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I looked at him closely. Under all the muscles and tattoos, he was a bit like a big teddy bear whom his siblings didn’t have the heart to say no to. I’d already noticed that he was very good at doing his ‘wounded puppy dog eyes’ when he wanted something from his siblings.
“I am good with knives if that helps?”
“Of course you are.” I rolled my eyes at him. “You can chop up the onions and herbs and I’ll get some water on to boil for the pasta.” We made dinner together, and it was the most relaxed I’d felt in a while.
When we all sat down to dinner, Alessio and Marco complimented my cooking.
“The meatballs are slightly overdone,” I said critically. “And the tomato sauce isn’t as good as my grandmother’s. I’ll have to ask her for some tips when I speak to her next.” I knew, however, that the meal was infinitely better than anything Juliana had cooked so far.
“Cate, you’re a really good cook,” said Juliana, tucking into her meal. “Maybe I should ask your grandmother for some lessons?”
“Oh God, no more lessons,” murmured Camillo. “She’ll only come up with more recipes to torture us with.”
Marco cleared his throat loudly and shot a deadly look at Camillo. Luckily, Juliana hadn’t heard Camillo since she was talking to her dog as she fed him a piece of meatball.
“How about you tell us when you are going to learn to cook?” interrupted Marco in a terse tone. “I keep telling you that you need to learn so that you can pull your weight around the house, but so far you have done nothing about it.”
“Ah well, you know, I’ve been busy with work and stuff.”
“Like hell you have. Once we get back to the States, you’re going to start going to those cooking lessons with Juliana.”
“Oh man, you can’t be serious,” whined Camillo.
“I’m deadly serious, and I’m ordering you as your Capo.”
“You can’t pull rank like that,” huffed Camillo. “Your Capo rank doesn’t count when we’re talking about family matters and household chores.”
“You wanna bet?” warned Marco as he eyeballed his younger brother.
ALESSIO
After that night, Cate took over making dinner in the evenings.
Juliana still put lunch together, but that was normally cold meats, cheeses, olives, bread, and salads—things that didn’t need cooking as such. Cate seemed to enjoy cooking, and I liked that she was getting on with Camillo. She even seemed less afraid of Marco now. Camillo also surprised us all by taking it upon himself to drive Cate to the grocery store and help her with the cooking.
Cate sought me out at night too, and she seemed to draw comfort from us being together. She was always relaxed after sex and happy to lay in my arms. I had told her that I loved her several times; however, she always clammed up during these conversations.
One night, after making love to her slowly and gently, drawing her pleasure out for as long as possible, she lay in my arms with her head against my chest. I loved her like this—sated and tranquil. “I love you, cara.”
But, as usual, she gave no response. I looked down at her. “Why won’t you just tell me how you feel?”
“There’s nothing to say, Alessio. I can’t give you what you want.”
“Of course you can,” I said heatedly. “You’re just determined to make everything as difficult as possible.”
I was met by silence from her.
“Cate?”
“I’m tired. Can we go to sleep now, please?” Her voice had a pleading note, silently begging me not to go down this road again.
I had to restrain my frustration at her—I didn’t want to spoil the evening, but her emotional unresponsiveness was hard to deal with and it angered me.
There was clearly a physical desire between us, but she still didn’t completely trust me. That was understandable given the history of our relationship, and I knew I needed to find a way to get us past that so that she could finally start to trust me.
***
The next day, I handed my cell phone to Cate when it was time for her daily phone call with her grandmother.
