Gladly Beyond (23 page)

“More of their hey-imagine-seeing-you-here meetings.”

“Probably.”

The pigeon squirmed again. The good sister trying to make her escape.

Claire gestured with her chin. “So a nun, huh?”

“Yeah. Habit and everything.” I motioned for us to cross the street back to my motorcycle.

“What did a nun do to end up reincarnated as a pigeon?”

“No idea. I just see shadows. I’m not judge and jury.”

Claire glanced up the road, waiting for a break in traffic. “I mean, was she rude to her Mother Superior?”

I grinned. “Broke her vow of silence?”

“Exactly. I bet she was sneaking into monks’ cells at night. I’ve heard about those tunnels linking monasteries and abbeys.”

I laughed. The stoplight changed and we crossed the road. I juggled the pigeon in one hand while unlocking my bike seat with the other.

Claire suddenly shoved my arm. Score one for uninitiated physical contact. I turned a questioning glance her way.

“Oooooh. I bet she was a floozy-nun.” Totally serious.

I laughed, embarrassingly too loud. “Floozy-nun? Of all the possibilities out there, you go with floozy-nun?”

“Yep.”

“Not fallen sister?” I angled the poor pigeon closer to my face. “Doesn’t this look like Our Lady of the Night to you?”

She smiled at me. That bright, shiny smile I adored. Dimple popping.

Whoa.

I forgot how to breathe.

“Sister Floozy?” she suggested.

I just shook my head as if disgusted. Claire was flirting with me. The last thing I wanted to do was call her attention to it.

I opened the bike seat and handed her a helmet. Dug around for a second and then shook out a paper bag. I gently stuffed Sister Floozy into the bag head first, carefully folding the top of the bag over several times.

Holding the bagged pigeon with one hand, I texted my mom with the other.

On our way.

Pocketing my phone, I pulled a second helmet from the seat and tucked it under my arm.

“I’m going to have to ask you to hold Sister Floozy on the drive to our palazzo.”

Claire froze, her smile instantly fading.
Uffa
. And we had been making such progress, she and I.

“Uhm, I’m good. Just text me the address. I’ll walk.” She tried to hand the helmet back to me.

I shook my head. “Claire—”

“I-I’m not comfortable riding on that bike with you.”

“What? I’m a perfectly safe driver—”

“Your driving isn’t the issue. The bike just seems a little . . . intimate.”

Well, duh.

That was
entirely
the point of bringing my motorcycle.

“I promise to behave.” I crossed my heart with the bagged bird.

Claire eyed the bike. And then me. Shook her head. “I’m good walking—”

“Can’t. It’s too late.” I handed her the pigeon bag as I buckled my helmet and slid on my sunglasses.

“What? It’s not too late.” She gave the pigeon back to me.

“Nonna put down the pasta.”

She crinkled her brow, adorably confused. “That makes no sense.”

“It makes perfect sense. It means that in less than fifteen minutes, the pasta will be hot and steaming on the table. And if there is one thing I have learned, nothing upsets an Italian grandmother more than letting pasta sit for even a minute after it’s ready. C’mon.”

She popped her free hand onto her hip. Stubborn, as usual.

“Porca miseria, cara.”
I threw an arm up, being my most Italian self.

“Did you just swear at me in Italian?”

I stared at her. Appalled. “Swear at you? Like some temperamental teenager? Hardly.” I shook my head and exchanged Sister Floozy for her helmet and began buckling it on her head. “What kind of person do you think I am, babe?”

She glared daggers at me. “Don’t call me babe. It’s Claire.”

“Fine. Claire.”

I turned away from her and straddled my bike, hiding my smile.

Ha! Finally. No more
Ms. Raythorn’s
for me. Victory was sweet.

I looked over my shoulder at her as I kicked the stand up.

Claire rigidly standing. Holding the squirming paper bag, helmet pulled low on her head. Biting her lower lip.

Unsure. Anxious. Utterly adorable.

Mine.

Emotion flooded me. Liquid fire.

You, my love. Always and ever, only you.

I swallowed. But it was no use. My heart was firmly lodged in my throat.

Damn.

I was falling so hard and fast for this woman.

Just breathe.

I straightened my shoulders.

“Sister Floozy is getting antsy,” I said. “And you so don’t want to see Nonna upset over her pasta getting mushy.”

“Mushy?” Claire tossed her head. “Isn’t
cold
the word you were looking for there?”

“Nope. You’re in Italy,
cara mia
. We eat our pasta
al dente
and not a smidge more well-done than that.”

I’m pretty sure she growled, “It’s Claire.” But it didn’t sound like her heart was in it.

With a frustrated sigh, she straddled the bike behind me, wrapping one arm around my waist, the other holding Sister Floozy carefully.

Oh man
.

I took a deep breath as I started the bike, closing my eyes briefly. The feel of her pressed up against me from waist to shoulder. Every point of contact sizzling, smoking fire.

My entire body had just gone from zero to sixty faster than my bike.

“Hold on.” I said over my shoulder. She tightened her free hand around my waist as I waited to edge out into traffic.

One more steadying breath. Maybe she had been wise to resist riding with me . . .

But I wanted Claire’s trust more than anything else.

There was so much . . .
possibility
between us. I could see it. Glimmering in the distance, drawing nearer. An eternity of love and devotion and
together.
My heart pounded at the thought.

I was all-in with Claire. Determined to prove myself
worthy
of her trust.

Though that didn’t stop the Italian in me from taking more than one corner a little faster than strictly necessary. Just to force her to hold on that much tighter.

Shameless, you say?

Why, yes. Yes, I am.

Eighteen

Claire

I
’m not going to lie.

I’ve always had a thing for guys with motorcycles.

