Gaining Visibility (21 page)

Julia nodded, remembering the words he'd spoken to Angelina at lunch last Sunday. “
Ti voglio bene,
” she repeated.

He dropped his gaze as his hands left the water. He began to trace the indentation of the muscle on the outside of her thigh with his fingertips. “When the man love the woman, he say to her,
Ti amo.
”

Julia swallowed several times, trying to force her heart back down into her chest where it belonged. She didn't repeat his phrase. Her spine stiffened with dread of what she feared would come next.
Don't say it. Don't hand me a line now
.

His eyes drifted up slowly until they locked with hers. “Julietta.
Mi. Sono. Innamorata. Di. Te.
” He spoke slowly, pronouncing each word precisely.

She'd expected
ti amo,
so this threw her off, but the breath that left her in a rush was fringed with relief. She managed to find her voice, though it still fell to a whisper from the lack of air behind it. “What does that mean?”

A calm stillness settled over his face. No blinking. No twitch at the side of his mouth. “I fall in love with you.”

For a split second, unbridled joy zinged from synapse to synapse throughout her body until his words got tangled in the logic center of her brain. “Don't say that.” Her frustration was chased with anger. She eased off on her tone. “I'm not one of those younger woman you have to make bedroom promises to in order to keep having sex with. I don't expect anything from this.” She wagged a finger between them. “Certainly not love.”

The frustration she'd felt now bloomed on Vitale's face. “You think I say this to have the sex with you? Why would I do this? We have the sex now.” He leaned forward and leveled his eyes with hers. “I say this because I say the truth.”

Okay, so he was forcing her to be the adult . . .
of course.
“You can't. We can't.” She sighed, and forced herself to say the words. “I'm too old for you.”

He rolled his eyes and then focused intently on hers again. “I know you will say this. The age, she is the too much for you. I say, too old? No.” He took her hand and leaned closer, and her breathing started to come in uneven spurts. “I do not care you are older. I care how you make me feel.”

An unseen hand gripped at her insides and twisted. “How
do
I make you feel, Vitale? I mean, look at us. Look at you. Look at me. What could possibly make you think you could fall in love with a woman my age?”

“This I will tell you.” He studied her face for a long moment. “When we meet, you do not look at me with only the sex in your eyes as the most woman.”

“You read me wrong if you thought that.” She snorted. “When you introduced yourself to me, I was filled with lust, which felt totally inappropriate, so then I got so flustered, I ran into that pile of stones.”

“
Sì.
But when we meet at the beginning—when you arrive—you look at me with the some sex but the more anger. You are tired. You do not . . . do not . . .
flirti
.” He flipped his hand in circles under his chin, trying to come up with the word.

“Flirt.”

“
Sì,
flirt.” He punctuated the word with a nod. “You do not flirt. You act angry with me, though I do not know you and do nothing to anger you.”

She chuckled, thinking how her reaction must have looked to him that first day. “I
was
tired . . . and frustrated and hardly in any mood to flirt.”

His bottom lip protruded as he continued. “At the dinner, you are still angry even after the rest, but you tap the happy music. The next day at the pool, you act as though I am not there. And when I want to talk with you at the bar, you are gone. All through the night, I see the face and the finger, and I wonder how the anger and the happy together can be? And why you do not like me?” His eyes grew wider as a small smile brightened his dark face. “Then, the next day, I see you, and you are not angry, and you like the fountain, and I think to talk to you. You are friendly. Maybe a little sex in the eye . . .” He held his thumb and index finger about an inch apart between their faces. “Some flirt. But then you hurt the toe, and you are angry again. To me. And you scream and try to hit.”

“I didn't try to hit you,” she huffed. “I was just lashing out. You happened to be standing there.”

He laughed. “But I know then you are the different because you show me not only the outside but the inside emotion also.” He brushed his knuckles down her cheek. “You do not treat me as the one of the sculptures I create. The something only to be looked upon. The something without the brain or the intelligence to see the emotion inside. You treat me as the person, Julietta, and you make me feel like the man.” He leaned in closer, his face so close her eyes lost their focus. She lowered her lids and breathed in a deep breath.

His mouth caught her exhale, and her lips trembled when his pressed softly against them.

“It is not the sex,” he whispered, and trailed his fingers down her neck and across her breast to rest on her thigh. “The sex, she is good. Very good. But the sex, she is
you. You
are good, and it is you I want. You believe inside I can be the artist I dream. You make me believe it inside as well.”

His honesty was a sledgehammer, working hard to break down her defenses, but she had that age of wisdom thing going for her,
damn it
. She laid her hand against his chest, her eyes blurring as she started speaking. “You are very special, Vitale, and yes, I probably put too much emphasis on our age differences.” Her voice vibrated with emotion as she relinquished that point, and hope flashed in his eyes. “But the fact remains that I'm leaving the day after tomorrow and we live far apart. We can't stop time, and it takes time together for love to grow. Time together we don't have.”

A brooding darkness covered his face. “I know of the time.” The words poured from his heart. “I learn the difficult lesson of the time with Luciana.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “You learned the hard way there's never enough time with someone we . . . care for.”

“Never the time to . . . feex.”

The dissonant chord of life's unfairness rang in Julia's ears. Vitale longed for more time to care for Luciana while Frank bailed at the first opportunity.

Vitale's eyes shifted away from hers, to the water, and then fastened on to something in the distance. He squinted and a slow grin spread across his face.

Julia turned to see what he was looking at. Caught up in their deep discussion, they'd forgotten about Vitale's air mattress. It had made its escape, bobbing playfully on the waves forty or fifty yards away.

Vitale turned to her and raised an eyebrow in challenge. “We race, eh? The champion choose the prize?”

