Alessio was amused and suspected Francesca could read this across his face. ‘Her boyfriend,’ she clarified.
‘And two phones?’
Francesca smiled after her nonna. ‘She’s a busy and popular woman in Impastino.’
‘I have no doubt.’
Francesca leaned closer to Alessio, and motioned to him with a covert ‘come hither’ gesture. He lowered his head, welcoming her whispered words. ‘I’m convinced there’s a third phone hidden somewhere.’
‘Why would she need a third?’
‘For her lover.’
His eyes widened. ‘Lover?’
‘Just. You. Wait.’
There was something about the way she said this casual remark that made Alessio realise that the idea he’d been toying with, of cancelling the accommodation reservation and looking elsewhere in town, would not be an option.
Francesca wasn’t in his head. She couldn’t feel what he felt. So how could she know?
Strapped for a response, Alessio politely smiled.
Perhaps sensing the change in his thoughts, Francesca snapped back to the task at hand. Her eyes flicked again to her watch. ‘My apartment. Let’s go.’
‘Your apartment?’
‘Yes, but now yours for the summer! Andiamo.’ She gestured that he could lead the way. ‘Out the kitchen, to the back of the restaurant. There’s a flight of stairs. We go up then head outside. I’m right behind you.’
‘Thank you.’
The stairs led to a heavy fire door on a narrow landing. Alessio pushed it open, lifted his suitcase over the aluminium floor strip, and stepped out onto the balcony which ran along the rear of the restaurant.
Fresh mountain-top air; it enveloped Alessio immediately, pushing aside the restaurant’s thick cooking smells.
From the balcony Alessio had an unobstructed view of Monte Calvo off in the distance, one of the highest points along Puglia’s peninsular coastline. He peered over the railing and the steep drop of the land behind the building caught him off guard.
‘That land,’ Francesca pointed down and across the levels of cut, segmented earth, ‘is ours.’ She sighed, folding her arms and leaning on the railing beside him. ‘Our orto. Vegetables, herbs, fruit. We have a few olive trees and almond trees. Just for our own needs. We don’t produce for sale.’
There was something about the way Francesca’s eyes softened and her lashes fluttered that told Alessio there was much more to this garden and her connection to it than she was letting on. But just as he was about to comment on the abundance of tomatoes, the ripe woody scent of which he could smell even up on the balcony, she ushered him to turn around. ‘We live up here.’
We?
She tapped her foot against the bottom rung of a wrought-iron ladder hanging at an angle from the level above them. ‘The ladder takes you to our apartments. There are two; a smaller one which you have rented that is usually mine, and a second, a little larger, which I share with Nonna Maria when we have guests. Come, I’ll show you.’
Francesca shot up the ladder with the ease of decades of experience. Alessio watched as she slipped from view, but not before noticing the line of definition where her olive calves and shins married.
The prospect of spending the next three months of the intense pugliese summer in Francesca’s sun-kissed, alluring presence, as tempting as it seemed on the surface, would likely be a distraction. An unwanted one.
Alessio took a deep breath, forcing the air to the furthermost pockets of his lungs, then took to the ladder. His suitcase followed behind, suspended almost comically in his right hand.
Straightening himself on the second balcony, he flattened down the hem of his linen shirt and pushed his suitcase against the open weave railing. Its black plastic castors began to twist and roll on the polished terracotta tiles, but he shunted a foot in place to stop it.
‘You will get used to the ladders and stairs, I promise.’ Francesca flashed an infectious smile. ‘And I promise you, this ladder,’ she gestured to one behind her, identical to the one they had just ascended, ‘is always worth it. It takes you to the terrazzo above. You can head up once you have settled in. Take in the views. Mountains on this side, and sea over the other, beyond the piazza.’ Alessio tried to crane his neck for a better look, but could see nothing beyond the overhanging balcony above. Francesca dipped a hand under the neckline of her dress and into her bra. She withdrew a small brass key. ‘Your apartment.’ She knocked on one of the two doors behind them. ‘If you need anything after hours, we are just here.’ She motioned to the other door behind Alessio, and passed him the key.
Holding that little brass key seemed like an intimate gesture. It was warm to his touch, having absorbed the delicate heat of Francesca’s body.
If the key were this warm . . .
