another yacht that doesn’t scream ‘party animal.’”
She sighed with the satisfaction of someone who’d been listening to a poignant tale. “Which is just about the last thing you are.”
“Sì. The sporadic sponsored charity event is the limit of my social mingling.” He only then noticed that Giancarlo must have served their entrées. “Which must be why the etiquette my mother struggled to infuse me with as a small child has rusted from disuse. Andare avanti…go ahead, please. I’ll talk and you eat.”
She immediately pounced on her plate, snatched up one of the golden, crisp lobster puffs. “I thought you’d never ask.”
He chuckled, shaking his head at his all-out reaction, started to eat himself. “So tell me…what made you move to Sardinia and/or Italy when you were five?”
She chewed, moaned in enjoyment, beamed at him. “I thought it was you talk and I eat. Lucky for you my mother never succeeded in teaching me not to eat and talk at the same time.” She reached for a second puff. “About the move—gotta say outside influences helped me make that decision. Like my parents hauling me there.”
“Ragazza difettosa.” His no-touching-yet rule was growing difficult. His hands ached to smooth those glowing cheeks, cup them and dip his tongue in those tormenting dimples and smile grooves. “You must know where I want to haul you.” Her eyes all but groaned Yes, please. He inhaled, reminded himself of his resolve. “So why did they haul you there?”
She reached for her champagne flute, her eyes losing heat and brightness. “It’s a convoluted story. I think it started with my father’s business in the States having many outlets in Italy and the surrounding Mediterranean islands. He went bankrupt around the time I was five. He also suffered from depression. In the years following his death, I’ve often asked my mother if she thought that influenced the decisions that led to his bankruptcy, or if it was the other way around. Not that I expected an answer, or thought it would make a difference.”
“When did he die?” He watched her put down the puff. It was clear her appetite was gone. He groaned. “Don’t answer that.”
The surprise in her eyes seemed directed at her own reaction, not his words. “No, I-I want to tell you. He died when I was eleven.”
He gritted his teeth, hating to see her suffer echoes of the anguish the child she’d been must have felt. “You were old enough to be aware of all the problems going on around you then.”
She nodded. “I was.”
“It still haunts you.”
She put down her glass unsteadily. “It’s not fun remembering nothing of my father but a man buried under so much gloom and despair. I try to cling to memories of the man he was beneath all that, but they’re rare. During those times he was wonderful, which makes it all more painful, knowing how much of him was wasted. Remembering how angry I was at him doesn’t help, either. I’ve since realized that he couldn’t help his condition, but try to convince a kid of that. I blamed him for his moods, his inaccessibility. And later on, I blamed myself for that blame.”
Everything she said struck chords inside him. He’d suffered something very similar. “Where was your mother during all that?”
She started to eat again, an adorably determined look on her face. “Struggling to protect me from the torment festering within Dad as it spread out to engulf us, and to keep him from disintegrating while not succumbing herself under the burdens thrown on the so-called ‘healthy adult’ in this setup.”
“You have a good relationship with her.”
She swallowed her mouthful convulsively, her eyes tearing up. “I had the best relationship a girl could hope for with her mother. She died seven months ago.”
He ached to stop this, to spare her reliving her anguish. But he felt she’d refuse to abandon the subject. She more than wanted to tell him. It felt as if she needed to. He wanted to give her anything she needed. He asked quietly, “How?”
“Sh-she had rheumatoid arthritis. A severe condition. Then, during a regular checkup, she was diagnosed with stage-four pancreatic cancer. She was dead within two months.”
“You were with her when she passed away?”
She nodded. “She didn’t live here with me, because her condition deteriorated whenever she left the Mediterranean climate. I went to her every minute I could. When we knew there was no hope of remission, she wanted to live at home. I wanted to be the one to take care of her, so I moved into her villa. I’d taken paramedic courses and administered the palliative measures that were all that could be done until…until the end.”
“You had medical supervision during that time?”
She bit her lip, hard. “Her doctor was on call and two nurses came twice a day to check on my measures.”
“And they found everything to their satisfaction.”
“It was easy to get it right. There wasn’t much to be done.”
“Yet you’re still afraid you messed up those simple measures, didn’t give the mother you loved—who trusted you to take care of her during her last days—the best care.”
He saw shock rip through her, as if he’d reached inside and yanked out her heart. Then, to his horror, her face crumpled, her teary eyes spilling over. “Sometimes I wake at night crying, terrified I gave her a wrong painkiller dose, that she was in agony and bearing it as usual, that I made her make the wrong decision in going home. That she died suffering because of me.”
Battling their physical need was one thing. But this need, for solace, he was powerless against. He hadn’t offered or sought comfort since childhood. He had to offer it now, seek it. To and from her.
He exploded to his feet, came around to her, pulled her up.
The moment she filled his arms, it was as if things were uprooted inside him. Separateness. Seclusion.
This. He’d been waiting for this. This woman. This connection. And he’d never known he’d been waiting.
She lay her head against his heart and trembled. He stroked her hair as he’d longed to from the first moment. It was beyond anything his imagination had spun. And so was what he felt for her. He wanted her to let go, give him all her resurrected misery to bear. He wanted her to pour out the rest. He was certain she’d never unburdened herself.
He prodded her to give him all. “Why did your father take you to Sardinia when his business collapsed? Was he going home?”
“No.” She sniffed, stirred, her eyes beseeching him to resume normalcy. He complied, let her go, somehow, seated her, went back to his chair, signaled for Giancarlo to serve the main course.
She stalled, tasting her lobster in lime butter sauce, asking Giancarlo about the recipe. When she ran out of delaying tactics, was in control again, she began talking. “Dad had a friend who asked him to relocate us there so he could help, which he couldn’t do effectively if we lived thousands of miles away.”
“And did he? Help?”
“Above and beyond. He paid off Dad’s debts,
