Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 100605 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100605 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
“You don’t have to make it right now,” Camilla said. “But you should figure out what you want, before you try to figure out how to make things work with Matteo.”
I bumped my shoulder against hers. “I’m supposed to be the older, wiser sister.”
She smiled. “If you noticed, Niccolo is more my age than Emilio. I think sometimes we are much better at giving others advice than taking our own.” Camilla stood and tugged me with her. “Come on, let’s go have some fun.”
The rest of the night felt like something out of a dream. We drank wine—too much, probably—and wandered cobblestone streets filled with people. There was music everywhere. An older man with an accordion played from a balcony on the second floor. A four-piece band played punk rock that seemed out of place, even if they were good. A young man standing outside a restaurant, trying to wrangle people to come in, handed us two shots of limoncello we didn’t ask for but drank anyway. Past midnight, Camilla pulled me in to dance with a group of strangers, and we laughed so hard, I nearly fell over. A fight did break out near the fried calamari stand, but it only lasted a minute and ended in applause for reasons I didn’t understand but I clapped for anyway.
We drank more wine after that, and I wound up crashing at Camilla’s place on an old, lumpy green couch that smelled like lavender.
***
The next morning, sun streaming through the partially shuttered windows woke me. My head ached, but not nearly as bad as it probably should’ve. Last night had been just what I needed, though it had only stopped the heartache for a while, and my first thoughts were of Matteo.
I waited until Camilla woke before heading out, not wanting to be rude.
She padded into the living room, hair wild, and smiled. “I’m so glad it’s you.” She rubbed her eyes. “I heard someone moving around and thought I might’ve brought Emilio home with me. Old people always get up so early.”
I smiled. “I need to get going to feed my cat, but I didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye. I had a really great time last night.”
“It is the first of many good times, yes?”
I nodded. “Definitely.”
She rested her hands on my shoulders and kissed both my cheeks. “I hope you wind up staying for you, but also, selfishly, for me, too.”
Chapter 38
Matteo
“WHERE’S ALLEGRA?” MY sister plopped down on the seat next to me. I hadn’t even heard her come in for Sunday dinner at my parents’. She was probably the sixth person to ask that question, even though the crowd this month was only about ten.
“She’s busy.”
She squinted and stared at me for ten long seconds. “You’re lying.”
I could technically be telling the truth. But I wouldn’t know it since I hadn’t spoken to Allegra in a week.
“I’m not in da mood, Luciana.”
“What did you do?”
“Why do you assume I did something?”
“Because you find an excuse to screw it up with every woman you’ve met the last few years.” She sighed. “I loved Isabella, and I know what you two had was special, but it ended, and she’s gone, Matteo.”
I scoffed and threw back the rest of my wine. “What we had wasn’t special. It was a lie. And I was a damn fool.”
Luciana shook her head. “Falling in love doesn’t make you a fool. Isabella’s love for you was pure, but she was a butterfly—her soul was never meant to stay in one place too long.”
I laughed maniacally. “Pure? Yeah, pure fiction.”
My sister’s forehead wrinkled. “What are you talking about?”
I met her eyes. “Izzy was cheating on me. That’s why she left. She didn’t come back when she got sick because she loved me. She came back because she knew I was a sucker who would take care of her.”
“How do you know that?”
I filled my sister in on what I’d discovered last week. Her jaw was hanging open when I finished.
“I can’t believe that. Are you sure it means what you think it does? Maybe the entire collection is a love story she made up. She was really creative.”
I shook my head. “I remember her taking trips around the times the photos were dated—to visit her mother, her brother. To take a two-week-long class when she’d decided she wanted to be a pastry chef.”
“And you never saw the tea set before?”
“Only the one cup I found in an old box of her things after she died. But there was no photo or note like the others had. I thought it was just a landscape she’d painted.”
Luciana crossed her arms. “I don’t want to believe it. But even if all of that is true, what does it have to do with Allegra?”
My heart squeezed just hearing her name. “She got offered a job in New York.”