I just hope she doesn’t mind that I plan to spend the rest of her stay proving I’m more than the guy she left in her dust and have more potential than any man she could meet in her future.
Pacing back and forth in front of the stairs, I hope my boots aren’t wearing down the terrazzo tile we recently replaced. I mutter, “I need a top-notch warranty.”
Just then, Maya’s voice penetrates the fog of my anxiety. “For what?”
Of course, I’m so lost in my own thoughts, I blurt out, “To see if you want to go sightseeing.”
There’s a pause, a held breath. A moment suspended between us as if time knows her answer, one word, will forever change the trajectory of everything. My diaphragm tenses, just like it did in those few precarious seconds before I was taken out of the game.
For good.
Maya stills. Her head drops even as her fingers clench the wrought-iron banister in time to an invisible metronome.Squeeze. Release. Squeeze. Release.Certain she’s going to turn me down, I brace myself for her “No” only to be surprised by a response I wasn’t expecting.
“Can we go to the castle ruins?” Her head lifts, and the excitement in her eyes almost overwhelms me.
I’d do just about anything to put it there. Going to see a pile of rocks that have been on this land for hundreds of years? “Absolutely.”
An hour later, we approach the ruins—me with memories, Maya with reverence. Before she lifts her camera, I ask, “Do you want to explore first or do you want to know more about the castle?”
Maya thinks through her response. “Give me some context about your life here. I’m having some difficulty aligning the man who wears custom-tailored suits with the one who just carried a backpack lunch for two.” She blushes before stammering, “I mean…”
I don’t correct her. Instead, I launch into some family history. “The Ferraros have owned this piece of land dating back—so far as we can trace—to the 1500s. During that time, the Piedmont region was governed by the House of Savoy and—what I’m certain felt like under the less than modern conditions we’re blessed with today—the Italian Wars that never ended. It’s a key piece of Piedmont history, which led to the return of Piedmontese territories from France after the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis.”
My words captivate Maya. “Go on.”
“The Ferraro estate was originally part of the stronghold of the Duchy of Savoy, but after the wars ended, it was returned to my ancestors.” I nod to the remains of the structure—the castle tucked into the hills of Piedmont, surrounded by rows of vines that down the line would sustain the wealth of my family for generations. “My childhood summers spent here were blistering hot and bone-tiring—pruning vines, hauling buckets. I learned Italian the hard way.”
“How’s that?”
“By listening to my uncles muttering I’d never be cut out to run the winery.” A whimsical memory flashes through my mind.They weren’t wrong. All I wanted back then was a ball in my hand, not dirt under my nails.
“What just went through your head?”
“Just now?” At her nod, my smile widens. I jerk my chin toward the castle. “I realized I was meant to play football standing right about where you are right now.”
“Wow. A tour and life epiphanies all in one day. Who knew you were such a catch?”
I grin, “Careful, keep talking like that and I’ll start thinking you actually like me.”
She tilts her head, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Too late,” I say, but what I don’t add is that it’s not my ego that’s swelling—it’s hope.
We both chuckle before I continue giving her some insight about me that no-one except my family knows. “One summer afternoon, I was so tired of hearing I would not be good enough that I grabbed my ball and came down here. I placed the ball on the kicking tee, took a few steps back and, wham! Sent it flying.”
Maya’s brows raise above the tops of her sunglasses. “Over the castle?”
“I was twelve. Try into the ruins.”
Her hand comes up to her mouth to stifle her laughter. “Oh, my. They must have been furious.”
I tug at one of her loose curls. “A complete understatement. Mama was livid until I explained what drove me to do it.”
Her hand comes up and rests on my bicep, close to the heart that’s racing for her. “I hope she understood.”
I capture her fingers and lift them to hover just below my lips. “I was immediately grounded.”
Her outrage is magnificent. She uses her free hand to rip off her sunglasses, blue eyes raging with indignant storms twenty years too late. Unable to resist the temptation her reaction provokes, I brush my lips against her knuckles.
