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Dinner was going to be easy. Steaks, rare for him, medium for her. Huge salads. He looked in the cupboards, located olive oil and balsamic vinegar, nodded in approval and poured some of each into a small glass bowl, added chopped garlic, and beat the mixture with a fork.
Ariel peered over his shoulder. “Isn’t that too much garlic?”
“There’s no such thing as too much garlic, cara,” he said, and proved it by adding more.
She laughed. “You truly are Italian.”
“I am Siciliano,” he said dramatically.
“There’s a difference?”
“Is there a difference?” he said, rolling his eyes. “Si. There is a big difference. Check the cupboards. Zach promised us a bottle of wine.”
She began opening cupboard doors. He tossed the steaks into a hissing cast iron skillet.
“Italians are, well, they are Italians. Good people. Nice people. But—”
“But Italians.”
“Exactly. Sicilians are descended from half a dozen warrior races.” He reached for the salt and pepper mills, ground both over the cooking steaks. “Sicilians are descended from Phoenicians, Greeks, Arabs, Normans—”
“Pity the poor Italians,” Ariel said sweetly, as she opened the last cupboard and found the wine. “They have to live with knowing they’re only descended from Julius Caesar.”
“Well, so are we. The legions were in Sicily, of course… Are you laughing at me, woman?”
“Me? Would I laugh at my Sicilian warrior?” She came toward him, a bottle of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon in her hand. “Is this what you wanted?”
“This is what I wanted,” he said, leaning down and kissing her.
She laughed. He thought again how beautiful she was when she laughed, that rush of soft rose to her cheeks, the curve of her lips, the smile in her eyes, such lovely eyes despite the bruising.
He took the bottle from her. “Nice,” he said. “I’m pleased to see my brother-in-law has good taste.”
“Your brother-in-law. Zach?”
“Zacharias Castelianos. Yes. He’s married to my half-sister Jaimie.” Matteo grinned. “I wonder if that makes him my half-brother-in-law.”
“I always had a bad enough time figuring out first cousins and second cousins. And first cousins once removed, and second cousins once removed… Oh.”
“Oh, what?”
“I have a first cousin. Maura. She’s—she’s my mother’s sister’s daughter.”
Matteo turned toward her. Her eyes were wide.
“Easy,” he said softly. “Just let it come to you.”
“That’s it. That’s all of it.” She stared at him. “How can that happen? One memory. One! As if somebody parts a curtain and you get a glimpse of what’s behind it and then, poof, it’s gone.”
“I don’t know. I wish I did.” He put down the fork he’d been using to turn the steaks and took her in his arms. “But it’s a good sign, I’m sure. Things are coming back, little by little.”
She sighed. After a minute, she stepped free of his embrace. He didn’t want to let her go, but he knew she wanted to set aside what had just happened.
“Okay,” she said briskly. “Where are we dining, signore? The counter? The table? Your choice.”
“How about in the living room, near the fireplace?”
“Perfect,” she said in that same brisk voice. “I’ll move the coffee table.”
“I’ll move it.”
“Really, I’m perfectly capable of—”
Matteo caught her hand. “You are the most capable woman I’ve ever known, cara. And the most courageous.”
Her gaze met his. “Do you really think so?”
“I know so. Capable. Brave. And bright.” He tugged gently on her hand and brought her to him again. “I would trust you with my life,” he said softly, “just as you are trusting me with yours.”
She moved into his arms, her body warm against his, her head tucked under his chin.“Yes,” she murmured. “That’s how I feel, too.”
He smiled and raised her face to his.
“If that isn’t an old Sicilian vow,” he said, “it should be. ‘ I trust you with my life, as you trust me with yours.’”
He kissed her. It was a tender, soft kiss, filled with emotions that were new to him.
New. And, without question, absolutely wonderful.
* * *
The caretaker, or whoever managed the house, had thoughtfully laid in a supply of kindling and wood beside each fireplace.
Matteo had a fire going in the living room in just a couple of minutes.
He got to his feet, brushed off his hands and sat down on the floor, his back against the big cushions they’d arranged in front of the relocated coffee table.
“I’ve lit more fires in the last two days than in the last two years,” he said.
“No fireplace in your house?”
