A Place in the Sun(12)

He’d gone suspiciously quiet then, so I dropped the stone I was holding into the wheelbarrow, tugged off my gloves, and turned to watch as he let out a big grin.

“Georgie.”

He seemed to think the name would hold weight with me, but my mind came up utterly blank.

“Who?” I asked, frowning.

He threw his hands in the air. “Oh, bloody hell. The damsel in the dress! She’s the girl you carried into Nonna’s bed and breakfast.”

I nodded, not bothering to correct his idiom. “Right. You go on then. I need to keep working.”

Massimo was an easygoing bloke, but every once in a while, I pushed him too far. This was one of those times. He ripped my gloves from my hands and tossed them over the side of the hill, down into the trees along the edge of the cliff so that I couldn’t go after them unless I had a death wish.

“You’re coming! You can’t continue living the life of an eremita! A recluse!”

We had a standoff then. I stayed silent, a bit cross about my gloves, and he fisted his hands and puffed up his chest as if warning me away from a fight. It was laughable, really.

“It’s been five years next week, and it’s time to move on, mate.” His voice didn’t cool then. He was past the point of handling me with kid gloves. “Go shower and change. I’ll wait for you and we’ll go together.”

I relented, not because Massimo was right, but because I was hungry—starved, actually. I needed food and I would go down and eat; it didn’t much matter who I did it with.

I left the barrow full of stones and turned back for my house. Massimo let out an audible sigh, glad to have won the battle.

“You owe me a new pair of gloves by the way,” I said, tossing the words over my shoulder. His colorful curse words were cut off when I slammed the door of the villa behind me.





I MET KATERINA at Taverna Del Capitano at 8:00 PM. The restaurant was at the far end of the square, close to the water and the massive breaker. Like the other restaurants in Vernazza, most of the seating was outside. They’d clustered a group of small tables beneath colorful umbrellas and by the time we arrived, most of the seats had been filled with people sipping wine and enjoying a leisurely dinner.

I worried for a fleeting moment that we wouldn’t get a table, but a waitress directed Katerina and me to the best table in the bunch with a wink. Apparently, Katerina had some connections.

“There’s really no point in eating here if you aren’t getting that view.”

She pointed out to the water and I nodded. It was true. Anything would taste good with that backdrop.

“Here, sit,” she said, pulling out a chair on the side of the table that faced the water.

“You’re sure they won’t mind if we take the good seats?” I asked, hesitating over the chair.

She sat down beside me and waved her hand. “Massimo has lived here his entire life. It’s nothing to him.”

I couldn’t believe it. Sure, the sights around London hardly inspired feelings of awe in me anymore, but this was different. Vernazza was paradise on Earth.

Katerina was still wearing her blue dress and gold bangles, and when she complimented my dinner outfit, I knew I’d done well. I’d picked a little red dress that was more silk than anything else. It showed a bit of skin, so I’d brought along a little jacket for when the sun started to drop.

As it was, the sun hung low in the sky, right over the distant village of Monterosso al Mare and the mountains surrounding it. We had a perfect view of it all from our seats and for a moment I sat there, struck silent by its beauty.

It was the golden hour, that perfect time of day when everything gets painted in a light pink hue. Even Katerina seemed to glow with it, and I told her so.

“It’s lovely, isn’t it?” she said, turning to face me. “It’s like that on you too.”

She was right. I glanced down to my bare arms and could see the effects of the sunset on my skin.

“No wonder you’ve stayed on so long. The light in London isn’t like this.”

“That’s where you’re from then? London?”

The waitress returned with a bottle of white wine and poured a glass for each of us. Katerina told her to leave the bottle and I smiled, confident that I’d get on well with her.

“I grew up on my family’s estate, but I moved to London when I was eighteen.”

Her brows perked up. “An estate?”

“Oh…it’s just a little—”

“Sorry! Sorry!” Massimo’s voice boomed behind us. “I know we’re late, but we’ll make up for it with more wine.”

He reached down to kiss Katerina’s cheek and then bent over her to kiss me hello as well. Gianluca was behind him and though I’d braced myself for a welcome kiss from him, he did little more than nod at us before he pulled back the chair across from me.

For once, he wasn’t wearing a cap, and I nearly blacked out from the sheer beauty of him. He had deliciously wavy brown hair, thick and unruly. It should have been a crime to ever cover it with a cap, but I resisted the urge to tell him so.

The table suddenly felt claustrophobic, too small for Gianluca’s tall frame. He adjusted in his seat, brushing his jean-clad leg against me, and I folded up my legs beneath my chair, trying to give him more room.