“You’re coming with me,” she declares, daring me to refuse.
Joke’s on her.
“I know that, too.”
“Good. Because fuck you and your white-hat complex. I don’t need it, and I never wanted it.”
Maribella comes back with our drinks and quickly sets them down before hastily retreating.
Not able to hold Elizabeth’s hurt gaze, I look out over the water. A gondola drifts past, its lantern casting shimmering patterns on the stone walls. Somewhere nearby, a violinist begins playing a hauntingly beautiful melody, the notes curling through the air like smoke.
“Fallon,” Elizabeth says, bringing my attention back to her.
Peace before the storm. I knew it was coming as soon as I walked her to her hotel. We have twenty years of shit to hash out, but like a dumbass, I had hoped it would wait until we got back stateside.
“You’re mad. I get it.”
She slaps her palms flat on the table, making the silverware clink. “Yes, I’m mad! You left, and I don’t care if your delusional brain thought it was for my own good. Your family needed you. Ryder needed you.Ineeded you.”
I get stuck on the last thing she says.I needed you.
“Why haven’t you gotten married?” she asks, and it sounds more like an accusation than personal curiosity.
I pick up my beer but don’t drink it. “I think I regret asking you to dinner.”
“Are you refusing to answer?”
We stare at each other for a long while before I reply, “Sto guardando l’unica donna che voglio.” I’m looking at the only woman I want.
Elizabeth takes out her phone and leans across the table. “Can you repeat that for my Google Translate?”
If an eyebrow arch could smirk, mine would be doing it right now. “No.”
Romeo comes out with the first course, a simple Caprese salad of sliced mozzarella and tomatoes, garnished with fresh basil leaves.
Placing her napkin in her lap, Elizabeth smiles at him. “Grazie.”
He becomes starstruck and almost drops the plate he’s setting in front of me.
“Sua moglie è bellissima.”
“Sì,” I reply.
Elizabeth uses her fork to cut a slice of tomato in half. “You’re not going to translate what he said either, are you?”
“Learn the language, Kitten.”
“When did you?”
Guess we’re playing a round of twenty questions now.
More interested in her than the food, I nurse my beer. “I picked up snippets of different languages over the years as I went from one place to the next. I’m not fluent by any means. Just know enough basics to get by.”
She holds up her fork and bites into a wedge of tomato. “I learned German because that’s what Marcus took in high school. Christopher took Spanish like me, but Charlotte wants to switch from French to Mandarin when school starts in August. I’ll need to find her a tutor because I sure as hell don’t have the brain capacity for learning a third language.”
“It’s a hard language to learn because the tone of the word affects what it means. If I said ‘wo xiang wèn ni,’ it means I want to ask you a question. But if I changed the tone ofwèntowen andsaid, ‘wo xiang wen ni…’”
Elizabeth sits forward in her seat. “What would it mean then?”