That heady rush of g-forces as the bike accelerates, the wind tugging at your clothing, the shameless excuse to cuddle close to the man driving.

So, let’s just say there was something oddly magical about riding through the narrow medieval streets of Florence clutching a hot Italian-American playboy with one hand and a wounded pigeon who used to be a naughty nun in the other.

Okay, so maybe the nun part was more offbeat than magical . . . but you get the idea.

I may have leaned into Dante more than was strictly necessary.

He was just so . . . big. Solid and strong. I could feel his abs flexing under my hand with each turn.

I may have even relaxed into him for a minute. Indulged in a fantasy where I wasn’t damaged and shattered and fear-ridden. Where I could simply take a man like Dante at face value and not doubt his every action.

And then I remembered who I was and who
he
was and how that was extremely unlikely.

This last regression had been more . . . powerful.

Ethan may have been madly in love with Caro, but she wasn’t far behind. She teetered on a precipice, where the tiniest motion would send her tumbling down a waterfall of love and adoration.

Part of me wanted to shake her. Rattle her cage. Force her to clearly
see
the heartache and pain waiting just past the signpost for Love. Caro was so unbearably innocent.

But just as I wanted to unnerve
her
, Caro’s trust and adoration of Ethan jarred
me
.

Had I ever been that . . . free? I couldn’t remember a time in my life where I hadn’t viscerally understood the cutting force of love.

And yet Caro, whose life had been neither easy nor kind, possessed a heart much more open than my own.

Her emotions still swamped me—blurring the line between Dante and Ethan.

When I leaned into Dante on his bike, was I Claire, eager to be close to the hot twenty-first century playboy?

Or was I Caro, hungry for a stolen moment with her nineteenth century Scottish gentleman?

I honestly couldn’t tell you.

Basically . . . these regressions were royally messing with me, and I couldn’t see myself willingly participating in any more of them.

I
had
to know my emotions were my own.

We zoomed along the Arno and then darted back into the rabbit warren of narrow streets around Piazza Santa Croce. It took us less than five minutes to arrive at a palazzo.

An enormous double-doored
portone
stood flush with the narrow street,
D’Angelo Enterprises
etched into a brass plaque next to it. Again, the doors were big enough for a full-size SUV to pass through. Dante pulled what looked like a garage door opener from his pocket, and the huge
portone
swung inward.

The doors opened into a wide arched corridor running the depth of the building, leading into a small courtyard beyond. Several cars were parked there, nestled in between lemon trees in enormous terracotta pots.

Dante nudged the motorcycle through to the courtyard, parking it between a battered Jeep Wrangler and a gleaming Mercedes E350. A mini Cooper, BMW sedan and vintage VW bus rounded out the cars.

We unbuckled our helmets, and Dante led the way back into the arched passageway, unlocking another large door. He took Sister Floozy and then gestured for me to walk through.

I stepped into a stairwell, paved in old flagstones with an aged dark railing, smooth plastered walls and ancient exposed ceiling beams. No later than the sixteenth century, I’d say. Were they original?

Dante climbed the stairs ahead of me, Sister Floozy squirming in her bag.

“So how old is this palazzo?” I asked.

“Around four hundred years. Been in the D’Angelo family the entire time.”

Wow.

“It seems . . .” My voice trailed off.

“Old and yet not?”

“Yeah.”

“My brothers and I are big on modernization without losing the sense of antiquity.”

We arrived at a landing with two steps up to another huge wooden door on the left. Dante unlocked it with a long skeleton key that seemed more movie-prop than an actual functioning tool.

The interior opened into a vestibule with soaring gilded ceilings. Dante walked through a set of double doors on the right.

I followed him into a large room which, again, had a coffered ceiling and even fresco-painted walls. All clearly dating from the mid-seventeenth century. An eclectic mix of modern and vintage furniture dotted the space, including an enormous flatscreen TV against one wall.

“My apartment that I share with Branwell.” Dante gestured as he set down Sister Floozy on a side table. “My
nonna
’s apartment is directly above us. Mom and Chiara are on the top floor.”

He pulled off his jacket and tossed it over the back of a chair, leaving him in just a tight gray t-shirt and jeans.

I slowly turned around. The room felt historic and yet fresh all at once.

Modern chrome lighting nestled into the coffers; crystal sconces dotted the walls. Sleek mid-century modern chairs mixed easily with sculpted Parisian couches. That effortless blend of modern and vintage that Italy pulled off with such flair.

“I assume it meets with your approval?”

I nodded. “Not quite your typical bachelor pad.”

“We finished up an extensive remodel about two years ago. Hopefully it will hold for a while. That’s the thing with these old
palazzi
.” Dante shrugged. “It seems like you finish one restoration just to start on another.”

He picked up the paper bag with Sister Floozy and motioned for us to head back out into the stairwell. We climbed a further flight of the twisting stairs to another huge door, this one slightly ajar. Voices floated out.

The door swung open just as Dante reached for the handle. A tiny dark-haired young woman strode out, a huge bowl of pasta in her arms.

“Dante! You made it.
Dammi un bacio
.” She presented him with her right cheek.

Smiling, Dante bent down and pressed his right cheek against hers, kissing the air next to her ear. He repeated the action on the other side, left cheek to left cheek. That typical Italian greeting I had seen repeated countless times on the street.

Why had he never tried that with me? I mean, the man
was
Italian, right?

I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or jealous.

Honestly, could I be any more of an emotional mess when it came to Dante D’Angelo?

“Watcha got there?” She looked pointedly at the bag where Sister Floozy squirmed.

“Pigeon. Nun.” Dante held the bag up.

She nodded. As if that explained everything. Which, I suppose, it sorta did.