He nudged his nose against the arch of her neck and shoulder, and finally she settled against him.
He loved holding her like this, as if he could capture her in this moment and space, as if he could control the tornado she was sweeping through his life. Even though it was nothing but an illusion.
He rested his chin in the crook of her neck and shoulder. “Please, Sam. Tell me what has upset you so.”
“How come you didn’t invite me to this charity banquet?” Her arm swept out between them, signaling to his formal attire. “Angelina told me all of Milan’s high society will be there. Apparently, it’s the social event of the year.”
He rubbed a finger over his brow, his stomach strangely tight. “You wouldn’t enjoy it.”
She gave a slow nod, her eyes wide. “Is it that, or are you worried of what people will think when you bring me? You aren’t ashamed of being seen with me, are you? Because I’m too young and naïve and fragile for your crowd?”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever said to me.” Ire coated his every word. He took a beat to breathe through the tight fist in his gut. “The evening is basically rich people showing off with their donations, courting me. And I do the whole song and dance because the charity means a lot to me. If you came,” he said, his hesitation betraying him, “you would be bored by all the showboating.”
“You like to keep me separate from the rest of the world, is that it?”
“Sì,” he said with enough force that the calm around them fractured. “Is that so wrong? Is it wrong if I don’t want the world to cast its eyes on you and speculate on our affair? You were distressed by it when it was just my family. I do not care what the entire damned world thinks of this thing between us, but you might be hurt. And I won’t subject you to that.”
“Okay,” she said, running her hands over his collar, soothing him. Rubbing at a spot on his jacket with her finger. And then she gave up on the pretense and simply patted his chest with her palms.
He liked it when she touched him, but today it was different. Today there was a hesitation. As if she were gathering all of her courage to ask whatever it was. It filled him with tension. “Just ask, Sam. Whatever it is.”
She looked up at him, surprise making her brown eyes impossibly wider. Then she sighed. “This banquet, the research foundation, it’s all in her name, isn’t it? Violetta.”
He nodded. It was strange to hear Violetta’s name on Sam’s lips. But not as jarring as he’d imagined it would be. “How do you know?”
“One can’t be your plaything and escape her name being thrown in one’s face, Alessandro. But I want to know about her,” she said, a wariness to her mouth. “Especially when it’s clear that she was—she is—a big part of who you are.” She swallowed slowly. “I mean, Angelina told me most of the details.”
“What else is there to know?”
The sky was suddenly overcast, dark clouds rolling in. Like his mood.
Alessandro didn’t know if he preferred the light or the dark for this conversation. Only that he didn’t want to hurt Sam by saying the wrong thing. But stopping her when she set her mind to something was impossible. He’d learned that when he’d tried to stay away from her.
“I know that she fell sick a month after your engagement. That she endured a long fight with cancer. That you stayed by her side for four hellish years. That you—” She faced him then. Tears welled in her eyes, but she blinked them back. “I’m so sorry that you lost her, Alessandro.”
Words escaped him as he beheld her. As she stared back at him, communicating all the pain she felt for him. For the future he’d lost. For the woman he’d loved as if she were his own breath. Acknowledgment of all he’d endured shimmered in her eyes. And yet it felt like benediction, not pity. Not comfort. Like acceptance without expectations that he move on, become normal again and be happy.
It felt like she was entering that space where he was most tormented and she was holding his hand through it. Telling him he wasn’t alone.
Emotions whipped him around like a leaf in a storm. It shook him again how this woman was so fragile and yet so strong, so stubborn about venturing where she knew she’d be hurt and still plod along anyway because that’s what life demanded.
“Then, you know everything, Sameera,” he said, in that forbidding tone she teased him about but couldn’t help.
“The thing is,” she said, her breath an audible hitch, “everyone talks about how you lost her. How you changed after she was gone. How her death changed the very course of your life and I…hate that.”
He felt as if one of Bruno’s fists had connected with his solar plexus, punching his very breath out of him. Stunning him, tilting the axis of his life yet again.
“I want to know what kind of a woman she was. Tell me what made her angry, what made her laugh. Tell me about what…made you fall in love with her. Tell me about her.”
“She was ambitious,” Alessandro said, words rushing to his lips like a torrent unlocked. “She wanted to own the world as much as she wanted to change it. We were at school together. At eight or nine years old, she decided she wanted to be a doctor. She wanted to help people. She beat me at every competitive exam we took. She…called me on every bit of my arrogance.”Like you, he didn’t say. A laugh burst out of him. “She was the life of the party. She was petty about small things, could hold a grudge like no one else and was generous where it mattered.”
“She sounds lovely,” Sam said, and he could tell it wasn’t a platitude.
“She was,” Alessandro said, as sudden darkness completely blanketed them.
Sameera shivered, and he gathered her to him, although it was for his own comfort. He swept his palms all over her—the bare midriff, the toned arms, the silky skin—and as he warmed her up, he told her all about Violetta.
He talked about things even he’d forgotten. Things he’d buried so far deep in his heart that they had ceased to exist. Everything Violetta once had been came roaring back to life in his words. Wrenched forth by this woman who was made of sunlight and laughter. It was as if Sam had reintroduced Violetta back to him as something more than a dying woman.