He shook his head as he cut into his steak.
“I have a condo. It has a fireplace. In fact, I used it…” He’d almost said he’d used it the night they’d met. “I used it last week, but I don’t use it as often as I should.”
Ariel forked up some salad. “Don’t you like fireplaces?”
“Sure. I just never have the time.” He picked up his wine goblet and took a sip of the cabernet sauvignon. “Nice.”
“So, you’re a super-busy attorney. Where?”
“In Manhattan. My condo is there, too.” He reached for the butter, slathered some on one of the Idaho potatoes he’d rightfully predicted they’d find in the pantry. “Yeah, I have a busy practice, but I suppose it’s closer to the truth to say I’m not home all that often.”
She smiled as she reached for the salt mill.
“A bachelor’s life, huh?”
Matteo looked at her. “Until now,” he said softly. “But I have the feeling there are going to be more nights-by-the-fire in my future. That is, if you’re a nights-by-the-fire kind of girl.”
She ducked her head against his shoulder.
“I don’t know what I was in the past, but that’s definitely the kind of girl I intend to be from now on.”
He slipped his arm around her shoulders and kissed her temple.
Just that easily, they were starting to talk about the future. Did he have the right to do that? She had a husband. There was no doubt in his mind that she didn’t love her husband, that she was afraid of him, but still, she had one. He knew it. She didn’t.
Was he deceiving her? This was like living inside a maze, never knowing where the next turn would lead.
“Tell me about your family. Having a brother-in-law, sorry, a half-brother-in-law who owns a safe house sounds kind of exotic.”
Matteo smiled
“From now on, he’s a full brother-in-law. Well, an honorary one.” Another bite of steak. Then he blotted his lips with his napkin, picked up his wine goblet and leaned back against the cushions. “There are ten of us who are related by blood. Five brothers. Five sisters. Ten all told, including me.”
“Wow.” She leaned back, too, in the curve of his arm. “I can imagine what it must have been like, growing up, all of you lined up for the bathroom.”
He laughed.
“It would have been, but we didn’t grow up together. Luca and I, and our sisters Bianca and Alessandra, all were raised in Sicily. Zach, Jacob and Travis, Emily, Jaimie and Lissa grew up in Texas. They’re Wildes. We’re Bellinis. Well, not
exactly. We all had the same father, but we—Luca, Bianca, Alessandra and I—stopped using our father’s name when we found out what he’d done.”
Ariel looked at her lover. She heard the sudden tension in voice.
“Something terrible?” she asked softly.
“Something immoral.” Matteo drank some of his wine. “He married a woman in Texas when he was already married to our mother in Sicily.”
“My God! Your father was a bigamist?”
“Yes. He lived two separate lives. With us, he was a government agent. With his Texas family, he was a general. A four-star general. In fact, that’s what he really was. Is. General John Hamilton Wilde is still very much alive.”
“When did all that come out?”
“When our mother died. Before, really. Luca and I had become suspicious. We’d started poking around. Once Mama died and we had the proof we needed, we confronted him. And his other children.”
“Oh, sweetheart. Such an awful shock for all of you.” She leaned forward and kissed him. “I’m so sorry.”
Matteo put his glass down, took her glass from her and put it down, too. Then he cupped her shoulders and tugged her into his lap.
“I’ve never told that story to anyone. Not until now.”
She smiled and put her hand against his cheek. He hadn’t shaved; his face bore a silky stubble. How beautiful he was, she thought, and how lucky she’d been to find him. Or for him to find her. She still had no idea how this wonderful man had come into her life.
For a couple of seconds, her joy dimmed.
And wasn’t that foolish?
No matter what circumstances had brought them together, she was happy. Instinct told her that being happy was something new for her, but she supposed it would be, considering what Matteo had said, that someone wanted her out of the way.
And then, out of nowhere, an image filled her head.
She saw the car hitting her.
“Ariel?”
She saw it all, herself getting off a bus in a terminal late at night, looking for something… Looking for the ticket counter and finding it closed. She saw herself going up to a man in a guard’s uniform, asking him when the counter would reopen.
Not until tomorrow morning, he said, and she heard herself asking when was the next bus to Plattsburgh.
