Ti Amo (9 page)

“A while.”

“And you said nothing?”

“I didn’t want you to think it a lie or worse that I had motives, selfish ones. I just wanted you to find her again. And you have. We are best as a team, Gio. For too long you have shut me out of the family. This I understand. But today I proved to you that I deserve more.”

“
Grazie
.” Giovanni mumbled. “I-I do need us to be brothers again. I will speak to Domi about… giving you more responsibility.” Giovanni said.

“
Prego
.” Lorenzo gave a sly smile. “You can trust me. You always could.” He then leaned out of his seat to look to the back where Mira went. He settled back. “A word of advice cousin, you’re being too harsh on the princess.”

“What?” Giovanni asked.

“You should be happy now, you’re a father. You have her back. I would give anything to have another chance with Fabiana.”

“She wants another man.”

“I don’t think so cousin, I saw that shrine she built to you.”

“I know she didn’t fuck him,” he grumbled. “It’s much worse.”

Lorenzo frowned. “I don’t understand. I thought this tension was because of him.”

“When I say she wants another man, I’m speaking of the man I once was. Not the man I am now. She’s my
donna
. I knew it then, and I feel it now. If she had slept with him I would see it in her eyes. She didn’t.”

“You are the man she knew.”

“If I were, I would be able to summon forgiveness. I’m unable to. The fact remains, she had another man living the life I should have lived with her. Feeding my
bambina
his lies about me and watching her take her first steps without me. I should have killed him when I had the chance.”

“Punishing Mira will only drive her further away Gio.”

Giovanni glared at him. “What the fuck do you know about it?”

Lorenzo slumped in his seat. “When you thought she died you turned on us all. You banished me, Rocco, Zia. You shut Catalina out. You retreated. I want our brotherhood back. You have a second chance at happiness. Don’t throw it away for pride.” He glanced over at him. “We are not destined to become our fathers.”

“Leave, Lo.”

Lorenzo rose. He headed to the back of the plane where Mira sat. She looked as if she’d break from fatigue and despair. Her eyes, glittering with tears, lifted to his face and then cut away. She kept her daughter close to her breast.

“If he sent you back here don’t bother.”

“He didn’t. I wanted to apologize to you.”

An old pain surfaced and Mira felt her body grow cold all over. She struggled to keep the tears from her eyes. No one understood her loss. Fabiana was the only family she had in the world. “Not now. I can’t talk about Fabiana.”

“I understand.” Lorenzo rubbed his palms over the top of his thighs. “It tore Giovanni apart when he thought you died.”

“We all suffered,” she said.

“I know you see it. He’s different. Cold. He went dead inside, Mira. He banished me from the family, and he killed Flavio.”

Mira blinked at him stunned. “Killed?”

“You have to help us, he’s destroying this family with his unrelenting anger and bitterness. Many people have lost their lives over the war. If you can get him to trust me again I can put an end to this. I can save lives. You have more influence with him than any of us. You’ll learn that soon enough.”

“Everything okay?” Dominic asked coming to the back of the plane. His interruption made Lorenzo glare with fury.

Giovanni murdered Flavio?
The Flavio man was awful, yes, but for him to be murdered because of her was beyond her comprehension. She didn’t want that knowledge. God help her, what had she and Fabiana gotten themselves into when they hooked up with these men?

“Yes. Everything is fine,” she managed to say though her voice croaked with weakness.

Dominic barely took note of her response. Instead he focused on Lorenzo. “What about you, Lo?
Voi giusti?
”

Lorenzo rose from his seat. He stood several feet taller than Dominic, his head bowed because of the top of the plane. Domi turned sideways to let him out of his seat. “Of course, Domi. Now that I have reunited the lovebirds Giovanni and I are just fine.” He patted Dominic on the shoulder and then pushed past him into the aisle. Dominic took the empty seat next to Mira and buckled his seatbelt.

“She’s really beautiful,” Dominic said.

Mira looked down at her baby. “She’s the best of him, and he can’t even take the time to notice.”

He nodded in agreement. “What did I interrupt earlier?”

“Lorenzo said that Giovanni’s this monster since we parted. He said he’s killing people without remorse. Is that true?”

Dominic narrowed his gaze on Lorenzo and Carlo laughing it up in the aisle. “Did he?”

“He said that Giovanni killed Flavio?”

“Mira—.”

“He’s different, Domi. Mean. Hard. I don’t understand what he wants from me.”

“He needs you, Mira. You are going to have to really help him learn to trust again. He wants to.”

“The things he says to me. He told me what I did was unforgivable,” she said.  “It’s like he wants me and Eve because he feels entitled. I don’t want my daughter caught between us. I don’t want him to use her against me. I’m terrified of my decision to return with you. I’m not sure what to do.”

Dominic nodded as if he understood. Mira felt his kindness and concern was genuine. Unlike Lorenzo, Dominic seemed to be the only man on the plane with a heart. “I went through a lot too. Contrary to what Giovanni thinks Kei was not my lover. He spent only several weeks out of the year with Eve and me. I spent a lot of my pregnancy alone. That’s why I did those drawings, for my sanity. He doesn’t get a free pass on pain. We both have our fair share of it.”

Dominic smiled at her. “Tell him what your life was like without him. Can you try?”

Mira sighed.

“What is it?” Dominic asked.

“I can’t go back there.” Mira dropped her head back and squeezed her eyes shut. The idea of Melanzana sent her emotions into a dark spin. “I can’t. I can’t. Not yet. I don’t want to see where she died. It’s too fast, too much too soon. I thought I could but… I just can’t,” Mira said choking down her emotion and holding Eve tight to her chest.

“Gio loves you. His heart will surprise you. It’s in there. It beats only for you and Eve now. Trust him. He knows more about what you need than you think.”

