Page 51 of The Honest Affair

Chapter Eleven

Nina

We left bright and early for Florence. I had fallen asleep sometime just after nine o’clock, though I was woken twice in the night by loud thumps on the wall next to me, and once more by an unintelligible shout. That time I crept out to investigate.

“Matthew?” I had called cautiously through the door.

For a while, I thought he was asleep. Perhaps I had imagined that shout, or else he really was just dreaming.

But then, he answered.

“I’m fine, doll,” came his groggy voice.

I had paused. “Are you—are you sure?”

Was it my imagination, or did he sigh?

“Yeah, baby, I’m fine. Go back to bed.”

So I did, hard as it was. Because something had changed the night before when I stole his cigarette. It had been automatic—watching him do something that he knew was self-harming produced a protectiveness I couldn’t hold back. So now, I could no longer pretend I didn’t care about Matthew. It was ingrained.

But the next morning, I couldn’t help noticing the dark circles under his beautiful green eyes, though the rest of him was as gorgeous as ever in a pair of fitted black pants, a bright white shirt, and a brown leather jacket. Casual, yes. But with his ever-present fedora, Matthew managed to be as effortlessly debonair as ever while he sipped his morning espresso in the courtyard, waiting for me to finish my own coffee and sfogliatella before we checked out.

How one person could make something as simple as a white Oxford shirt look so good was beyond me. Was it the contrast of the color with his inky dark hair and the two-day stubble outlining his sculpture-worthy jaw? Maybe it’s the way it matched the flash of his teeth in a crooked smile that made my stomach turn not once, but twice?

Luckily, I seemed to have a similar effect on him. I had chosen a form-fitting gray skirt, and yes, it was partially to enjoy the way his eyes dilated whenever I recrossed my legs and exposed my left thigh through the slit that reached well past my knee. He couldn’t quite keep himself from leering whenever I stretched my arms and thrust my chest outward. And I particularly enjoyed his expression when he noticed the three-inch silver heels I’d chosen to go with this outfit.

“You all right over there, doll?” he asked when he caught me staring at him instead of the flaky pastry.

I looked up. “Hmmm?”

His gaze managed to be both sympathetic and slightly dangerous beneath the brim of his hat

“You looked a little lost in thought,” he replied before pushing my plate toward me. “You need to eat, duchess. We have a long drive ahead of us.”

Yes, I was aware. Three and a half hours or so to another pensione Matthew had found in Florence, where I would mentally prepare myself for the first step on my agenda: finding Giuseppe’s wife and revealing our affair. I sighed, not because of the impending drive, but because I did feel a little lost.

I was here. In Italy. A place I hadn’t visited in more than ten years—not because I couldn’t have or didn’t want to, but because I was terrified of the ghosts I might confront. For more than a decade I had kept the memories of this country at bay, blindly trying to forge ahead with the lies that were supposed to protect my daughter and me, but instead they ended up nearly strangling us.

Now I was cutting us free—but was the truth just as dangerous? Other shadows were cast by the sunlight shining through the bougainvillea. They hid in the lilt of the language, in the cracks of the limestone facades.

They were even evident in the Roman nose and burnished skin of the man sitting in front of me.

Every desire I had ever felt in my life was here. There was no running away now.

So yes, I was a bit overwhelmed.

“I’m all right,” I said instead, picking up the cream-filled pastry and taking a generous bite.

I was going to gain ten pounds at the rate I’d been indulging, but found I didn’t really care. Not when Matthew watched me lick a stray bit of the orange-flavored cream from my lip like it was the most fascinating thing he ever saw.

The Ferrari purred on our way up the boot, and might have made for good conversation if we had had any. Instead, we just kept alternately leering at each other and daydreaming, like we were each waiting for the other to make the first move. After an hour of watching his forearms flex every time he gripped the steering wheel, I was having a hard time not asking him to pull over so I could jump into his lap like a crazed teenager. What was the matter with me? I was still so angry at him.

Wasn’t I?

Matthew cleared his throat as a road sign informed us we were entering Tuscany.

“So,” he said a bit awkwardly. “Did you get to see much more of the area when you were in school here?”

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