Nonna approaches a little while later, a notebook clutched in her hands. She holds it out to me and says something in Italian, her voice gentle. Alexander translates close to my side.
“It’s like the notebooks she keeps for herself. She wants you to take it with you and write down your recipes in it… so you can teach her next time you see each other. And she says it won’t take long before that happens.”
My heart clenches so tightly it hurts to breathe. I hug her without thinking, resting my cheek on her shoulder.
“Thank you for everything,” I whisper. “Meeting you, and your family, is one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.”
When we pull back, she cups my face and says something else in Italian.
“There are many more good memories with us yet to come,” Alexander translates.
Then she turns to her son, Giorgio, and says something else. He calls for his son, Giovani, who disappears for a moment and comes running back, dragging two suitcases behind him. One enormous, the other smaller.
Giorgio sets the suitcases down in front of me with an air of finality.
“They’re for you and your family,” he says in his thick accent. “And no refusing. We get very offended when gifts are turned away.”
They had already given me little keepsakes during my stay, but I know better than to argue now. Whatever is inside these suitcases was chosen with care... and with love. So I do the only thing I can. I thank them with my whole heart.
Everyone walks us outside. As Alexander guides the car down the drive, they all lift their hands and call out together:
“A presto, Cecily!”[LXIV]
And I wave back through my smile, already missing them.
“We’re here,” Alexander says, pulling me back to the present. Only then do I realize the car has already come to a stop beside the jet.
“Are... are you coming?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper.
He lifts my hand and presses a kiss to my fingers. “Sì, tesoro.”
When he opens the door for me, he reaches out his hand. I take it and lace my fingers through his tightly. At the top of the stairs, I stop and look back one last time at the Pisa sky.
Inside, the flight crew greets us warmly and I manage a smile that doesn’t reach my eyes. I notice when Alexander doesn’t turn where I expect him to, leading me farther down the aisle. I barely register the details of the cabin; my thoughts are tangled, my mind racing a mile a minute.
He stops at a door near the back of the aircraft and opens it, stepping aside for me to go first. I enter a private suite. Spacious. Bathed in the gentle light of wide oval windows. There’s a bed at the center and, just beyond it, an ensuite bathroom lined in marble.
Alexander closes the door, isolating us from the crew.
“You can sleep here later, once it’s safe,” he murmurs, wrapping his arms around me from behind. “You barely slept at all in the last twenty-four hours.”
He sweeps my hair aside and traces the line of my neck with the bridge of his nose. “How am I supposed to survive without breathing you in every day?”
I feel the pull of his inhale, and my eyes flutter shut.
“I should’ve stolen more than just your dress,” he adds, a smile in his voice as he turns me in his arms. “Something to keep your scent with me.”
I look at him. “Which dress, Mr. Santoro?”
“The blue one,” he says, that crooked smile playing at his mouth. “The one with the thin straps you wore downstairs the morning after our first night.”
The same dress he nearly tore from me when he carried me upstairs after tasting me on the kitchen island.
I shake my head, laughing. “You really are impossible.”
His hand comes up to cradle my face and he kisses me. Then he guides me to the bed, and we sit side by side on the edge, facing each other.
“How are we going to do this from here on out, Alexander?”