Mira opened her eyes. When she looked to Dominic she found such kindness and understanding in his smiling face her anxiety melted. He winked. “Welcome home
donna
.”

“I’m not your
donna
,” Mira said.

Dominic chuckled. “Yes you are, and he’s been waiting a long time for you.”

Mira’s gaze returned to the aisle and the empty seat next to Giovanni.

“It’s up to you how this ends Mira,” Dominic said.

Her throat went dry. She moistened her lips and sucked down a deep breath of courage. She understood what Dominic meant. She unfastened her seatbelt and rose with the added weight of Eve in her arms. She walked back down the row of seats and the eyes of the men she passed all lifted and watched her. She stopped at the empty seat next to Giovanni. He glanced over at her then cut his gaze away. Mira sat silently next to him. Giovanni didn’t respond, but again his hand rested on her thigh for the remainder of the flight.

The plane landed. She and Giovanni, along with Eve, were the only ones to disembark. And though she remembered a little of Italy, the airport did not resemble the one she travelled through in Napoli. Giovanni reached for Eve who was asleep on Mira’s shoulder, and she passed her daughter to him. Their baby girl weighed a ton when she slept. The air outside of the jet was cold and unsympathetic. Mira worried that Eve wasn’t dressed warm enough. They did leave a colder climate but Sorrento and Napoli were usually warmer than central and northern Italy. She reached and straightened her daughter’s jacket as the toddler fit nicely in her father’s arms. Mira found herself smiling to see him holding her with so much love and pride. When he gestured with his hand for her to accept his she did willingly. A quick glance back over her shoulder toward the plane and she saw the little ladder being pulled up. Dominic stared at her from the window. He winked.

“Where are we?” she asked after being led to a waiting car.

“Firenze.” Giovanni answered. He adjusted Eve on his lap so he could hold her without disturbing her comfort. The chauffeured vehicle drove out of the private airport.

“I thought we were going to your home, in Sorrento?”

“You aren’t ready, neither am I.” Giovanni glanced over at her. “Am I wrong?”

Mira turned her gaze to the window. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he was correct. From the back of the car she focused all of her attention on the familiar streets and homes that led to the open valleys and hills of Tuscany. The unreal beauty of the outskirts of the city struck her. It was like that of a picture postcard. Again she remembered why this was the country where she and Fabiana had found love.

“Eve will need a car seat in the future, Giovanni.” Mira said. “You can’t ride around with her in your lap. It’s not safe.”

“I’ll see to it.”

When they veered off the main highway to a slanting road that circled mountainous cliffs, sweet memories surfaced. Like the one where she rode the back of his motorcycle with her arms wrapped tight around his waist. The wind blew at her face, up her thighs, and under her dress as she held to him. Giovanni felt so strong and powerful in her arms. There was irony in her life again. Once more she accepted the parallels between her and his mother. Had Evelyn McHenry made the same journey with her child, unsure of her future?

After a silent thirty minutes
Villa di Luce
appeared and the journey neared an end. It looked as it did two years ago, forlorn, abandoned.

“How long will we stay here?” she asked.

“Until we are ready to leave.”

Mira exited the car first and he followed. She accepted the baby bag and waited in the cool evening air for Giovanni to give her the okay to proceed to the cottage. Together they went inside. The driver opened the place up. Giovanni wouldn’t let go of Eve so Mira did her best to uncover the furniture. It dawned on her how vulnerable the isolation could make them. Was it safe?

“Are your men going to be here with us?”

Giovanni handed her their daughter. “Take her. She needs her mother now.”

Mira accepted her child who still hadn’t opened her eyes.

“I’ll warm the place.”

“I asked you a question. Is it safe here?”

He spoke to the driver in Italian. She understood the exchange. Giovanni expected eight men posted all night and three more up a mile ahead to monitor the roads. The man nodded as if it were a normal request. Sadly Mira realized how much she now appreciated the fact that these men followed him wherever he went.

Giovanni did as promised and carried in logs to warm up the fireplaces. The driver brought in her bags, which were packed with everything she could reach.

“It’s been a long day. There’s a room downstairs. Take her in there. It’ll warm faster than the one above. I’ll stay on the sofa.”

Mira didn’t know what to say. She wanted to talk to him, but the look of tired sadness reflected in his blue eyes delayed her from opening old wounds. Their reunion was too fresh and fragile to risk an argument now. In less than twenty-four hours everything for them both had changed. And he was right. She felt bone weary. She wanted to be close to him, but that wasn’t possible either. The longer he stared into her eyes the more they seemed unforgiving. She started past him to the room at the back of the cottage. He put a hand to her arm when she drew near.

“
Grazie, Bella
.”

She glanced up into his strong handsome face, nodded and kept going.

Giovanni lowered his hand. She walked off to the back of the room, and he exhaled the breath he held the moment he touched her. He found the wine closet and removed a bottle of his family’s Chianti. He needed something to warm him. His woman wouldn’t be an option tonight. Her no sex rule was laughable. But he knew better than to disrespect her wishes.

At some point by the fire he had fallen asleep. A hand covered his that held a bottle on his lap. Giovanni opened his eyes. Mira stared down at him. Her hair had a brushed straight look to it. She was real, and not one of his many night dreams.

“Can I have a taste?” she asked.

Giovanni sat up. He wiped his hand down his face and tried to regain his composure. “I can get a glass.”

“It’s okay. I’ll drink from the bottle.” She sat on the coffee table before him. He watched her as she took a slow swallow. She stared back. Once done she wiped the excess from her lips with the back of her hand. A vague but sensuous light of understanding passed between them. As hard as it was, it was harder to be so close to one another with the barrier of betrayal separating them.