His timing was perfect. Their talk had her muscles needing an activity that would rid them of some tension and break the tension that had accumulated between her and Vitale. And she would certainly enjoy an additional massage. “You're on, bud!”

She dove in without saying “Go.”

About halfway to the goal, she felt a rush of wave against her side. Vitale had passed her. She stole a quick look and saw him cutting through the water at an unbelievable speed. His stroke was smooth and powerful, making little disturbance in the water.

Try as hard as she might to catch up, he pulled away from her easily. Without a doubt, she'd been had. He'd thrown the first race to salve her ego. This time, he was out to win.

When she finally reached the float, a good fifteen lengths behind him, a smug smile stretched across his face. “Julietta, I wait for you.”

She sent a huge splash into his face. “This was a fixed race, de Luca.”

He cocked his head, looking unsure he'd heard right. “Feexed the race?”

“Yep.” She laughed, hardly believing how many times she'd used the same word in so many different ways. “Another definition for fix. If a sports event is fixed, it means the winner was determined before the event took place.” She could see the question still in his eyes. “You let me win the first time.”

“
Sì,
I do not want the backarubba. But the prize I want? That I swim very fast for. I feex.”

The glimmer in his eyes didn't have the serious look from before, so it seemed safe to ask. “So, what do you want, Vitale? What's your prize?”

“Get on.” He patted the air mattress.

With his help, she managed to get on the float without too much awkwardness. As he pushed her toward shore, a thrill pulsated through her. This was the first time she'd lain on her stomach since the surgery. She'd always been afraid the implants would burst, though the plastic surgeon assured her they wouldn't. Now, here she was, lying on her stomach, topless on a public beach with a kind and handsome Italian hunk pushing her to shore.

If she ranked her life's most memorable moments—at least the good ones—this would certainly be near the top.

He floated her by the mattress they had abandoned, and she latched on to it. “You want this one?” she asked.

“No, I want this one.” He laughed and kissed the bottom of her foot.

“It hardly seems fair that I have a massage waiting for me, and your prize is to convey me around like Cleopatra on her barge.”

Vitale chuckled but made no comment.

When her belly dragged the sand, she stood up. No reservations this time, though it wasn't much of a challenge. The two young couples had left, and the elderly couple appeared to be sleeping. She was confident that even if the beach had been packed with people, she still could've walked out calmly.

They'd worked up quite an appetite and, with a vengeance, attacked the sandwiches they'd brought. Salty prosciutto. Pungent chèvre. Sticky sweet apricot marmalade. All piled together on crusty baguettes. The concoction had been Julia's creation. Vitale's lusty groan of approval told her she'd scored.

When they stretched out on the towels in the hot sun, his arm draped across her stomach, she felt a complete fullness. Body and soul.

“Julietta?” Vitale's whisper caught on the rim of her ear and stirred her insides out of their tranquility.

“Hmmm?”

“I win the race, yes?”

She smiled. “Yes, Vitale. You won the race.”

“I wish to claim the prize now.”

His thumb brushed across her navel, and her eyes flew open in surprise. Going topless on the beach was one thing, but sex? In public? That was going too far. She gave him a startled glance and started to protest.

He cut her off. “Stay with me, Julietta.”

“What?” Was he saying what she thought he was saying?

“She is the prize I desire. You to stay with me.”

“Oh, Vitale, I'm not sure that's—”

“I say I think I love you. You say you have the need of the time for me to show you this is the truth. You have the more time in Italy. You stay with me for the time.”

“But I have work to do. This isn't just a pleasure trip. It's a business trip, too.”

“
Capisco
. You have the need to find the artists and the pieces for the business. You find Vitale. I know the many good artists. I introduce you. Adrianna has the automobile. The day, she take you to meet them. The night, you come home to me. We have the time together to allow me to prove the love. The love she bloom like the flower, yes?”

Two more weeks with Vitale?

The earnest look in his eyes held her like a vise and set her heart to hammering in her chest. Even taking the bedroom promise out of the equation, this was not an offer to be taken lightly. He'd made the offer. He
wanted
her to stay. The idea ping-ponged between the emotional and logical areas of her brain. What she felt for Vitale was certainly more than a mere physical attraction, but staying with him was dangerous.

It flew in the face of who she was . . . or, at least, who she'd always
thought
she was.

On the other hand, it would give them more time to get Villa de Luca up and running. More time to help Vitale gain some visibility with his family.

His hand crept up her stomach until his palm lay flat between her breasts, his thumb picking up the beat beneath it. When she brushed her knuckles across the stubble of his jawline, he turned his face just enough to kiss her fingers. Logic and emotion started to merge, fusing into a muddled mass. But the question remained—did she want to stay . . . or did she want to walk away knowing she'd never have a chance like this again?

She watched Vitale's eyes soften around the edges and knew that he knew what her answer would be though she hadn't spoken yet.

She felt the smile break onto her lips, saw it reflected in his expression. He leaned forward until his face hovered close to hers. “You stay.
Sì?
”

Her breath caught at his nearness, and she nodded. But this decision rated higher than a mute answer. She pushed through the emotion and found the air she needed. “
Sì,
I'll stay. I want to stay.”

His hand slid up to cup the side of her face, and he pressed his lips to hers in more of a caress than a kiss. It was unlike anything she'd ever experienced, and she realized with a tremor that she was no longer relating to this man with her mind.

She may have only known him for a week, but he was getting a grip on her heart.

If she wasn't careful, those lines he fed her would start to sound like truths.

* * *

“Now, Benigno and Oria are the ones who live together, and they both paint.” Julia wanted to make sure she had the three people she'd met at the restaurant tonight straight in her mind. She turned on the water in the shower to allow it to heat up.