I bring her hand to my lips, brushing a kiss over her skin. Our eyes meet, and the sensation is the same one that struck me the first time I held her hand.
Trying to bury the flood of emotions rising in me, I say, “Ciao, bella[III],” my voice coming out hoarse.
She smiles.
“Ciao, Alexander.”
For the past two months, she’s been slipping bits of Italian into our conversations, always curious about the meanings behind the words I let slip.
There are so many more I’d like to say to her...
“You look beautiful, Cecily.”
As always when I say her name, I have to resist the urge to call herCecilia.
I’m not sure how comfortable she’d be with me using the softer, more intimate—and far closer to my heart—version of her name.
“Thank you. You’re not bad yourself,” she says, adjusting her purse as I release her hand.
“No security detail today?” she teases.
I smile.
“No.” I sigh. “It’s one of those things my uncle Giorgio—the one who oversees security for the entire family—insists on whenever I travel abroad. But I don’t like having them around me all the time.”
I don’t mention that they’re nearby, discreetly stationed just out of sight. The closest thing to a compromise my uncle’s unrelenting paranoia will ever allow.
I gesture toward the entrance of the restaurant and force myself not to place my hand on the small of her back.
We’re shown to our table, and the sommelier approaches almost immediately. When he turns to present the cellar selection to me, I ask him to hand it to Cecily.
Her eyes widen, surprised, but she accepts it right away. Of course thatcoglione[IV] she was married to used to choose the wine. Probably chose the food as well. Because “he knew better.”
After we place our order and the wine is poured, Cecily looks at me and smiles.
“So you chose your maternal side for our lunch today?” she asks.
“You said the other day you were cravingcrème brûlée. I heard the one they make here is among the best in the city.”
During one of our first phone calls, I told her about my parents.
A French woman and an Italian man who met while he was on holiday in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat.
Annette was twenty-one, Matteo was twenty-two. They fell in love at first sight and eloped, much to the horror of my father’s family, who preferred church weddings and loud, extravagant celebrations.
I was born a few months later. They stayed together for only two years, two stubborn souls from two different worlds, unable to meet in the middle.
My mother moved to the United States when she was offered a job at a fashion magazine in New York. She brought me with her.
She married Kevin Brown—who was her editor-in-chief back then—that same year. My stepfather is a good man, and he’s been a great father to my only sister.
My father never married again. I used to visit him in Italy often, and eventually moved there when I was seventeen.
He died when I was twenty-six, a sudden heart attack, gone quietly in his sleep. My mother passed five years ago, taken by a rare form of brain cancer. But as she always said near the end, she had lived a full life with no regrets, leaving her love in the legacy she built… and in her children.
“I doubt it’s as good as the one your grandmother makes,” Cecilia says, smiling.
One day, I think,you’ll taste everything my nonna makes.
