His blue eyes were wild and afraid. His arms were rigid at his sides. His nostrils flared as he drew in ragged breaths. I took a step toward him, but he held out a hand. “Caresa,” he said, his small whisper of my name both a reverent benediction and a curse. “No.” He shook his head, his warring emotions flashing across his face—hurt, desperation, passion and confusion. Every single one was a stab to my heart.
“Achille,” I pleaded, physically feeling my heart breaking.
“You said we had to stop this.” He shook his head, his eyes lost and fearful. “You said we could have only one night . . . I can’t do this . . . my heart can’t . . . I can’t take it . . .”
He turned his back, moving out of my sight, and I found myself confessing what lay in my soul. “I love you.”
Achille stopped dead, as if my words were tight leashes to his legs.
My heart sprinted as the realization of what I had just admitted seeped into my bones. But I could not regret the words. They were the truth.
Achille needed to hear them just as much as I needed to express them. Every day they were kept inside was a day filled with pain.
I watched each muscle in his back cord with tension. I waited in silence for him turn around and face me. To look into my eyes and see the truth of my words reflected back. And now those words had been released, set forth into the night air, I felt a sense of freedom.
As if my soul had arrived home.
Achille turned around. He blinked, and twin tears rolled in parallel down his stubbled cheeks. “You . . . do?”
I let out a sob at the sight of his bewildered expression. As if he couldn’t believe that someone could love him. But I did. My love for him was embedded in my every cell; it inspired my every breath and heartbeat.
He was me, and I was him.
A true whole.
“Yes,” I whispered, taking a step forward.
Then he opened his eyes, and, just as he was about to say something in return, his gaze fell to my hand.
My left hand . . .
. . . and whatever he was about to confess was lost to the silence.
Any morsel of hope I had been holding on to evaporated into the air when his pupils dilated at the sight of that ring. His pale cheeks flushed red. His feet found life and stumbled away from me. I tried to give chase, but he fled the living room, and I heard the back door open. The cool air surged inside and circled around me. The flames from the fire roared and flared with life as the fresh air invaded its space.
The slam of the wooden door pushed me into action. I rushed after Achille, heart thundering in fear—fear that I had lost him. I burst into his garden to see him disappearing toward his vines.
I followed him, past Rosa and Nico in their stables. I burst through the trees he had just run through and found him on the third row of now-empty vines, head tipped back as he stared up at the moon.
His breath was white as it collided with the cool of the night. His damp olive skin bumped and shivered, and his toes curled into the soil beneath his bare feet.
I went to speak, searching for the right words to say, to explain, but he spoke before I could.
“My . . . my heart can’t take this anymore.”
His words slayed me, cut me where I stood. He still hadn’t turned to face me. I wasn’t sure if he could. His hurt was evident in his voice.
“I knew . . .” he whispered, so softly, so roughly, “I knew I saw something within you not long after we had met. Then I foolishly allowed my heart to fall, too hard and too fast. I let it happen. I let it happen because it was you and it was me. That’s how I saw it in my head. These vines, the horses and you and me.”
His breathing hitched and his voice became broken and coarse. “When you were beside me I felt strong and whole. When you were gone, I was empty and sad. There was a hollowness in my chest, and I found it hard to breathe.” He dropped his head, evading the moon’s soothing light. “Then we made love.” He raised his hand, and even though I couldn’t see it, I knew his finger lay over his lips. “We kissed, our mouths touched, and it changed something inside me. I felt it happen. I felt it like I feel the hot sun on my face each day, like I feel the vines in my hands and know they are ripe . . . You asked me once how I knew when the grapes were ready for harvesting, and I told you I just knew.” He turned to face me. He lifted his fingers to his head, his heart and finally held out his hands toward me. “I know because I know it in my head, I feel it in my heart, and I touch it with my hands.”
I felt my lips tremble at the innocence of his explanation, the sadness in his voice.
