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"He wanted to know if we were still alive. Sometimes he has these weird episodes where he gets worried if you haven't contacted him in a while."
By him, he probably meant Emilio – and I knew this characteristic from him as well. When I had lived in the cottage, he had called every few days to ask if everything was all right.
"I always thought that was very thoughtful of him," I replied.
Vincenzo was living alone in the middle of nowhere all this time. If something had happened to him, how else would Emilio have known about it?
"As we all know, some things are debatable."
"That's right," I replied.
"So, why do you wear the ring some days but not others?"
Perplexed, I opened my mouth but closed it again and laughed instead. "That was an insanely clever segue for once."
Shaking my head, I gave him an inquiring look. Was he watching? Did it bother him? I didn't quite understand the reason for the question.
Sighing, I stretched my legs and looked at the blue sky for a while. "I honestly don't know how to answer that," I finally said.
There was no clear answer to this.
"The ring is big. And heavy. Very impractical for everyday life. And if I wear it, it's probably because I feel like it at the time." After all, it wasn't as if the ring made me feel more connected to him. Just as I didn’t feel any sort of duty towards him.
In the end, it had only been a marriage of convenience, which in retrospect, had brought few advantages.
Vincenzo raised his left hand to show that he wore his ring. He wore it above his first wedding ring which had probably fused to his skin.
"What are you trying to tell me?" I asked, pushing my chin forward a little.
"Nothing," he replied, shrugging. "But I'd like to tell you something about the ring."
"I thought it was some ring Carlotta picked out?"
"Not quite. You could say that was my only contribution to the entire wedding."
Surprising. I had assumed he had handed everything over to his sister and had just shown up to attend the ceremony.
"I feel a certain curiosity about the story behind it," I said, my gaze fixed intently on him. "Why choose such a large stone? Why a sapphire?"
"It's a family heirloom if you will. The color blue and the sapphire are long-forgotten symbols of the family. Sometime hundreds of years ago, there was a coat of arms and all that stuff that you just had back then as a wealthy family."
So the de Archards had already been rich in earlier generations. Old money, an empire, a family dynasty. What other exciting things were there in the life of the entire clan?
"That doesn't make any sense." I would have understood if he had put the ring on Rina's finger. If he had passed it on to his sister or brothers instead of giving it to me. Me, of all people, when it had been clear from the beginning that the marriage was only for appearances and had no fundamental basis.
Vincenzo shrugged. "It doesn't. But it was a symbol. A sign. I don't think I'll get married a third time, and it would be a shame for the jewel."
"Does it matter to you?"
"My great-grandfather knew an up-and-coming jeweler in New York back in the twenties. He had it made for his wife, and later it went to my grandfather, but not to my father. On the wedding day, everyone knew he would be faithful only as long as it took to bring a first heir into the world."
"That would be you."
"Right. It's a miracle it was still enough for the others."
"And your parents are still together?"
"Divorces are a rather difficult matter in our family, after all."
