Page 8 of That's Amore

I’d fallen in love with him while he was being an asshole. I’d been an angel to him, and he thought Lucia was superior wife material? Son of a bitch! Everyone knew you didn’t fuck an ex—it never went well.

Words for the wise, Elysa, because now Dante is your ex, and no way should you have sex with him.

But I wanted to—more than that, I wanted to go for our walks in the evenings, even though he was grouchy most of the time. I wanted to have dinner with him even though he complained about the food.

“What is this?”

“Brisket. You don’t like it?”

“It’s fine, it’s…just very oily.”

“It’s brisket,” I said baffled. This was a world traveler who ate in the best restaurants in the world, hell he owned the best restaurants as they were in his hotels, and he had a problem with authentic New York cuisine.

“It’s fine, Elysa. Just sit so we can eat. I have calls with Japan later in the evening.”

So, that’s how the marriage went. I kept working hard to make it work, and he kept doing whatever he wanted, which now I realized was pushing me away.

“The lawyers are looking through the documents.We can’t just divorce in Rome, you understand?” He used that condescending tone, the one where he made me feel small. I closed my eyes for a moment, surrendering to exhaustion. It was taking too much energy to behave like this woman who I wished I was—the one with the spine of steel and kick-you-in-your-balls attitude.

“It takes six months, Dante,” I said wearily. Carmen DeLuca, Maura’s aunt, had told me that.

“That’s forundivorzio consensuale,” he drawled. “Fordivorzio giudiziale, it can take…I don’t know, anywhere from a year to two, sometimes three…more.”

My heart sank like a stone tossed into the Hudson—heavy, fast, and gone before I could stop it. “We’re having a consensual divorce, aren’t we, Dante?”

He paused for what seemed like an eternity. I closed my eyes and felt a hand on my shoulder. Maura looked at me with concern. I shook my head.

“Depends. Are you coming for the charity gala?”

The nerve!

“Are you blackmailing me to come to a freakin’ party with you?”

I couldn’t believe it. Dante Giordano had lost his ever-loving mind.

“The Carrera family is important in Rome and for the Giordano Hotel Group. And Renzo Carrera, as you know, was a good friend of Nonno, and I’m not ready to sink my business relationship with him because you’re having a…how do you call it…yes, snit.”

I wanted to throw my iPhone against a wall.

I wanted to throw Dante against a wall.

I wanted to yell at my Nonno for making that stupid promise to Don Giordano. But both old men were dead, so I had no one to take my anger out on…well, except Dante, who was a fucking asshole.

“Don Carrera is a reasonable man, and if you tell him?—”

“Renzo is a lot of things,reasonable, he is not. Cristina Carrera personally called me and asked me to make sure you’ll be there. Apparently, you did some charity thing with her, and she’s very impressed.” He sounded boredandangry. How did a man manage to be both at the same time? Well, Dante had mad skills when it came to contradictory emotions.

Maura sat down next to me on her couch and took my free hand in hers. Her kindness and generosity warmed my heart.

I’d met Maura when I came to Rome before Dante and I married. I’d gone for a long walk and ended up in her bistro, and we started talking. I asked her about the sign on her door:Cercasi Personale – Unisciti A Noi!

My Italian was not great, but I knew a help wanted sign when I saw it.

Maura, a fellow American, gave me a job right away even though I didn’t speak Italian fluently. She didn’t think that would be a problem and thought instead it would help me learn the language faster, which it did. Now, I could comfortably hold aconversation in Italian. I could understand what people were saying if they weren’t talking at the speed of light.

“I didn’t do much. Maura and I just catered an event for the women’s shelter for free,” I told him.

“Be here by four. Patrizia will be there to get you ready.”

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