Gaining Visibility (17 page)

C
HAPTER
15

J
ulia hadn't opened her eyes yet, though she could tell from the sounds it was morning, and much later than she usually slept.

Last night, she and Vitale made love for hours, choosing to skip the evening meal to stay in bed. And though she was hungry, she was also warm and comfortable and relaxed, curled against Vitale, and that made her reluctant to move yet.

As if in protest to her thoughts, her stomach rumbled against his arm, which was casually thrown across her.

She felt the vibration of his chuckle, confirming he was awake.

“Vitale did not fill you up?” he joked.

She gave a dreamy sigh and rolled over to face him. “I think Vitale made me insatiable.”

“Een-sa-she-bull?” He repeated the unfamiliar word.

“Um, unable to be satisfied.”

“You are not satisfied,
bella mia?
”

“You satisfied me completely last night.” She kissed his bottom lip, his chin, his neck. “But I'll need another fix soon.”

“Feex?
Preparare? Riparare?
”

“Geez, I never realized I used that word so often—and so many different ways.” When she got home, she was going to check it out in the dictionary. “The way I used it this time means a drug I could get addicted to. I could get addicted to sex with you.”

He sighed. “The English, she has the too many words.”

“It's difficult, I know.” She traced the sensuous shape of his mouth with a fingertip. “But you do a great job with it. I haven't had any trouble communicating with you.”

“The word, she is not always of need, yes?” He eased his fingers into her hair at the temple and drew them slowly all the way to the tip. “The hair, she is . . .” He made a suggestive sound, a growl that drew a delighted tremor from her.

“I see what you mean.” She snuggled closer and closed her eyes, serene and comfortable and content to lie like this until hunger demanded movement. Vitale rolled away from her, and she thought he was simply changing positions, but then he rolled back.

Paper rustled.

She opened one eye to see him holding his sketchpad. “What are you doing?”

“The camera, she is too far away.” He pointed to his shorts that lay across the room where he'd kicked them last night. “I sketch. Only the few minutes. Go back to the sleep.”

She closed her eye, and it seemed like no time at all before she heard him set the pad aside and he pulled her against him. They snuggled for a while, her head pillowed on his arm, her cheek resting against his side. Stretched full-length against him, she slid her foot languidly up and down his calf.

“Julietta, is it very soon now?”

Her yes came as a delighted squeal when he rolled on top of her, and unlike last night, this morning's lovemaking was fast and playful, fueled by hunger and need.

While they fixed breakfast together, she remembered the room she'd booked at the hotel. He used her phone to cancel it, but she was still out the money for one night. Having the memory of last night was worth whatever it cost her.

“Are you happy you stay, Julietta?” He slid his arms around her from behind as she put her phone back in her bag.

“I'm very happy,” she said.

He took her shoulders and swiveled her around to face him. “Then I think we do the something today that also make you very happy.”

“Oh, yeah?” She clamped her hands onto his rear and leaned back to look him in the eye.

“Not the sex.” He laughed. “That we do later. Today, she is the Julietta Berk-a-weeth Day.” His broad gesture implied a banner stretched across the room. “We do only the thing you want to do.”

Julia didn't have to even think about it—what she most wanted to do . . . what she'd planned on for a year. “I would love to go to the Cinque Terre. Maybe hike a little bit of it?”

A smile of surprise and approval lit Vitale's dark eyes. “Yes, we do this! We take the train to the town, and we walk the trail a small way if she is not too difficult for you, yes?”

“Do you think my toe can take it?”

“We walk as far as the toe allow; then we go back to the train.”

She could hardly believe it. Hiking the Cinque Terre—at least a portion of it—was still possible! Flinging her arms around Vitale's neck, she rewarded him with a giant hug. “Oh,
grazie,
Vitale.
Mille grazie
.”

“
Prego,
Julietta.” He nuzzled his mouth and nose into her hair. “I think she is still much to celebrate, yes?”

“More than ever.”

She scampered off to the bedroom and change into her hiking clothes and flip-flops, and soon, they were racing toward Lerici.

* * *

The ferry to Porto Venere was packed with people, but Vitale's unwavering attention made Julia feel like they were the only two around. He stayed in constant touch with her—holding her hand, guiding with a touch to the small of her back, draping an arm around her shoulder. Several times during the boat ride, they shared a kiss.

She'd never been with a guy who was so demonstrative with his affection, and it unsettled her in the most delicious way.

One kiss was particularly long and deep. When they broke apart, the elderly couple sitting across from them smiled broadly and the gentleman nodded approvingly. He said something Julia didn't understand, but she caught the word
amore.

Vitale nodded. “
Sì
.”

“What did he say?”

“He say the day, she is perfect for the love.”

With the sun on her back and the wind in her hair and Vitale at her side, Julia couldn't agree more. “The day, she is perfect for everything.”

Vitale kissed her again with a perfect kiss that turned her perfect breathing pattern into a muted mass of imperfect panting.

They got off the boat at Porto Venere and explored the village while they waited for the next boat, which would take them to Riomaggiore, the first of the five towns known as the Cinque Terre and the place where they would board the train.

Vitale had convinced her to leave her cane behind, so she had a good excuse to keep a hand or an arm in contact with him as they moseyed about the village. Her heart sighed at each of the frequent kisses to her fingers and light squeezes to her hand. She was treading in a totally new territory in so many ways. Even the vending machine they happened on confirmed it.

“Pesto!” God, she loved the surprises from this culture. “Can we buy some?”

Vitale laughed, and she realized she'd probably sounded like Melissa used to when the ice cream truck was in the neighborhood. “We do not carry all the day,” Vitale reasoned. “We buy when we return. Or we make the fresh at home.” The way he said the word
home,
so casually including her in its parameter, caused a delightful flutter in her stomach. “But come now. I show you the special place.”

