Authors: April Emerson
“That’s right, Carina. Fuck me good,” Enzo demands through gritted teeth.
I see Stefan behind the tree staring at us.
His face is enraged, but he’s stroking himself as he watches me riding his nephew.
I witness the anger and envy in his eyes, but I also see how turned on he is watching me fuck another man. I continue to stare at him as I run my hands over Enzo’s huge, strong arms. I kiss him, and our tongues tangle together. I’m about to come. My head spins, and a fireball within me roars through my blood, heating me everywhere. My body is taking what it wants, and my heart . . .
“Carina, wake up!”
I’m soaked in sweat and lying in my bed beside my fiancé as he shakes me awake.
“You must’ve been having a bad dream.” He throws the comforter off us then rolls over and falls back to sleep.
I realize where I am. It was a dream. I concentrate on slowing my heavy breaths down, and the cooling sweat gives me a chill.
What is happening to me?
In spite of the shame I’m feeling, I can’t fight the smile on my face or the burning between my legs.
Stefan drapes an arm over me, but it feels like a vise.
As the dream fades further away, I’m certain of one thing—I need to stay as far away from Enzo Savano as I can.
Chapter Eleven
I have a headache sizzling in my brain, rioting behind my eyes, and running down my neck while I brush my teeth and attempt to avoid my own image. I hate myself today. I know the dream was just a dream, but I didn’t dream that dance. I didn’t dream that talk in the kitchen or by the oak tree. Those were real. There’s nothing wrong with dancing or talking, but when it leads to that kind of dream . . . it makes me afraid of myself. Afraid of what may be lurking beneath the surface of my subconscious.
I avoid the voices I hear in the kitchen and slip out the front door, through the morning mist, and head straight for the vineyard.
The sky is bluish-gray, the damp earth soft beneath my feet, and the cool, fall air chills my lungs. The vines are less lush, and it looks as if most of the grapes have been harvested. The further I walk, the further the dream drifts away, the better I feel until hunger urges me to return to the house.
I enter through the kitchen door and find Stefan and Enzo seated at the table. Plates looking practically licked clean sit before them, along with half-empty coffee cups. Stefan is on his cell phone, as usual.
“. . . he didn’t get the job done. If you need it taken care of, I can inform Rocco. Yes, of course. I’ll make it happen today.” Stefan’s face looks severe as he puts his phone in his pocket.
“Who were you talking to?” I ask.
“Alfonso,” Enzo answers for him, and Stefan shoots him a look.
“Who’s Alfonso?”
Enzo stares, his mouth agape. He begins coughing and leaves the table to wash his dish.
Stefan’s jaw flexes, and he grinds his teeth as he glares at Enzo. “It’s nothing, darling.”
I get the distinct feeling that it’s
not
nothing, but I’m not meant to be included in this conversation and it irks me.
“Went for a walk, did you?”
“Yes. I was hoping that today we could go for a drive. Maybe have a picnic?” I place my hand over his.
“I don’t have time for that. I have important work to do today. Maybe some other time, darling.” He pulls his hand away and stands.
“Stefan, I’d like to spend some time with you today,” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer but acts as if he didn’t even hear me. “I was just talking with Lorenzo about the menu for the party, and I thought you two could head down to the farmer’s market, see what looks good, place some orders . . .”
“Oh, no. I don’t think I can.”
Stefan seems confused, but Enzo doesn’t flinch.
“That’s fine. I don’t mind going alone,” Enzo says as he dries the plates.
“Don’t be silly, Carina. Wait until you see the market. I guarantee you’ll be in heaven there. Beautiful products.”
“No, I mean, I was going to maybe spend some time with Gemma and Nora.” It sounds weak, even to me.
“They’ll be here when you return. I’d like for you to accompany Lorenzo. I
insist
.” He’s giving me the same look I’ve seen him give when he speaks to Bianca or Rocco.
His servants
.
“Stefan, I can handle it on my own,” Enzo says.
“No. You two go together. I’ll be in my office.” He walks away. The discussion is obviously over.
Enzo and I are left alone.
He places the last dish in the cabinet and dries his hands. “You hungry?”
I’m starving, but I decline his offer to make breakfast for me. It’s too intimate. “I was just going to have some cereal.”
“It’s in the pantry.” He throws the dishtowel in the sink and walks out of the room. “Let me know when you’re ready. I’ll wait for you.”
An hour later, I’m in Enzo’s car. It’s not an Italian sports car, but a functional, beat-up red hatchback, and it suits him entirely. The interior is black and smells sweet and woodsy, like him.
The seductive rhythm of a bass guitar plays its melody from the speakers. The lyrics begin—something about lovers possessing each other.
I tune it out. Enzo’s hands command the steering wheel, and I try to tune that out, as well.
He drives fast but safely.
“So . . .” He startles me by slicing through the thick silence. “What did you want to do? Before you met my uncle?”
I navigate through my hazy mind trying to remember that person, that culinary school graduate who had dreamed of traveling around Italy for inspiration. The young woman swept off her feet by a rich and powerful man and now living a life of privilege, where having a job is far from necessary.
Anything I want, I can have.
“I wanted to open a bakery.” I gaze out the window at my distorted reflection in the side view mirror. Still a young woman, but everything’s changed.
“Like Cari’s Cannolis or something?”
I explode with laughter.
He gawks, but my laughter infects him until he’s hit with chuckles and his body is soon shaking beside mine. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. It’s just no one would ever call me that—
Cari
.” I look at him for the first time since we got in the car.
He looks back. “Why? Too childish?”
“I don’t know. I guess people just see me as a serious person. A ‘call you by your full name’ kind of person.”
