One day, after driving the “Cliffs of the Gods,” Rocco giving me a history lesson on the island, how locals claimed it was formed by Neptune, he’d decided to take me to a more secluded area of the island, where nature ran wild, almost like a jungle. There was a worn-down path that visitors had carved out to get to where we were going. An abandoned lookout tower in the middle of nowhere.
As we climbed and climbed and climbed, we somehow started to discuss fate, and what we believed of it in our own lives—arewe directed by fate’s hand, or do our own minds, hearts, and feet bring us in whichever direction we want to go, and we just happen to crash into whoever, whatever, and move from there?
We both decided before we reached the tower that we were of the first camp. We felt God set desires in our hearts, and the hand of fate helped direct our steps. That wasn’t to say we were not people of free will, but…people, places, things, even obstacles were put in our way so we could follow the map to the desires of our hearts. It was kind of like that saying…follow the path of your happiness.
During the walk, when I would say something he felt was exceptionally poignant, he would stop walking, and, since he held my hand the entire time, I’d stop too. Our footsteps were already in sync.
On one such stop, I couldn’t stand tonotknow why he was looking at me that way, with an intensity that would make a woman have an…explosion of the heart. (Okay, I was really thinking orgasm of the heart, but I wasn’t sure if that would be an appropriate body part to use in that metaphor.)
“What?” I asked, my breath trembling out. Not only from exertion. From the way he looked at me. He was a breath stealer. That was how powerful his…magic was.
“You are a line in a novel that makes even a heart made of stone pause to read it more than once to absorb the greatness and beauty of the hand that wrote it.” He repeated the words in Italian.
He stole not only my breath with that answer, but any words that could do justice to what he’d just said. I nodded, whispering, “Grazie mille, martio mio.” Then he caught me before my legs gave out, as if the vapors had gotten to me, and carried me the rest of the way to the tower, staring at my face while I stared up at his.
He climbed every ancient step with me in his arms, droplets of crystal sweat rolling from a shimmering olive body. He was sweating from the humid heat, but he wasn’t even panting. At the very top of the tower, he set me on a stone windowsill, hispowerful arms the only thing keeping me from falling hundreds of feet to my death. I knew he wouldn’t ever let me go. I even leaned back some, feeling the swaying breeze sweep my hair against my exposed back.
“You trust me,” he said, almost like he was stating the obvious to himself.
“With my life,” I said automatically.
“This,” he breathed out. “Thiscreatura selvaggiacame straight from my heart.” On the wordmy,if his hands wouldn’t have been on me, I imagined he would have hit his heart.
He’d called me a wild creature, and I grinned, swaying back and forth in his arms, my hair dangling like that long-haired chick’s from the fairytale stories. Until the sun melted into the night sky and set for the night. Rocco lifted me from the sill as if I weighed nothing, turning me forward, keeping me in his arms. My hands caressed his arms, my fingertips moving back and forth slowly across his warm skin. The world had turned pitch, like coals from a fire, except for the stars dancing above our heads. Diamond embers flaring from leftover heat.
“Wow,” I breathed. “This is…almost unreal.”
The stars seemed so close, like the sea had turned upside down and was showing us a few secrets from its deepest depths. Two telescopes were placed by two windows, but I didn’t even feel like we needed them. Maybe if I was searching for one, but I liked the idea of an entire picture of them.
“Sì,” he whispered.
When I turned some in his arms to catch his reaction to such a spectacular light show put on by Mother Nature, he was gazing at me. My eyes closed instinctually when he moved closer, his lips barely touching mine.
The only stars I needed to see were dancing behind my eyes from that healing kiss.
“You know,” I breathed out, trying to catch my breath from the kiss and his hold on me, “I was conceived in—” I almost stopped myself from saying it, but decided to say it anyway “—the Witch’s Tower,Torre della Strega, in Fogliano di Maranello.”
He turned me around so fast, I gasped. His eyes were almost frantic, searching mine.
I lifted my hands, a grin on my face, not sure how else to react. “I swear I’m not a witch. At least, I don’t think so.” I cackled like one to make a joke.
He didn’t even grin. He was holding on to me so tightly, he was trembling to stop from hurting me. “Tell me,” he said, and even though his voice was hoarse, there was no doubt it was a command.
“I don’t know, Rocco,” I whispered. “That’s just what my mom told me.”
“The entire story.”
“Well, I wasn’t there for it, obviously, but…my mom and dad are both from Louisiana. My mom is from a place called Metairie.Met-treeas locals pronounce it. My dad is from New Orleans proper. He was born and raised in the French Quarter. Lived there his entire life until he moved to Los Angeles, after his books hit it big. Anyway. My mom graduated from high school, and her family paid for her and a few friends to celebrate by sending them on a European vacation. Not until January, though. It was cheaper. My mom’s parents are frugal.
“My dad was older, always wanted to be a writer, and decided to scrimp and save until he had enough money to go to Italy—hence the January price tag instead of a summer one. His first book, the beginning of it, is set in…Maranello. The book is about a…” Oh my God. I almost choked on the words, but I managed to squeak the first four out before my voice matched his—hoarse. “A powerful criminal family that attempts to murder a racer, and the racer must find out why they want him dead before this powerful family finds him and kills him. Spoiler alert. He becomes a modern-day Italian James Bond, even sleeps with one of their wives to get more intel.”
It didn’t seem like any of that was what he wanted to hear.
I cleared my throat. “My mom and dad met in Rome—I guess they both flew from New York there? It was a whirlwind romance. She split from her friends and went with him to Maranello. She claims he seduced her with too much wine, too many stars, and ramblings of a writer who thought he was going to be the next great novelist of our time—a modern-day Hemingway, but one who wrote thrillers.” I shrugged. “I never believed that part of the story. That my mom was ‘seduced.’ Takes two to tango, and if she really didn’t want him, why did she ditch her friends to follow his dreams? He wasn’t innocent either. He fed her a lot of lies. Anyway. Not the point. The point is…I was conceived that night.”
“In Maranello.”
“Yeah, she said that’s where the tower is.”
