“I bedazzle you,” he said, meeting my eye when I stood after kissing her delicious cheek.
I smiled. “Since the moment I saw you.”
He touched his nose and then pulled his finger away, doing the exact thing Anna had done.
I narrowed my eyes. “Are you calling me abugiarda,too?”
He shrugged. “You’re happier now.”
“Ele’s here—”
He shook his head. “You’ve always been happy about Eleonora. You haven’t been happy with me.”
It was the first time he brought it up since we got to New York, and my heart swelled. He was in that space and time where he could feel the distance. He wanted to bridge the gap.
“Not with you,” I whispered.
He kissed Ele on her head and took her over to her bed, laying her down. He took the chair again and touched his leg. I curled up in his embrace and took a deep, deep, breath. It felt as if I had been holding my breath, waiting for this moment. I could finally breathe again.
It had been wonderful having Ele. Our time was spent surrounding her, enjoying her, loving her. But this was what I had needed from him, one lover to another.
“I love you more than life, Corrado,” I whispered. “But I get lonely.”
“You’ve been spending time with some of the wives.”
I tried. I couldn’t. They were different. They talked about shopping, and cars, and places to go for spa days. Our conversations had no real substance, or any real depth, or any true feeling—when they laughed, it wasn’t true.
I was thankful for Mari. She had called me a few times, and I had called her. She even invited me to girl’s nights with the Fausti wives, but I didn’t go.
Corrado did not like Rocco, and that was a problem. If things got tense between them…I did not want to think about what would happen. It wasn’t worth the trouble. And then Mari and Amadeo had gone back to Modica for a while. We made plans to connect when they returned.
So it had been rough untilmammaand Anna arrived. But.
“I still feel alone,” I said. “This house.” I looked up at him. “It has everything, but nothing. It’s not warm. There’s hardly any laughter. It feels like a prison.”
“You traded one for another.”
“No,” I said. “You freed me, but without you here most of the time, nothing ever feels like enough. There’s excess all around me, but not the kind that matters.”
“It’s me,” he said. “I’m doing this to you.”
He was one of the smartest men I had ever known in many different ways. But in love he was lost.
“Your grandmother told you of our conversation,” I said.
“No, she lies to me. Just like she lied to my grandfather. It was the nature of their relationship.”
“It’s not the nature of ours,” I said, sitting up, taking his face in my hands. “This is not about you, or about me, but aboutus. I miss you. I haven’t seen you this way since we left Italy.” I searched his eyes. “You do not look at me. Not like this. Not enough.”
“How am I looking at you, angel eyes?” he whispered.
My heart raced and my breath caught, like the very first time he looked at me this way. “Like you miss me, too, even though I’m next to you.” I put my head against his, breathing him in.
He tucked his finger under my chin, lifting my mouth to his. He kissed me slowly, deeply, and then with the same roughness that made me feel claimed.
He broke the kiss and ran his hands over my head, then pulled ours together. “What do you want from me, woman?”
“Everything,” I said.