“With you it was exactly the same. I didn’t see it at first, fooled myself into thinking my soul hadn’t discovered you as its own, but when we made love, when I held you in my arms, in my bed, skin against skin, I knew. I was changed. I knew it in my head, I felt it in my heart, and I knew it by our touch . . . it was . . . it was . . . destined.”
“Achille,” I cried. I wanted to move to him, to touch him like he had just described. But he shook his head slightly, begging me not to approach.
“That night, I knew that would be all we ever had. Even before you spoke those words and they met my ears, I knew.” He dropped his eyes, and the defeat in his beautiful body broke my heart. “We are made of the same soul but not of the same life. I knew that we were one of the lost causes my father told me about. Not the all-consuming, not those who find their forever peace in the other, but those whose circumstances don’t align. The unfortunates that in an alternate universe would be the happiest of hearts but are forever broken and lost in this.” He finally met my eyes. “So I can’t hear this from your mouth, Caresa . . . I can’t do this anymore . . . it hurts . . .” He laid his hand over his heart. “It hurts so much that I can’t bear it.”
He pointed at my engagement ring. “You are not meant for me after all. You are marrying the prince. I have let myself pretend that it isn’t happening, but soon, you will marry the prince. You will become his under God’s eyes. Never mine.”
“No.” I ripped the ring from my hand. Achille watched me with wide eyes as I held it up in front of him. “He gave me this tonight.” I gestured to my dress. “He gave me this to impress his guests. It is an empty promise, not given through love. I don’t care for this ring, or this damn marriage.” I threw the ring to the ground.
Achille was rooted to the spot. But in the light of the moon I could see his face reddening, his hands fisting at his sides. He raised one fist and pressed it against his forehead in frustration.
“Achille—”
“I can’t give you what he can,” he said, his voice deep and hard. His hand dropped back to his side. “I can’t give you jewels and banquets and festivals in a mansion.” He slapped his hand on his naked chest. “I could give you me, and my vines, but that is all. I have little money. I know nothing of the world you have traveled. I know Umbria and Italy, and I know my small house and horses.” His face screwed up in pain, and he gasped, “I can’t even read or write. I am not what you should have.”
“You’re enough,” I whispered, my softly spoken words seemingly daggers to his heart. Because they didn’t fall on accepting ears; they were fuel to an already sparking flame.
Achille reached for a vine beside him and ripped it from its branch. He marched toward me and took my left hand. He wrapped the brown vine around my ring finger three times and knotted it.
He knotted it.
The hands that he so struggled to use for smaller movements had tied a ring to my finger. “There,” he said harshly. “That is what I could offer. A ring of vines and earth, not diamonds and gold. Is that enough for you, Duchessa? Is this simple life enough?”
I wanted to shout back. I wanted to hit his chest and release my frustration at his cutting tone. But I looked into his eyes and saw nothing but embarrassment and agony, and I knew this was just like when I discovered the secret of his reading. This anger was his shield, his way of coping with a truth that hurt him deeply, irre
parably . . . it was how he planned to push me away.
Achille watched me, nose flaring, waiting for me to go, to leave him alone. But instead I reached out and ripped off another tendril of vine. I lifted his rough left hand in my own, and wrapped the brown thread around his finger.
His finger that was shaking.
Shaking so hard.
Achille held his breath as I tied the knot, securing the vine in place. Even when I was done, I didn’t let go of his hand. I stroked my fingers over his knuckles, then guided his hand up to my lips and grazed the delicate vine ring with my kiss.
An exhale escaped his lips at my touch, its warmth ghosting over my face. Without lifting my eyes from his work-roughened hands, I said, “If my ring is made of a simple vine born from this earth, then so is yours.” A strained sound caught in Achille’s throat. I lifted my eyes, making sure I held his attention. “I love you, Achille Marchesi, winemaker of the Bella Collina merlot. I found you, my missing part, here amongst the vines, and nothing you say will ever change that fact.”
