Chapter 18
L EILANI
“Everything’s fine,” I say, talking to Rory on the phone.
Setting my clothes on hangers, I’m taking in the amazing vistas around the property––the view of Etna is amazing.
What an emotional day yesterday was. And what a beautiful day today is.
It’s like I’ve stepped into a different life.
Last night ended on a sad note.
I don’t know what made me ask him to do that. Clearly, there was no way it could work.
There were no good feelings afterward, only pain and despair. I felt filthy for even bringing it up.
Why, to this day, do I still feel responsible for what happened to me?
He handled it maturely, recognizing it for what it was.
A futile ploy to remove something that couldn’t be removed.
And then I felt guilt again. And I was afraid that I had ruined things for us.
Midnight hours were filled with dread.
I was convinced he was mad at me, and it took such an effort to stay in my room––lying in bed and staring at the ceiling––and not to put on some clothes, run out, find him, and beg him to forgive me.
Our time together was so memorable before I ruined it––I thought.
Luckily, I fell asleep and felt better in the morning.
I put on some nice clothes, a summer dress and a cropped sweater, brushed my hair, and walked into the dining room, bracing myself for the worst.
The room was empty, yet breakfast was on the table. Brioche with granita.
Someone must’ve ordered it from me. And then my favorites: eggs, toast, fruit, and coffee.
No one came to talk to me, and I was hungry, so I sat at the table and ate.
The food was warm, and everything was fresh.
Someone had put some thought into what I wanted to eat for breakfast.
The fresh flowers in the vase were a nice touch, too.
If I didn’t know that there wasn’t a woman in the house, I would’ve thought that Nona herself had set the table. Or someone like her.
Before long, the stairs creaked, but I knew it wasn’t him, so I had mixed feelings about the person about to enter the room.
Seeing Cosimo in the doorway brought me relief. He seemed casual, even in a good mood.
That’s when he told me that he had been tasked with helping me move to a different place.
I stared at him with worry.
“No need to be concerned. He’s in town, and you’re leaving with him,” he said.
An hour later, I had my suitcases packed up and was nibbling on a pastry when the man of the house made an entrance.
Like Cosimo, he was in a good mood.
“Ready?” he asked with a smile and even left a kiss on my cheek.
In front of Cosimo?
I couldn’t believe it.
My cheeks were flushed while Cosimo pretended that he hadn’t seen his boss doing that.
He picked up my suitcase and headed out while Callum searched my eyes and ran the back of his fingers along my cheek.
“Everything all right?” he asked, and I nodded repeatedly, unable to utter a word. “Did you sleep well?” he also asked, and I nodded again.
“How about you?” I managed to ask, and he flashed a smile before inviting me out.
“It was all right,” he said.
With that, our conversation ended.
He later hinted that we were forced to move outside the town. For my safety, he added.
I thought we’d live in one of those secret houses––those dark, covered-in-mold places you hide in from your enemies, or the long arm of the law.
I never imagined he would bring me here.
This place is amazing.
What’s more amazing is that I’m with him.
It feels safer, too.
You can’t reach us unless you parachute people on top of this compound, and even then, the armed people on the ground would have more than enough time to organize their defense.
This hardly looks like a military complex, though.
It rather looks like a newlywed couple’s estate. How grandiose of me to even think about such a thing.
The truth is, it’s beautiful, and I can’t wait to spend two weeks with him here.
I give Rory a detailed description of the luxurious space, including the multiple bedrooms, the upper floor that belongs to me, the gazebos outside, the pools, and the footpaths. The vineyards.
I love the vineyards.
And then there are horses.
My love for horseback riding has come back since he mentioned it to me.
She’s happy with this turn of events and begs me to keep her in the loop and to make sure that I create beautiful memories so I can tell her about them.
Her father is on the mend, and she’ll spend more time with him.
We end the call a little later, and I drop the last few hangers on the bed and walk to the window.
Shielding my eyes from the sun, I look in the distance.
There he is.
My man.
Riding a dark horse, he looks amazing. Like no man I’ve ever seen.
What I forgot to tell Rory is that I share the upper floor with him.
This is our bedroom.
And these two weeks will be our life.
