I swallowed hard, with no answer.
"Luca. This isn't easy for me."
"I'm not trying to make it easy for you."
"You are."
Then he laughed, surprised, the way he'd smiled in the vineyard that first late night, as if I'd caught him somewhere he hadn't expected.
"Maybe it's coming out that way, but it's not strategy, bella. I've already tried strategies with you. It didn't work."
"It worked."
"No." He looked at me for real now. "It didn't work, because if it had, you wouldn't be here now sitting beside me under my great-grandfather's arbor—you'd be upstairs packing to go back to Bologna."
"I thought about it."
"I know. I always knew, Valentina. You think I didn't see the acceptance letter folded in your suitcase?"
My breath stopped.
"You searched my bags?"
"Not personally, but I gave the order."
"Cazzo, Luca."
"I know."
"You're despicable."
"Sì."
The repetition of that word—the simple sì, with no defense, the one he'd used three days ago to admit he was despicable—made me stop.
I couldn't hold on to the anger anymore. That was the worst part—it was exactly what had bothered me about him from the first day.
I couldn't hate a person who admitted things.
"Why did you search them?"
"Because I needed to know if you were going to try to run. The letter was still in the Calvino when it went to Palermo. I asked them not to take it out. Just to check."
"Why did you ask them to leave it?"
"Because it was yours."
He leaned in a little more, and his knee touched mine for the first time.
"Bella. Look at me."
I looked. His eyes were closer than I'd calculated.
Inches.
The arbor stirred—wind—and a stripe of sun passed over his face and disappeared again.
"I don't know what's happening to me. I know what should be happening. It should be strategy, plan, calculation. But it isn't, and I can't decide whether that worries me, or whether what worries me is the fact that I'm not worried enough."
