AllFreeNovel
Share Us
There, nestled in velvet, was the earring she had lost so many years ago. The sliver of gold she had lost along with her virginity and also her heart.
‘You found it.’
‘I didn’tfindit,’ Dante said. ‘It was hooked in the lining of my jacket and clung on all the way back to Rome...’
She was crying and smiling as she picked up the earring and held it.
‘You kept the other one?’ He answered his own question almost before he’d finished asking it. ‘It’s in your bag, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Go and get it.’
Alicia was shaking as she took out the earring she had carried with her since that day.
It was Dante who unknotted her fingers from around it, and returned it to its other half.
‘I will love you for ever,’ Dante said as he gently replaced the hoops in her ears. ‘You can believe me or not, and we can argue at length in the years to come, but I shall prove it, and I shall help you find Beatrice.’ He had given it some thought. ‘I know she loved you.’
‘How?’
‘Because it’s impossible to stop.’ He looked right at her. ‘We’ll get married...’
‘You have to ask me first,’ she reminded him. ‘On bended knee.’
‘Alicia...we both know your answer.’ He wasn’t at all romantic, but Dante sighed and got down on bended knee. ‘Alicia, will you marry me?’
‘On one condition.’
He gave a slightly incredulous smile, because he knew he had this in the bag. For the first time ever Dante was certain in his love. ‘What’s your one condition, Alicia? Ten babies?’
‘That this goes in the box.’ She put her hand back in her bag and took out a ferry ticket.
‘Salerno?’ He went a bit grey. It was thirteen hours away!
‘I paid cash, too.’
‘I taught you too well. Alicia, I don’t need reminders of how close I came to losing you.’ He looked at it. ‘I would have found you.’
‘Maybe.’
He sighed, but as he went to put it in the box Alicia took it from his hand. ‘No need.’
‘Just letting me know I have to behave?’
He knew her so well. ‘I would love nothing more than to marry you, Dante.’
He took her hand and they both looked at their entwined fingers. For Alicia, her hand had always felt empty without his. ‘Back together,’ she said.
‘For ever.’ He looked at Alicia and told her a truth. ‘The woman of mystery is you, Alicia.’
‘Gosh, no... I’m really very simple...’
‘No, no,’ he said. ‘The mystery is how through it all you loved me. Now we make up for lost time.’
A power was unleashed then, and he was kissing her.
‘We have a lot to make up for,’ Alicia said as he kissed her. ‘Ten years...’
