Now, that was impossible to misconstrue. He enters the room, footsteps echoing like thunderclaps. “What’s going on here?”
Selina whirls around. Paola appears rattled. Fury burns hot on Dario’s cheeks.
“Paola and I were just discussing her culinary training,” says Selina in the boldest of fashions. Paola swirls her fingers around her temples as if to suggest Selina is out of her mind. Dario feels out of his mind too, except with rage that practically turns his vision red.
“I heard what you were discussing, and how dare you,” he bellows. The sounds of the TV cut out in the background. The pitter-patter of the shower running stops, too. An audience is about to amass as his diatribe mounts behind his lips. “Paola is my family, and you’re trying to hire her out from under me. Why?”
Selina rolls her eyes, clearly caught red-handed. “Because she’s the best, and I want the best.”
Flashes of yesterday in the ruins flood his head. Did that mean nothing to her? Did that mean— “What about me?”
She tilts her head and widens her eyes. “Please tell me you don’t think there’s anything romantic between us.”
His eyes skip to Paola’s, thankful for once that she isn’t fluent in English, so she doesn’t judge what he’s about to say. “That kiss yesterday, it was… I thought it was nice.”
She clucks. “You don’t build a life on nice, Dario. You’re Italian, dios mio. Drama, you have covered, but passion? You’re missing it.”
Dario breathes in sharply. “I have passion,” he rebuts, though it comes out watery, weak.
“For chocolate making, maybe, but not for love. Not for life. I tried to pull you out of your shell today, and you crawled right back in. I want adventure, late nights, wind-in-my-hair kind oflove. I’ve known you—what?—five days, and I can already tell you live by the book. You can’t give me that,” she says before stepping closer and gesturing between them. “I want heat and all I feel here is warmth at best.”
As she moves closer, the sharp angles of her face and her impeccable makeup come into focus. So too do the crisp lines and perfect seams of her menswear. “Did Gabriele make that suit for you?”
“I may have paid him a visit today,” she says.
“You never went to Solomeo?” he asks.
She shakes her head. “I never made it.” His upset must be caked across his face, because she adds, “We would have never made it either.”
Dario senses Charlie and Michelle at his back. Their presence only magnifies his mortification.
“This has been fun and you are as sweet as can be, but I have friends waiting on me in Florence, so I think it is time like Beau I make my exit,” she says. To add insult to injury, she whips a business card from her breast pocket and hands it to a still-quaking Paola. “If circumstances change.” She struts from the room, head held high.
The fashions of love have clearly changed since Dario last walked its treacherous catwalk, because she wanted his life, but she didn’t want him.
The flat-out rejection infiltrates his nerves. Powers off his fight response. Flight kicks in as soon as he turns to face the other two still standing. The other two who certainly have a lesser view of him now that he’s been chewed up and spit out by Selina Velasco, one of the hottest queer models in the whole wide world.
“Scusi,” he says as if this were his own personal catchphrase.
Angelo greets him at the door of the barn house. His wagging tail and happy yaps do nothing to lift Dario’s spirits. His spiritsare crumpled up in the compost bin with the food scraps back in the kitchen.
For the second time this week, he flops down face-first on the bed and screams into the sheets. How had a lovely day spoiled so fast?
Angelo uses his doggie stairs to tramp up onto the bed. Between his teeth is an envelope with Cosimo Sr.’s handwriting on it. It must have fallen from Dario’s pocket as he raced inside, embarrassment hot on his tail.
He tears into the envelope and unfolds the letter.
Caro Tesorino,
Are you ready to give up yet?
My sincerest hope is that your answer is no.
My best guess is that true intentions have been revealed, unfit matches have departed, and feelings have blossomed between you and at least one of your guests. The romance of Italy is hard to fight, and you are a Cotogna man, you carry grace and handsomeness in your DNA.
Dario stops to chuff. Angelo barks in response.
He is not his brother. He does not have a debonair bone in his body. Selina made sure he knew how subpar he was. She must’ve imagined a playboy type, scoring sex left and right. City by city. Conquests on conquests.
