“Do you cook like this when no one is watching?” I ask.
“Yes.” She doesn’t look up. “Sometimes more simply. But this is still simple. It’s just… exactly the thing.”
Exactly the thing. That’s the part of her that gets me. No dressing up. No drama. Exact.
“Do you?” she asks.
“Sometimes.” I pick up my water, wishing it were wine, and take a sip. “More often I take a plate from someone else’s hands and eat standing up.”
She snorts. “Tragic.”
“Often necessary.”
“Still tragic.”
But she’s smiling now. The line at her mouth eases. She sets her palms on the island and looks at the oven like she can will time to move.
“We could open the wine to breathe,” I offer.
Her eyes cut to the bottle, then to me. “It doesn’t need to breathe that long.”
“You’re serious about rules,” I say.
“I am serious about wine,” she answers, meeting my eyes. “About doing everything right to maximize…” Her breath hitches.
“Pleasure?” I offer.
“Yes,” she says, barely a whisper.
The word hangs between us. I don’t move. She doesn’t either. The oven hums behind her, the only sound in the kitchen.
Sun angles in through the glass doors that look out over the vineyard and highlights the flour at her wrist. I swipe the flour away with my thumb before I think. Her skin is warm. She doesn’t step back.
“Thanks,” she says. Soft.
I hook a thumb toward her hair. “You’ll lose that pin if you don’t fix it.”
“Can you get it?” she asks, turning her back to me without warning. The sweater slips again; her neck is right there.
Gently, I brush my fingers over her soft hair, the silky strands caressing my fingers. I find the pin and pull it out so her hair swings down over the bare skin of her shoulder.
She exhales once, quietly. I could stand here for the next week, just like this, and call it a good use of time.
Her hair slides over my knuckles, dark and heavy, and pools against the open line of her sweater. I let my hand settle there, just above the fabric, not quite touching skin. Close enough to feel the heat of her. She doesn’t move.
“Giovanni,” she says, like my name is a warning and a dare.
“Bianca,” I answer, the same.
I trail my fingers down, slow, following the curve of her shoulder to the inside of her arm. Gooseflesh rises in a neat line under the path I haven’t quite taken. She’s breathing a little faster. So am I.
“Turn around,” I say, low.
She does. Her hair falls forward. I push it back with one hand, tucking it behind her ear. My thumb finds her cheekbone, the same place I touched in Luca’s kitchen a lifetime ago. She tips her face into it.
“Say stop,” I tell her, even though I already know she won’t.
She doesn’t. Her gaze drops to my mouth, then lifts. “Don’t make me,” she murmurs.