“Caresa.” Achille’s eyelids drifted shut as the fight left his tired body. I edged closer, so close that my lips hovered over his chest. Needing to taste him, to have Achille eradicate the feel of Zeno’s lips, I brushed a kiss over his chest . . . exactly where his heart lay.
It beat in perfect sync with my own.
Achille hissed at my touch, and as if a dam broke inside him, his hands threaded into my hair and tilted back my head. His mouth came crashing down on my own, a loud groan sailing from his throat. The instant his taste hit my tongue, my blood spiked with fever, my hands gliding to Achille’s back to rake at his bare skin.
He groaned as I strived to get him as close as I possibly could. We were frantic and untamed as we drank each other down, starving for the other’s touch. I broke from Achille’s mouth, searching for breath, and his mouth continued south, laying kisses over my jaw and my neck.
“I need you,” I whispered. “I need you now. I need you close.”
Achille pulled back and searched my eyes. His were almost black, his blown pupil eradicating the sweet blue. The next minute I was in his arms as he dropped to his knees, placing me gently on the flat, cold ground. But I didn’t care. I would have let him take me anywhere, just to feel him inside of me again. Just to feel his chest against my breasts and his body on mine.
Achille crawled over me, his warm skin seeping through the material of my dress. The crystals on my expensive gown sparkled in the moonlight—jewels on a bed of earth.
Achille stilled as he stared down at me. I shifted, feeling nervous at the way he studied me. As if I was everything in his world.
I was in his head, his heart and his hands.
Achille lifted his hand and stroked it down my cheek. He pressed his forehead to mine. “Did you know that you were my first? That night, when we made love, did you know it was you I had been waiting for?”
I didn’t think it was possible for me to want or need Achille more than I had. I didn’t think it was possible for my heart to expand any further. For my soul to mold any closer to his.
But I was wrong. I was so wrong. Because as his cheeks flushed pink when he drew back his head, everything magnified on an impossible scale. Like a dream, my love for him was endless and boundless. And like the simple vine ring wrapped around my finger, I knew it was eternal.
“I knew,” I said as I ran my thumb over his kiss-swollen lips. “I knew, and I was honored. I . . . I still can’t believe it was me you chose. It is me who was given a gift. Your heart.”
Achille turned his face into my hand, his cheek nuzzling the palm. He bent down and brushed his lips past mine. “Mi amore. Mi amore per sempre.”
My love. My love forever.
I crushed my lips to Achille’s. I shivered as he pushed up the skirt of my dress. He shifted until he was completely above me. And then he was filling me. He was taking me, our souls and hearts bared, and no secrets left inside. My back arched as he filled me completely. His arms shook at the side of my head as his eyes closed.
And then he moved. He rocked into me, slowly, purely, on the soil he tended, under the naked moon and twinkling stars. The rich smell of the surrounding vines merged with the fresh smell of his skin and the peach scent from my hair.
My hands explored his bare back, my fingers running through his hair as his rhythm increased and his breathing grew labored. His eyes opened, and they stared down at me with such intense admiration that tears built in my eyes.
“I love you,” I said, needing him to hear those words again.
Achille groaned and took me deeper, making me his own.
“Mi amore,” he murmured over and over as he increased his speed, my hands clutching onto his hair as a familiar pressure built at the bottom of my spine. Shivers exploded through my body, and Achille stilled.
Heads and hearts and hands.
When I opened my eyes, Achille was gazing down at me, his skin glistening in the moonlight. “How do you say it?” he asked. I blinked, unsure what he meant. “In English,” he asked. “How do you say ‘Ti amo?’”
I smiled. “I love you,” I said in English, slowly, so he could hear each word.
“I . . . love . . . you . . .” he echoed, his heavy Italian accent bringing such life to such beautiful words.
“Why did you want to know it in English?” I asked as he lifted my left hand and ran the tip of his finger over the vine ring.