It’s up to us what will happen after that party in Taormina and how we play our cards, but so far, so good.
I think fate is on our side.
Leaning against the window frame, I wait for him to reach the house and look up.
Grinning, he peers at me.
Everything fits him perfectly, from his open-at-the-neckline shirt to his fitted vest, riding pants, and shiny boots.
The sun has already darkened his skin a little, making his devilish eyes pop.
He winks at me, and my knees turn to butter, before I give him a small wave.
“Let me know when you’re ready to join me for a ride. I want to show you the property,” he says loudly.
“I’m ready,” I say just as loudly. “Wait for me.”
Without waiting for him to say another word, I spin around and sprint to the closet, giddy, excited. I’ve never been happier in my life.
I have to improvise since I don’t have riding clothes.
I get some fitted pants, a flowing blouse I tie at the waist, one of the scarves he bought for me, and regular sports shoes.
I fly down the stairs where Cosimo waits for me, holding the reins of a brown horse.
“How good are you at riding?” Callum asks, and I realize he’s never seen me riding in New York, since my mother made every effort to keep him away from me.
“Very good. I’ll show you.”
I take the reins from Cosimo, hop on the horse, and free my hair from the ponytail before nudging the beast under me to lurch forward.
“Catch me if you can,” I say, laughing, and Cosimo and he chuckle before I hear the hooves of Callum’s horse behind me.
CALLUM
She is a good rider, and I don’t catch up with her so I can see her arched body over her horse’s neck, her spine tense, her hair moving in the wind, mirroring the horse’s mane.
The sun kisses her skin as she moves forward at speed, so full of life that I’d never forgive myself if I ever allowed anything bad to happen to her again.
Eventually, she looks at me over her shoulder, smiling, her eyes flooded with the kind of joy only complete freedom can give you.
I finally erase the distance between us, and for a few good minutes, we’re riding next to each other before we slow our horses down so I can actually show her the property.
She’s catching her breath as we slowly move past the vineyard.
“How do you like it?” I ask, the breeze moving through her hair.
Her cheeks are ruby from the effort, her hair looking like it would probably look had she spent the night with me.
“You know I love the other house,” she says pensively, straight in the saddle.
She looks so fine, so gracious.
Her eyes come to mine.
“Despite belonging to my mother.”
“About that,” I murmur, looking down briefly. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
“Is it something bad?”
Her instant worry makes me smile.
“No, it’s not.”
I look at her.
“It’s just that I never fully understood your relationship with Bianca.”
“There was no relationship with Bianca.”
“That much I figured out.”
“Same goes for the rest of my family.”
“I got that, too.”
Our eyes connect when I speak next.
“It was her idea for you to be sent here.”
Her expression shifts.
“It happened way before her death. Right after she and I got married. I couldn’t comprehend why she’d want you to live away from us.”
“It was because of you.”
“Yes, it was,” I admit, although it didn’t make much sense to me back then.
“And yet you did it,” she says. I read her eyes. She continues. “You asked me to leave my home and move here.”
“Yes, I did. And I regret that. Although we probably wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for that.
Knowing what I know now about your grandparents, I think it was a good move.
It kept you away from that life. They would’ve probably married you to someone else, possibly sooner.
Maybe not Varela. But someone just as bad. And I might not have been around.”
She studies me in silence.
“You felt something for me even back then,” she says.
“Your mother’s obstinacy with this whole idea made me curious about this story. About you.”
“I’m talking about when you walked into our house to ask her hand in marriage.”
We both pull our horses to a stop.
“It wasn’t exactly a typical asking of someone’s hand in marriage.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You didn’t look at me.”
“I didn’t look at anyone.”
“Yet you knew exactly what was happening in the room.”
I nod in agreement.
“I liked you from that first moment,” she says.
Her raw sincerity makes something tighten in my chest.
“What could you possibly like about me?”
“The way you carried yourself. You were different than them. That’s what I liked the most. I knew where you came from.
Who you were, and all that. I suspected you weren’t there because you had feelings for Bianca.
Honestly? No one had feelings for her. And she was just like them––like her men.
She also couldn’t feel a thing like her mother and her father.
All the feeling stuff had been left to me. ”
Her joke is dipped in sadness.