He smiles sheepishly. “That’s good. We’re going tomorrow.”
“What?”
“Pack a nice dress or something…you know for a fancy dinner.”
I gape at him, shaking my head. “Anything else?” I ask sarcastically.
“Some good lingerie if you don’t mind.” He winks at me. “Something that will be fun to take off.”
I let out a choked laugh. “You have some big hairy ones, Niccolò Alarico.”
“There’s only one way to find out,cara,” he teases.
I laugh. I can’t help it. “I’ll see what I can do on such short notice.”
39
NICO
The Venice Simplon–Orient-Express gleams under the Florence station lights like a promise from another era, one where travel was not merely a means to an end, but a transformative experience that could alter the very fabric of one’s being.
A low hum vibrates beneath our feet, and warm air sighs from beneath the carriages, ghosting briefly across the platform before vanishing.
Alessia stops short when she sees it, her breath hitching, eyes wide with a mix of awe and trepidation. “Nico,” she gasps.
I love seeing the unmitigated delight on her face.
“You didn’t have to do this,” she murmurs, a soft command cloaked in vulnerability.
“Yes, I did, because you wanted to experience it, and there was no way you were doing it without me,” I tell her.
She looks at me then, and I see a myriad of feelings reflected in her eyes—grief, suspicion, and fragile hope. I want to promise her, then and there, that she has no reasonto worry. Not with me. Never with me. I will protect her heart, nurture that hope into an inferno of certainty.
“Just one night?”
“Well…one night on the train, and then one in Paris.”
“You said one night,” she protests in mock outrage.
“I guess we could come back tomorrow night, but,cara, I have a need to kiss you by the Seine.” It’s a bit too smooth, even for me. And she gets it.
She laughs, holding her hand up. “I guess there are worse places to spend a night than Paris.”
“I want you to have the world, Alessia,” I tell her, pouring all my heart into my words.
She gives a faint, wry smile that dances at the corners of her lips. “I’m surprised you remember I told you about this.”
“It was after harvest, when we were in the courtyard, and I asked you what is something you wanted to do but hadn’t because you don’t have the time, and you said you’d love to travel the Orient Express.”
She quirks an eyebrow in amusement. “I think I mentioned something about Johnny Depp then.”
I make an exaggerated grimace. “You did say you didn’t want murder, and if I recall, Johnny Depp was the odious Ratchett.”
“You’re absolutely right!” She hugs me, then kisses me.
And that’s every fucking thing!
As we step aboard the train, we’re enveloped in a world where time seems to slow, and the outside world fades away.