He led her to Byron's Grotto, a quiet cove reputed to be one of the favorite haunts of its namesake poet, according to the plaque affixed to the tall rock wall that separated the cove from the bustle of the village. Stepping through the gate was like stepping into a postcard. Several people swam while others sunned on the rocks, which horseshoed around the crystal blue inlet.

“Do you enjoy to swim, Julietta?” Vitale tucked her arm under his and led her to a large rock where they could enjoy the view.

She breathed the salty air deep into her lungs. “Swimming's one of my favorite summer things. Frank and I used to take most of our vacations at the beach. Melissa actually swam before she walked.”

He cocked his head and stroked her hand absently with his thumb. “How long did you marry Frank?”

“Twenty-three years.”

His eyebrows shot up. “That is many.”

“Yeah, it is.” Today it sounded longer than it ever had before.

The breeze caught a strand of her hair and blew it across her mouth. Vitale caught it and tucked it behind her ear. “And you were not happy?”

The way Vitale had just touched her . . . Frank would never have done that, would never have realized how sensual even such a tiny gesture could be. “I thought I was happy. Not deliriously happy, but I was comfortable. I thought our marriage was good.”

“To speak of the marriage, she make you unhappy?”

“No, it's okay.” That truth surprised her. She was a different person today in more ways than just a hairstyle. It was like she could see things more clearly.

“What make the divorce happen?”

She considered the question for a moment. “I guess my cancer did. Frank had a difficult time accepting the way my . . . um, my body changed.”

His dark eyes darkened even more. “He should not do this. Not a man who loves.”

The voice of experience echoed in his words, causing Julia to imagine him at the bedside of his dying wife. This man wouldn't have turned away—would never turn away—from someone he loved no matter how scarred and ravaged she was.

“Were you able to be with Luciana when she died?”

He shook his head and his eyes darted away, but not before she saw the dark irises swimming in tears. “She die too quickly. I do not have the opportunity to say the good-bye. To take the care of her. To . . . feex.”

The haunting words echoed in her brain. Two small words that told her more about the man than anything else he'd said. He knew who he was.

“The correct way of the life is the opportunity to help the people we love, yes?” He blinked hard several times.

“Yes, to be there for them.”

“But not for Frank.”

“No, not for Frank.” She shook her head. “But I don't need anyone to take care of me.”

Vitale didn't say anything. He simply brushed the back of his finger across her breast.

Yesterday, his intimate gesture here in front of God and everybody would've caused her whole body to stiffen with inhibition. Today, she didn't care who saw or what they thought. “I guess none of us knows how we'll react when we're faced with the unknown until we're faced with it. Then we find out what we're truly made of.”

Vitale was a man of rock with a heart as soft as spun sugar. Ironically, Frank was the exact opposite.

Vitale's gaze bored into hers, searching. “To not take the care of you . . . to not accept the scars, I think is not all Frank do.”

There he was, reading her mind again, which might've been disconcerting on any other day. Today, the uncanny talent piqued her interest. “How can you tell that?”

“I study the face for the art. I know the many looks and the emotion she bring. The pain I see the last night, she was not only from the scars.”

Julia sighed. She didn't want this perfect day blemished by conversations of Frank's rejection of her or his infidelity. “Let's just say Frank did a very bad thing.”

“Like Francesca, I think. She have the sex with the other man.”

So there it was. The bad thing Julia had wondered about. Now she understood Vitale's adamant rejection of the beauty, and the family's clueless reaction. He'd never told them what she did. But, in Vitale's mind, it was the deal-breaker, just as it was to her.

“And Frank had sex with other women. In fact, he left me for one.” A little of the old bitterness rose in her throat. And though it burned, it no longer made her want to throw up. “It hurt me a lot, Vitale. I'm sorry you had to experience that same kind of hurt.” She breathed deeply, letting her eyes roam to the far side of the cove where a couple lay stretched out on a long rock, engaged in some heavy foreplay, oblivious to everyone else.

Vitale ran a finger along her jaw, drawing her gaze back around to him. He cupped her face in his hands and tilted it up. “Yes, the much hurt. But I do not have the sorrow.” His mouth turned up at one corner. “I would not have the sex with Julietta if Francesca she did not do the bad thing.”

That was one of the sexiest things anyone had ever said to her. Julia grasped the back of his neck and pulled his mouth down to hers, wanting to reward him with her most perfect kiss.

His playful shudder when she pulled away made her confident she'd succeeded. He cocked his head, and the side of his mouth twitched as he scanned her face. “The music you hear today, she is happy?”

“Soooo happy.” She tilted her head to mirror his. “You know, until you mentioned it, I never realized I tapped the rhythm with my finger or toe. And I couldn't believe you noticed it.”

“I watch to see if the eye and the finger both say happy. Today, the eye, she is happy . . .” His voice trailed off.

“The music is always happy, Vitale.” His eyes squinted in question. “After the cancer and the divorce, I was very sad, so I used music to help me work through the sadness. I put together a group of songs that make me happy.” She pulled her phone out of her bag and opened the music app to her
Happy
playlist. “See?”

Vitale's curious eyes scanned her choices. “I listen?”

She touched one of the titles, and “The Tide Is High” by Blondie erupted from the speaker. Vitale's face broke into a broad grin as their bodies swayed together to the beat.

“The song, she make me happy also,” he agreed when the last strains died away. “We listen to more later, yes?” He stood and offered his hand to pull her up. “We must go to the ferry now.”

Quite a throng had gathered by the pier and the ferry had already arrived when they reached the seaside. Vitale had to muscle his way through the crowd to get them aboard. He kept Julia close, protective of her foot, glaring and growling at anyone who came too close.