Each breath I take is saturated with the haunting melody and the sea and I am frozen in the doorway, unable to move. Luca’s beauty in this moment is greater than anything I’ve ever seen. His face, so chiseled and perfect, is dark and shadowed now. His glossy dark hair slants across his forehead but he is distracted by nothing. He is intense as he leans into the music.
I watch his hands, so slender and graceful and long. They lightly urge the music from the ivory beneath them and I know in this instant that this man, this beautiful man, cannot be a killer. It is impossible. This is why I haven’t gone straight to the polizia with his claims. He cannot be the person that he thinks he is.
I slump against the doorway, unable to move away from him or the beautiful music that he is creating. I close my eyes and let it waft over me, inhaling it, imagining that his fingers are flowing over me as softly as they move over the piano keys. Somehow, watching Luca play the piano is erotic. I don’t know how or why. But it is eternally and achingly sexy.
The melancholy music flows to a haunting stop and I open my eyes.
Luca is turned to me now, his exquisite hands in his lap. His eyes meet mine and I don’t know what his are saying. The expression is unreadable.
“Your hands are not those of a killer,” I tell him softly, barely above a whisper. “It’s impossible, Luca.”
He closes his eyes briefly, then reopens them. And I find that I am thankful. I need to see into his eyes.
“You don’t want to think so,” he answers and he sounds weary. “I don’t either. But all indications point to the contrary, Dr. Talbot.”
I ignore his words.
“I could listen to your music forever,” I tell him instead. He smiles and the room brightens.
“I didn’t write it,” he says with a small grin. “Ludovico Einaudi did. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? I’ve always loved his work, but this is my favorite. It’s called I Giorni. It has a haunting quality that I can’t get away from.”
“I agree,” I tell him. “If I could hear that every night before bed, I think I would sleep better.”
He looks at me thoughtfully. “Do you have trouble sleeping?”
I nod. “I’m an insufferable insomniac. I have been since I was a kid. Since…” My voice trails off.
“Since your brother died?” Luca guesses.
I nod.
Emotion bubbles up in my throat, but I push it back down. I swallow hard, then swallow again. Luca is staring at me, his expression still unreadable.
“Perhaps I can make you a CD,” he tells me and his tone is kind. Very kind. “You can listen to it as you ready for bed, and it might soothe you into sleep. I personally find the piano soothing, both playing it and listening to it.”
“How long have you played?” I ask.
“Since I was old enough to reach the pedals,” he answers. “Doesn’t every rich boy learn to play the piano?” He is wry now, almost sarcastic. “My mother insisted upon it. But I am glad now that she did.”
He rises from the piano bench and approaches me.
“Shall we, Dr. Talbot? I’d like to get this over with.”
I take his offered elbow. “You’re not looking forward to speaking with me?” I ask, feigning hurt feelings. The corners of his mouth lift into a very small smile.
“Not particularly,” he answers truthfully.
I smile back. “I promise, it won’t hurt,” I tell him.
“Never make promises that you can’t keep,” he reminds me as he holds his study doors open for me. I enter first, then turn to him.
“Where would you like to sit?” I ask.
He sits in one of the leather armchairs that we sat in when I was first here. I take the other one.
“Can you start at the beginning?” I ask. He nods.
And so he tells me of life at Chessarae. Of being a child here, with a mother who was distant and detached and a father who was never home. Luca knows why now, because Nicolas was increasingly confined to the cave in the maze, more and more as his life progressed. But since the Minaldis do not speak of their curse, not even to each other, he didn’t understand as a boy. He felt abandoned and alone.
Luca Minaldi may be confident and powerful on the outside, but on the inside he is a broken little boy. And with each word that comes from his mouth, from his perfectly formed lips, I feel my heart constrict just a little more until it is difficult for me to speak, to ask him questions.
“When did you understand what was happening to you?” I ask. It’s hard to formulate sound around the lump that has swelled in my throat.
“I always knew,” he answers, quiet in this large room. He gets up and pours us each a glass of Scotch, moving fluidly. He takes a gulp of his and I grip my cold glass tightly.
“I always knew. My mother told me at a very young age that there was something wrong with me, that I was a monster like my father. My brothers and I had a nurse who stayed with us in our wing. If we showed signs of sleepwalking or something similar, she was instructed to tie our hands to our bed and not allow us to leave until it had passed. As time went on, it was clear that it only afflicted me. My brothers were normal.”
A tear slips from the corner of my eye now as I picture Luca as a boy, terrified and alone in the darkness of his room, tied to his enormous bed.
“Luca… I…”
I can’t speak any more. The words won’t come. And another tear slips down my cheek. My eyes are hot and burning, so I close them.
“Don’t cry for me, Evangeline,” Luca tells me. “I came to terms with this long ago. Life is what it is. We must deal with the hand that we are dealt. This is my burden to bear. Everyone has one, including you. You still have unresolved issues surrounding your brother’s death. You know it as well as I do. You’ve built a wall around yourself. Don’t think I haven’t seen it. It’s invisible, but it is there.”
I nod. I can’t lie. It is true.
“But no one ever tied me to a bed,” I say softly.
“Perhaps not,” he answers. “But they might as well have. You’re tied to what happened, just the same.”