Page 86 of That's Amore

"Yes. And…,” I continued sheepishly, “we’re going to be gone for longer than a weekend."

Her lips pressed together. “Dante, I have work.”

"I talked to your boss. She was more than happy to clear your schedule. And it’s sort of a work trip, Elysa. You will be tasting wine and meeting winemakers.”

She exhaled sharply, shaking her head. But she didn’t argue. If anything, I caught the barely contained anticipation in her eyes. "Pretty sneaky of both of you.”

“I want to take you to all the places you’ve always wanted to go,” I told her.

She gave me a shy smile and kissed my cheek. “I’m so excited.”

It felt like a honeymoon.

Not the one we never had—our wedding had been a business arrangement, and a honeymoon had been a laughable concept—but one we might have taken if things had been different. IfIhad been different.

“I really, really like that you did this,” she told me when we got to our hotel.

The warm Tuscan sun kissed my face as we stepped onto the balcony of our hotel room; the view stretched out in golden waves before us.

Florence glowed in the late afternoon light, its red-tiled rooftops rolling toward the horizon, and the Arno River, a ribbon of blue winding through the heart of the city.

From our perch, we could see the Ponte Vecchio, its medieval arches lined with shops, as if they had simply grown out of the bridge, clinging precariously to its sides.

Elysa stepped beside me, her hands braced on the wrought-iron railing. She exhaled softly and looked at me for a long moment.

“This view is something else,” she murmured.

Shewas something else, I thought with pride andlove. “Yes,amore, it is.” But I was looking at her.

"It reminds me of the book," she mused.

I raised a brow. "What book?"

"A Room with a View." A small smile played at her lips. "Lucy Honeychurch comes to Florence and stays in a room without a view and she’s very disappointed.”

“But then she gets the room,” I reminded her.

“Yes, though it was risqué wasn’t it? To accept the rooms from two men, one whom she’s attracted to.” Her eyes glinted with amusement.

“But worth it. She got a room with a view of the Arnoandshe got a man in her life who was much,much better than the stick in the mud Cecil she was engaged to.”

“I’m surprised you’ve read E.M. Forster.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “It’s a romance, Dante.”

“You know there’s a lesson to learn from Lucy.”

“There is?” She tilted her head, intrigued.

I glanced back at the city. "Sometimes, you have to trade what you thought you wanted for something better even though it’s messy and complicated."

I watched the way her fingers traced patterns against the railing. She hesitated, then looked at me, her expression vulnerable. "Do you think that’s what this is, us, is something messy and complicated…but real?"

“I do,amore.”

We ate dinner at a small trattoria and, after, tore our bed apart.

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