around, she’d wanted to take him seriously, but was afraid.
Irena got to her feet. “After my new doctor’s appointment this afternoon, I’m going to go back and tell Vincenzo he was right about everything. My being there will prove that I’ve taken a different course and want to be with him. We have this intense attraction and connection. It will be liberating to be able to admit it. If he meant what he said about getting married, I want it, too.”
“What will you tell him about the baby?”
“The truth. As much as I’ve been told by the doctors. He has the right to know everything, including the fact that Andreas met someone else, too. If he can’t forgive me for going back to break it off with Andreas, then he’s not the man I thought he was.” She bit her lip. “If he wasn’t being serious about marriage, then I’ll have to leave Europe.”
“Where will you go?”
“I have no idea.”
“Oh, Irena. I’m frightened for you.”
“So am I. I’m terrified”
“Come on, Dino. You can do it.”
“I’m scared, Papa.”
Vincenzo could see the fright in his son’s dark brown eyes. His medium-size six-year-old would only come as far as the edge of the hotel pool, but he wouldn’t jump into his arms. No bribe would entice him. “Then what would you like to do before we leave?”
“I don’t want to leave. I want to live here in Riomaggiore with you.”
When Dino said it in that forlorn little tone, it gutted Vincenzo. “You know you can’t, Dino. Come. We’ll walk down to the beach and watch the boats.”
“Okay,” he demurred sadly.
“Would you like to go for a ride and catch some fish?”
“No. I just want to watch.” Dino claimed he loved the water, but when it came right down to it, he couldn’t bring himself to enjoy it. By now Vincenzo had hoped his son would have overcome some of his fears, but since his ex-wife, Mila, had remarried six months ago and moved to Milan from Florence, they seemed to have grown worse.
“Let’s go!” He levered himself onto the tile. When both of them had slipped on their shirts and sandals, Vincenzo grasped Dino’s hand and they descended the steps beyond the pool area that led down to the sea.
Tomorrow was the last day of his boy’s one week summer vacation with him. Only a little more time left before he had to drive him back to Milan. Then the one weekend a month of visitation would begin again until his week in December. So much time apart from his son was killing him.
Before Mila had moved to Milan, Vincenzo had made that once a month sojourn to Florence where she’d lived with her family and Dino since the divorce. He’d found a small hotel located near the Boboli Gardens where you could look out over Michelangelo’s city. The delightful spot had become a second home to him and Dino.
The hotel he’d picked out in Milan didn’t feel like home to them. Neither did Milan itself, but rules were rules and had been set in concrete. Vincenzo was only given one week in summer and one week in December before the Christmas holiday to be with his son on his terms.
Nothing would change until Dino turned eighteen, unless of course Vincenzo married again. Such an eventuality would upset a small universe of people in more ways than one.
But after letting his father dictate an ill-fated marriage the first time around, he was through with the institution. His only choice was to bide his time until Dino was old enough to plead for a change in the visitation rules. Then Vincenzo would go before a higher court and appeal the decision. Hopefully that day would come years before Dino was considered an adult.
Later, as they walked along the cliffside path of Via Dell’Amore between Riomaggiore and Vernazza, his son cried, “Look, Papa. The sun fell into the sea.”
“Do you think it scares all the fish to see a big light shining under the water?”
That brought the first laugh of the evening to Dino’s lips. “No. You’re funny.”
Vincenzo looked down at his boy. He was the joy of his life. “Are you tired after all our walking? Do you want me to carry you on my shoulders up these steep steps?”
“I don’t think they’re steep.” He trudged up ahead of him, then turned around. “What’s steep?”
Laughter poured out of Vincenzo. “Almost straight up and down.”
“Sometimes I think I’m going to fall over.”
“You keep going up first then. If you start to tumble, I’ll be here to catch you.”
“I won’t fall. Watch!”
His strong legs dashed up the steps to the winding road that led to Vincenzo’s apartment. Dino had straight brown-black hair and brown eyes like his mother’s. His body type, like Vincenzo’s, had been inherited from their Valsecchi line.
Of course Vincenzo thought his boy brilliant like himself, and good-looking like Vincenzo’s mother. The Antonellos had a proud nose and firm jaw. All in all his Dino was perfect.
“I’ll beat you to our house,” he cried before hurrying up the last part of the road to the apartment jutting out from the cliff. From their balcony giving out on the Mediterranean, they’d spent many an hour looking through the telescope at swimmers and boats. When the sky was clear enough, they could pick out the constellations among the stars.
Dino ran around to the front door with Vincenzo not far behind. To his surprise he heard his son say, “Buonasera, signorina.” They had a visitor. Walking around the purple bougainvillea, his heart skipped a beat because he’d spotted the one woman he never expected to see again. His thoughts reeled.
In the fading light her glistening black hair fell like a curtain from a center part to her shoulders covered in a sleeveless lavender top. Standing there on those gorgeous long legs half-hidden in the folds of her white skirt, the impact of Irena Liapis on his senses had never been more potent.
“Buonasera,” she answered with a discernible Greek accent.
“Who are you?” Dino asked, but by then her startled eyes, dark as poppy throats, had come into contact with Vincenzo’s. Since he knew she couldn’t understand Dino’s Italian, he took over, but he had to be careful what he told him. Everything would get back to the boy’s mother.
“This is Irena Spiros from Greece, Dino,” he explained. “She doesn’t speak our language. That means we have to speak English to her.”
“But I don’t know many words.”
“That’s all right. Do the best you can with what you’ve learned. We’ll find out how good your tutor has been.”
“Okay.” Dino turned and shook her hand. “Hello, Ms. Spiros. I am Dino and this is my papa.”
She looked startled to hear her mother’s maiden name used
