Page 5 of That's Amore

I knew she sometimes walked to the bistro where she worked, which was a good forty-five minutes on foot. Otherwise, she took public transportation. I had offered a car and driver, and she’d turned me down, saying she wasn’t going to sit in Rome traffic and wasteher time.

In the mornings, she went for a run, and I joined her for part of the way before heading to the gym. I asked her to join me, but she said, “I run because I love pasta—not because I like to work out.”

I looked at her bedside drawer. There was noThousand Years of Solitudesitting on the table, along with romance, mystery, and Italian-language books.

“You have to mix it up. You can’t eat gourmet food all the time. Sometimes, you need a delicious, perfectly made hotdog.”

“I’m assuming the romance novel is the hotdog in this scenario?”

“Well…wearetalking about sausages, aren’t we?” she replied cheekily.

I opened the drawer; it was empty. Not even a piece of lint or forgotten pin or…anything. She’d thoroughly cleaned herself entirely out of the flat.

I opened the closet and saw that she’d left the formal wear I’d bought for her. She’d been honest with me, saying that she couldn’t afford to buy expensive clothes and gave me two choices, “I don’t have to attend any of these parties or society things. But if you want me to, you’re going to have to buy me the clothes. I don’t have that kind of money.”

She behaved as if she didn’t know I had plenty of money, which she had access to. She had a card, and she could buy whatever the fuck she wanted, even a goddamn car. But she behaved like we were regular people and was careful about how she spent moneyfrom the household account. It was refreshing to be with someone who didn’t just buy things for the sake of it, to show them off, to fill some emptiness within.

“The truffles smelled so good, I just had to buy them. But I boughtverylittle, so I didn’t spend thousands of euros or anything,” she said as she grated a black truffle on homemade gnocchi.

“Buy whatever you want, Elysa.” I picked up a thin slice of the truffle and popped it into my mouth. Deliziosi!

“I do buy what I want.”

“I have a lot of money and it’s there to be spent.”

“This isn’t about the quantity of euros in your bank account, Dante, it’s about not being wasteful.” She changed the topic by opening a bottle of wine that she’d bought for just fifty euros and was proud of it because it tasted amazing. She was right it did.

Regardless of how we seemed to get along, I just couldn’t see us as arealcouple. I understood that part of the resentment I felt toward her was because I’d been forced into this situation because I loved and respected my grandfather. But the other part came because she wasn’t what I expected. I thought I’d be getting some gauche village girl who’d make my life a living hell by being vapid and only interested in the Giordano fortune.

Instead, I got Elysa.

She wanted a job. She wanted to cook. She wanted us to be friends. She wanted us to have sex. Shewanted to take care of my Nonno. She wanted to be loved. I knew that. I could see it in the way she was always looking for some sort of acknowledgment from me that I cared about her, that I loved her. I didn’t. I was careful not to give her false hope. She may not think this marriage was temporary, but in my head, it was. Maybe I should’ve said to her from the start that I didn’t see us making it in the long run. We came from worlds that were too different.

Now, Lucia came from a family like the Giordanos and could afford to buy herself clothes and jewelry. Thus, she did not have to struggle with what to wear for what event.

“How formal is this?” Elysa asked me about Nonno’s eighty-fifth birthday.

“Pretty formal.”

“So…like black tie?”

“Yes.”

“So, you know what, can you help me pick out what to wear? Your stylist person left like five outfits.”

I found it endearing that she didn’t care if she wore a big or small designer—she just wanted to avoid embarrassment. However, I also found it annoying, evidence that she was not suited to be my wife.

Lucia wouldneverbe worried about embarrassing herself or me. She knew how to handle herself. She’d grown up in elite Roman society.

Elysa grew up in New York with her mother, Ginerva, who, from all accounts, was devout and didn’tappear to have a loving bone in her body. She refused to come to the wedding, saying that Elysa, by marrying a Giordano, just showed her that she wasn’t her daughter.

Elysa’s father, Vittorio, explained that Ginerva had become more and more pious with age. She’d left Vittorio because he made and drank wine, which, according to Ginerva, meant he was turning into an alcoholic. Growing up with a mother like that, I’d expected Elysa to be stuck up, but she wasn’t. She was full of life, hope, and joy.

However, she didn’t seem joyful at all as she walked out of my flat. I’d shattered her. Self-loathing rose within me, especially when she told me about the vineyard. I hadn’t cared, not really. It wasn’t my business what Nonno did with his property. He’d bought the vineyard three decades ago because Vittorio needed a loan. But Nonno would not take the money back from his best friend’s son, and he eventually returned the expensive piece of land in Piedmont to the Costa family. Ihadassumed that he made a deal with Elysa, and I didn’t think it bothered me until I spoke to Dean, and the words spewed out when I realized that it did.

Elysa telling me that if Nonno had made that a requirement—that shesellherself—she’d have never married me, had been a gut punch. The fact that I thought of her as someone who had offered herself to me as payment made me feelsmall.

I went back into the living room, poured myself another drink, an Amaro this time, and went out onto the terrace.

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