“I don’t see you that way at all. You’re far from what I would call
serious
. You make me laugh all the time. I think Cari is a pretty name. It suits you.”
Cold heat breaks through my skin. I ache inside when I look in his eyes.
He’s just being nice. He can’t possibly be flirting with me . . .
I grip the handle of the door and manage to get words out. “Thank you. If I ever do open a bakery, I’ll have to call it that.”
“Why don’t you? Open the bakery? Ravine Creek could use a good one.”
“Well, Stefan prefers that I don’t work.”
“Yes. But is that what
you
prefer?”
I’m struggling between who I was in Italy and who I feel myself becoming—or returning to—here in New York. I
was
a driven person with dreams. Now, I’m a soon-to-be rich housewife with a distant fiancé and a blank to-do list. “I don’t know.”
He nods and says no more.
We arrive at the farmer’s market, and Stefan’s right, it’s amazing. Enzo and I walk beneath the canopy of oak trees from vendor to vendor, side by side, admiring products and tasting samples.
“It was great to visit the vineyard in Tuscany even if it was about business. I loved hanging out with Bianca and Fabrizio. They’re good people. But I never liked that Rocco guy. He rubs me the wrong way.”
I nod, happy to have someone put words to my thoughts.
“You agree with that assessment, Cari?”
“I don’t want to say the wrong thing.”
He stops walking and looks me in my eye. “You can speak your mind with me. I’m not going to judge you or anything.”
“Okay. Rocco is an asshole.”
He smiles and walks on. “That’s more like it. The best part of travelling there is eating Fabrizio’s food. He’s really talented. I’d travel there anytime to taste his food.”
“Fabrizio . . . um . . . he left.” I feel sick as I recall the memory.
“He did?”
“He’s gone.”
“Fuck. Another fucking casualty, I’m sure,” Enzo mutters.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Forget I said it. My uncle can lose his patience. With his workers, I mean. That’s all I’m saying.”
I flash back to Bianca’s reaction. “Bianca told me he didn’t get fired.”
He stops again.
I feel as if I know the answer, but I need to hear Enzo say it. I need to hear someone say it. “If he didn’t get fired, then what did she mean?”
He looks as though he wants to reply but thinks better of it. “C’mon. Let’s look at the vegetables.” He pulls me in the direction of the produce, and for the briefest moment, all I can focus on is the fact that we’re holding hands.
“You’re trying to distract me. What do you mean when you say Stefan loses his patience? Do you think he would have—do you think he could . . .”
“You’ve seen Stefan get angry before. Haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Then I think you can answer your own question here.”
His answer isn’t really an answer, but I don’t press him further.
One vendor has laid out a grand display of mushrooms.
“We should get some of these. Stefan loves them”
He scrunches his nose. “No way. Mushrooms are gross.”
I stop still in my tracks, right in front of the mushroom vendor. “I don’t like mushrooms, either.” I tell him this as if it’s some profoundly important fact or deep declaration, when it’s just a silly thing we have in common.
When Enzo looks at me, his eyes hold the same depth of emotion I feel right now. “Okay.” He smiles. “No mushrooms.”
The effort to keep this man at arm’s length is becoming harder and harder to maintain. There’s something inside me feeling something it shouldn’t. I know that avoiding Enzo will soon be completely impossible.
We walk through the market, agreeing about dishes and ingredients, and place several orders. I pick all of Stefan’s favorite foods—except mushrooms.
When we get back to the house, I rush to find Stefan and try to flush today’s images of Enzo from my mind. I head up to his office, knowing he’s working. I knock but don’t wait for a response. When I walk in, I find him on his cell phone, and he’s agitated.
“I have to call you back,” he says when he sees me, ending the call. “That was an important call. I had to cut it short, Carina. What do you want?”
“The market was great, just like you said it would be. We—”
“Darling, I’m very busy. Can we talk later, please? Thanks.” He turns his back to me and dials the phone.
Feeling the sting of his rejection, I close the door and walk downstairs toward the welcome sound of Lucy’s laughter. I step out onto the front porch and cross my arms to shield my body from the chill in the air.
Lucy is running with a butterfly net, leaves crunching beneath her feet.
I’m sure it can’t be a butterfly she’s chasing in this cool fall air, but it is.
One butterfly flutters around her as she giggles and tries to capture it. It’s a beautiful sight.
Suddenly, something very cold touches my arm, and I turn to find Nora holding two glasses of white wine.
“Oh, thanks very much.” I take the glass she offers.
“Come on. The view is better from down here.”
I follow her to a set of connected Adirondack chairs. Nora drapes a flannel blanket over us as we sit, and I relax into my chair, letting the wine warm me.
“She’s catching the wind, this one.” She gestures toward her daughter. “Lucy’s a daydreamer just like my cousin. She takes after Lorenzo more than she does her own parents.” She laughs. “But it’s lovely for her to have such a special relationship with him. I’m always trying to get Lorenzo to leave here, to travel, meet someone, start his own family . . . but he says he could never leave. He’s so close to Lucy . . . and Nonna for that matter. He gives so much of himself to them. Such a sweetheart, my cousin is.”
“And Stefan?”
“Stefan keeps the wheels turning the way our grandfather did. It’s a big burden he carries, but he carries it well.”
I get lost in thought.
“Does it bother you? That he’s so busy all the time? I’m lucky that Frank makes his own hours. It’s important to us that we can be together and be there for Lucy. I never thought much of Stefan’s workaholic habits until he got engaged. It must be hard for you.” She looks at me with sympathy.
It
is
hard, but I can’t admit that. “Oh, it’s not. He makes a lot of time for me. He’s very romantic. We spend all of our time together.” I can’t believe how smooth the lie slides off my tongue.