“Because I wanted to be able to say it in both of your languages.” His familiar teasing smirk came to his mouth. “Though I believe it sounds better in Italian.” His smile fell. “I love you forever,” he said tenderly.
Ti amo per sempre.
I agreed; it sounded better in Italian.
“I love you too.” I wanted him left in no doubt of how I felt. But I could see the disbelief in every part of his face. I could see the slither of doubt in his eyes. I vowed to make it so I never saw it again.
He brushed back my hair. “I want to take you in front of my fire, in my home.”
I nodded. Achille got to his feet, then lifted me into his arms. “Can’t have the duchessa’s feet getting dirty,” he teased.
I laughed, deciding this playful side of Achille was my favorite. For it was as rare as a shooting star, but no less memorable. “I think they already are.”
Achille shrugged as he carried me with ease toward his house. “Then I will just hold you in my arms. You look right there. You feel right there too.”
I let my head fall against his shoulder and my arms wrap around his neck as we entered his pretty garden. He didn’t put me back down until we were in front of the fire. My feet landed on the soft sheepskin rug that sat before the hearth. Achille disappeared into his bedroom and returned with his comforter and two pillows. He placed them down before the fire. I went to sit down, but he took hold of my hand and drew me to where he stood. Silently, he pushed the sleeves of my dress off my shoulders, the delicate fabric falling to the floor. I hadn’t worn underwear, the dress’s fit not designed for anything to be worn underneath.
Achille’s eyes flared as his gaze roved over my naked body. He brought his thumbs into the waistband of his pants and stripped himself of them.
We were both bared, in both body and soul, before each other and the climbing fire.
It was perfect.
I kicked my dress to the side. Achille sat on the floor in front of the fire and held out his hand. I went to him in an instant, letting him draw me down until my back lay against his chest. He brought the comforter over us both and piled the pillows behind his back.
Blanketed by the fire, Achille and his warmth, I stared into the flames and watched as they danced, swirls of oranges, yellows and reds. I wasn’t sure how long we sat there in silence, but it could have been eternity. I had never been more content than to simply sit in contemplative silence.
Achille’s hand drifted to my stomach. I stilled; it resembled how an expectant father would hold the sto
mach of his pregnant wife. “Caresa?”
“Don’t worry, I am on birth control.”
Achille exhaled a long breath. “I would not feel worry if you carried my child,” he said quietly.
My heart swelled.
Achille shifted his hand, and the next thing I knew, a book was placed on my lap. The title read Greatest Wines of the World. I glanced up from where my head was tucked into the crook between Achille’s shoulder and neck. His long black lashes kissed the tops of his cheeks. He chewed on his lip as though he was nervous. But I waited, with a racing heart, to find out why he had brought out this book.
Achille had improved so dramatically in the weeks that I had been helping him with his dyslexia. But having seen his pile of books earlier, I knew that was mostly down to him. He must have been reading every night, searching for the words that had been out of reach his whole life.
He was a fighter.
He wasn’t giving up this time.
Achille cleared his throat, and with careful concentration, opened the book to a bookmarked page. Achille lifted the book, placing his finger on the chosen sentence so he could track the words. I felt him swallow deeply, then take a deep breath. With my breath held and my eyes wide, I listened as he read. “It is ar . . . argued . . .” He paused and collected his thoughts. “That . . . the best . . . merl . . . merlot . . . in the world . . . do . . . does not co . . . come from France . . . but fr . . . from . . . Um . . . Umbria, Italy.” I didn’t move as he gathered his composure again and continued. “The most sou . . . sought-after wine . . . hai . . . hails from . . . Sav . . . Savona Wines’ . . . Bella Collina estate.” Achille read the final part of the sentence silently to himself, then said, “2008 is re . . . regarded as the best . . . vin . . . vintage . . . to date.”
Achille released a heavy sigh and lowered the open book. His chin rested on my shoulder as he reached down and ran his finger under the words “Bella Collina”.