Page 33 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

“You are a greater fool than your father ever was,” she said now, making a meal of the words. “At leasthedid not pretend that he was led around by anything but the little head in his trousers. You’re making moon eyes and wafting about like a lovesick calf. You know what happens to calves, my darling son?” She leaned in to enunciate. “They are slaughtered.”

Alceu was readying himself to handle that in the way it deserved when he was stopped dead—

Because Dioni was laughing.

That boundless, blue-sky laughter that made everything in him dance. And made his mother sit back in her chair in shock.

And still Dioni laughed, the way she had in New York. It was as if she’d gone over to a window, thrown it open, and let all the light of the stars inside.

“I’m so sorry,” she said as she wiped at her eyes, all that laughter in her voice. “This is all just so over-the-top, isn’t it? What I love about you, Marcella, is that you’re sooperatic. It makes me wish that everything was so dire and laced with doom and portent. That we could sing arias into the night, die spectacularly, and rise again tomorrow to do it all over again.”

She smothered another bout of laughter while across the table, Alceu watched as his mother’s mouth dropped open.

“This is so much better than my family,” Dioni continued, in a chatty sort of way as if there had been no hint of darkness here. She’d managed to spill something down her front, though she seemed unaware of it. And as ever, the simple twist she’d put her hair into, which should have looked elegant, was instead falling down on one side. There was no reason at all it should make him want to smile. “My father was very much in love with the sound of his own voice. He was never the least bitfun. All of his stories were about reflected glory, this movie star, that politician. It was nevercalves to the slaughterover the fish course.” She laughed again. “Honestly, I feel deprived.”

Marcella, Alceu noted, did not say a word for the remainder of the dinner.

And he found himself lingering at the table with Dioni long after his mother had pleaded a convenient headache and stalked away.

“You handle her masterfully,” he said. Quietly, not certain where that dark and brooding urge to confide in her was coming from. “So masterfully that I can only wonder how it has never occurred to me to treat her in the same way.”

“This castle is like the Dread Pirate Roberts,” Dioni said softly. “Do you know that story?” Alceu shook his head. She smiled, resting her arm on the swell of her belly. “He was a great and terrible pirate who ravaged the seven seas, as you would expect. And when he took a captive, particularly one he took a shine to, he would order them about all day and then every night say something to the effect of, ‘Well done, but I’ll almost certainly kill you tomorrow.’ And that could go on for ages. That’s what it’s like here. No matter what actually happens, everyone carries on as if at any moment the castle will be struck down from above. Or perhaps simply crumble off the side of the mountain and fall into the sea.At any moment.” She smiled at him, her eyes seeming more fathomless than usual in the candlelight. “And yet every day here dawns the same. The most beautiful blue skies over mountains and far-off beaches. It’s peaceful up here. Everything is lovely. No matter how much your mother vamps about, that doesn’t change. Maybe it’s time that the Vaccaro family accepts the fact that despite their very best efforts, they might just end well, after all.”

Alceu felt a great wash of sensation, deep inside. It seemed to flood him, taking him over, until he hardly knew what he was about. He stood, then walked around the table until he could stop by her chair, lean down to brace himself on its arms, and then set his mouth to hers.

It was a wildfire, and the flames danced higher every time they touched.

One conflagration led to the next, until it was all the same blaze.

He tugged down the rest of her hair. He liked it all around her, flowing and unruly.

He kissed her and kissed her, as if that alone would scour him clean of all the shadows, all these memories, all these burdens he’d agreed were his long ago, when he’d had no idea what any of it might mean.

When he had been sickened and heartsick and had wanted nothing more than to hurt his father in return for what he’d done to Grazia.

He kissed her until the heat was too much and then he bent down, lifted her up, and carried her through the castle to his bed.

Where it turned out he was as hungry for her as if he’d never touched her before. He spent all night learning new ways to adore her, and in the morning, watching her enjoy her breakfast so much made him take her to bed all over again.

Alceu could not concentrate on work that day. All he could seem to remember was the way she’d laughed and laughed, and how that laughter had done the impossible. How it had stopped Marcella in her tracks. How it had changed everything.

He was terribly afraid that it had changed him, too.

Or maybe that wasn’tfear, that thing like dawn deep inside him, threatening him with light.

He went to find her when he knew she would be taking her lunch and found her in the library of novels, sitting on a sofa surrounded by stacks of books.

She looked up and smiled wide, as if immediately delighted to see him.

He still could not get used to that automatic response. It still made something in him seem to dance.

“I never see you at this time of day,” Dioni said merrily, waving him to a spot beside her on the sofa, and he took it, because he could not refuse her anything. Another problem he knew he would have to deal with, and soon. “The baby and I were enjoying some of my favorite books from childhood.”

And then she showed him each one, describing them all to him, sounding as passionate about the books she chose as she was about the things she ate. Or the things they did in bed.

Or the way she tipped her face into the sun whenever she was outside, and breathed deep.

Alceu felt as if the insides of him were clawed into pieces, flayed open in some catastrophic way that must surely lead to disaster—

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