He stares at me, then smiles slightly, sardonically.
“I’m a monster, Eva. There is no saving a monster. But I love that you want to try.”
My heart constricts at the expression on his face. He has no hope for himself, so I have to hope for him.
“You’re not a monster,” I argue softly. “You’re a man, Luca. A man like any other, you’re made of blood and bone. You’re not a monster. You have a good heart. I can see it in your eyes and I can feel it when you’re inside of me. Whatever this is, this darkness that plagues you…. We’ll figure it out. Together. I promise.”
He sighs raggedly and I know that he won’t argue with me tonight. But he won’t believe simple words, either. I know that, too. So I will simply have to show him. I have to help him. I have to. I will be as lost as he is if I don’t.
Chapter Twenty-Five
My phone rings and wakes me from a delicious sleep filled with sensuous dreams and dark eyes.
I fumble for the offending noisemaker, find it and growl an intelligible greeting into it.
“Good morning. Are you hungry?” The voice on the other end is husky and smooth.
It’s Luca.
That fact makes me instantly happy and I smile, remembering last night. Luca had spent most of the night with me and it was delicious. I run my fingers along my arms and then my neck, remembering how his lips had touched the same places.; how his fingers had caressed every inch of my body. It gives me pleasant shivers.
“Yes,” I tell him honestly. “I’m starving.”
“You should be,” he laughs. “I’m in the mood for pizza,” he continues, and I can hear him smiling through the phone. I picture his perfect white teeth.
“Luca,” I point out. “It’s 8:00 a.m.”
He laughs.
“Well, to get good pizza, it will be a bit of a jaunt. Are you up for it?”
“Of course,” I tell him. “I love good Italian. I’ll go to great lengths to get it. I’ll meet you downstairs shortly.” I throw some clothes on, yank a brush through my hair and rush down the stairs.
He meets me in the foyer downstairs and asks if I have my passport.
“In my room,” I tell him. He smiles.
“You should go get it,” he tells me. I raise an eyebrow, but do as he asks.
A short time later, we have flown to Italy on a Minaldi jet and are sitting on the patio of his favorite Italian restaurant.
In Italy.
Our conversation is light and friendly. We don’t talk about anything heavy or ugly or deep. It is simply a lovely day in the sun; something that two friends or two people on a date would do.
I stare at him over a piece of hot, perfectly greasy pizza, winding a piece of cheese around my finger. Luca, in his expensive slacks and tailored shirt, should look out of place with a slice of pizza in his hand. But he doesn’t. He looks casual and at ease. I smile.
“Do you do this often?” I ask, one eyebrow cocked. He looks innocent.
“Do what? Have lunch?” he takes a bite, chews it and looks at me then grins. “In Italy?”
He laughs and I have to laugh with him.
“Well, Italy isn’t that far from Malta, really,” he defends himself. “Only a few hundred miles.”
“Uh-huh,” I nod my head, humoring him in an exaggerated way. “Yes, I always take a private jet to lunch too. Definitely.”
He laughs again and flicks a rolled up straw wrapper at me. I duck and it sails past me. I’ve never seen the light-hearted side of Luca Minaldi. I like it. So I tell him that.
“What?” he asks. “You think I’m always gloom and doom?”
But after I point it out, he doesn’t seem as light-hearted as he was and I regret bringing it up.
His phone rings and since it is an important business call, he has to take it. He excuses himself and takes it outside of the dining area. I eat another slice of pizza and drain the rest of my soda. And then I sit and enjoy the sun on my shoulders while I wait for him to return.
After a few minutes, he is back.
“Are you ready for the best Tiramisu you’ve ever had?”
I grin. “You will never have to ask me that question twice.”
He tosses some bills on the table and we go right around the corner to a little bakery where he orders one piece of the decadent dessert. We sit at a bistro table in the corner and he feeds me bites.
This cannot possibly be the same Luca Minaldi that I have come to know. This Luca Minaldi is relaxed and casual. I immensely enjoy it. Although we know that shadows linger around us in the form of his family’s ‘affliction’, it feels wonderfully amazing to simply enjoy a normal, fun day.
“What would you like to do now?” he asks me after we’ve all but licked the little dessert plate. His question surprises me.
“I thought this was just a lunch date,” I tell him. “We have time to look around?”
He smiles again.
“I thought we could turn it into a day trip. That is, if you don’t mind.”
I pretend to think on that.
“Hmm. Spend a day in Naples, Italy with a dashing tall, dark and handsome man? I guess I could do that.”
He laughs and before I know it, we are hailing at taxi and on our way to the Capella Sansevero.
“If you see nothing else in Naples in your entire life,” Luca tells me during the short drive, “You need to see The Veiled Christ. It’s breathtaking.”
“The Veiled Christ?” I am doubtful that this is as breathtaking as he claims. But he is already shaking his head.
“You’ll see,” he says knowingly. “It’s a statue carved by Giuseppe Sanmartino back in the 1700’s. It’s amazing.”
I am both amused and impressed. Normal men might have simply taken me for a walk in the Historic Centre and let me wander aimlessly around. But true to form, Luca has definite opinions about what is entertaining or worthy of our time. I would expect nothing less from him.
And as it turns out, he is correct.
I find myself sucking in my breath at the detail on the statue, which is in the center of the Sansevero Chapel. The depiction of Christ, thinly covered by a sheet of marble, looks as though Christ Himself is lying on the stone in front of us. He looks as though he is getting ready to rise from the marble and speak to us. His facial features, his crucifixion wounds, everything… are perfectly detailed.