy of words. “He’s my husband. I love him. I can’t run away every time things get hard.”
“There’s a difference between hard and unbearable, darling.”
“I know. I’m not there yet.” I take a breath. “I just needed to hear someone say it’s not all in my head. That I’m not being paranoid or jealous or-”
“You’re not paranoid. You’re a woman whose husband is neglecting her. That’s not jealousy, that’s observation.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. Just remember that you have options. You always have options, Cielo. Don’t let him make you forget that.”
We talk for a few more minutes - about nothing important, about everything important - and by the time I hang up, I feel steadier. Not calm, but more solid.
I walk back to the dining room window, still holding my phone, and that’s when I see it.
A car slows outside the gate. Through the open rear window, I see Giovanni beside Ludovica, her hand on his arm, her laugh carrying through the evening air. Then the car passes our drive without turning in.
I watch them drive away together, and something in my chest goes very cold.