In Italy for Love

Chapter 9

9

After the shades of vexation she’d seen on Alex’s face that afternoon, Jules was deeply uncertain about whether she should have taken him up on the offer of accommodation. Her bank balance would thank her, but his reluctance to play host couldn’t have been clearer. Her decision to come to the middle of nowhere appeared to have backfired spectacularly, and it took constant effort to stuff back down the panic when she was reminded that her free accommodation had fallen through.

She’d never guessed that the whole building was Alex’s home – although he hadn’t mentioned if he owned or rented it. Three more floors existed above the small apartment she’d glimpsed last night between kisses – kisses she needed to stop thinking about, so they could get back to being ‘not’ anything before more of his acquaintances came to the wrong conclusion and refused to be talked out of it.

Alex was obviously embarrassed that there had been witnesses. It was a shame, since she had some rather nice memories of his bare chest from last night. In fact, it was rather distracting, watching him climb the stairs in front of her. He was wearing a pullover that was fine enough to show the lines of his shoulders and from there, her brain skipped right back to the memory of him shirtless.

At the top of the stairs, they arrived in a dim corridor with a creaky wooden floor, lined with furniture from several past lives, including a globe that looked old enough to show Australia as New Holland and a rocking chair that would probably disintegrate into wicker shards if anyone actually sat on it.

Alex breathed a sigh of relief when the hallway sconces flicked on, although the light was weak and dim. It was cool up here – cold, even, now the temperature outside had fallen after the mild autumn day. Peering into the room he unlocked, Jules only saw a bed, and she could have wept for joy after the ways she’d imagined seeing out this night.

But Alex closed the door again quickly. ‘Not that one,’ he said, locking it again.

‘Is that where your housemate the vampire lives? The one that protects you from the zombie neighbours?’

‘You’re going to give yourself nightmares,’ he commented, giving her a dubious glance that had no business looking so good on him. ‘I haven’t aired any of these rooms in…’

She waited for him to finish, but he just got a dismayed look on his face and stopped talking.

‘Don’t worry. I can air it. And I can pay for?—’

‘Don’t even suggest it,’ he said, his tone so sharp it made her stand up straight. She wasn’t sure what he’d done with her smiling co-conspirator from last night, but this serious, rather bossy version of Alex was… actually just as attractive, unfortunately.

‘This house used to be a B&B, but a long time ago,’ he explained.

‘Now it’s musty, but allows you to take in stray women whose dogs are your biggest fan.’

Moving to the next door, he said, ‘You make it sound like it’s happened before, but nobody has been in here for years.’

She waited as long as she could, but he didn’t elaborate. ‘So the vampire thing could be true. You don’t know for certain.’

He wisely ignored her, opening the next door after trying out several different keys. When he switched the light on, dust motes swam in the air from the frilly fabric lampshade. An equally frilly bedspread covered the bed and a dark hardwood wardrobe filled one corner. Arco immediately went to work learning the smells of the room.

‘I suppose I can go to Narnia if all else fails,’ she mumbled to herself, running her fingers along the rustic joinery.

‘Better than Transylvania?’ Alex replied with a frown, as though his own joke were an unwelcome surprise. There was a heaviness to him that definitely hadn’t been there the night before. Had he had a bad day? ‘I’ll get you some fresh bedding and air out the room while you shower if you like?’

‘I can make the bed,’ she insisted as he wrestled with the stiff fastenings to open the double windows and then push out the shutters. She dumped her backpack, taking her battered laptop case carefully out of the top and placing it on the bed before rummaging for fresh undies and her threadbare pyjamas. ‘Thanks for this. Really,’ she added without looking at him.

‘Psht,’ was his only response. ‘I’ll find the Wi-Fi password for you. And I’m not sure how well this radiator works. You’ll have to let me know if you’re cold.’

‘Thanks. I’ll be fine.’

Half an hour later, she tiptoed out of the bathroom feeling slightly more human and ready to collapse into bed and sleep off her bad decisions. Her stomach rumbled, but she didn’t have the energy – or the cash flow – to go out and find something to eat.

The kitchen door was open a crack, sending a narrow shaft of light into the hall. A little wet nose appeared and Arco nuzzled his way out, tail wagging as though she’d just made his day by appearing after an absence of ten minutes. As soon as she stroked her hand over his woolly head and neck, he pressed himself into her, demanding more petting.

‘We’d better get you some dinner,’ she crooned.

‘He’s already eaten the cat’s food.’

She glanced up to find Alex standing in the kitchen door, a tea towel over his shoulder and another frown on his lips.

‘Oh, shit! I’m sorry!’

‘You’ll have to apologise to Attila, not me,’ he said. He gestured into the kitchen with a lift of his chin. ‘Come have something to eat.’

Opening her mouth to protest that he didn’t have to cook for her, she instead took a breath of the most divine scent of red onion and salted meat, and nothing could have stopped her feet from taking her straight into the kitchen.

‘We shouldn’t be taking advantage of you,’ she insisted weakly as she took a seat at the small table. ‘Or Attila,’ she added, looking around for the cat, but there was no sign of his bushy tail.

‘It’s only polenta soup. It’s no trouble to reheat a little more broth. And the cat has gone out to terrorise the night-time wildlife.’

‘Broth? You make it sound like food for needy orphans, but it smells like paradise in here.’

‘You’re my needy orphan for the night, hmm?’

He placed a ceramic bowl in front of her, full of creamy soup topped with pancetta. The bowl was painted with tiny blue flowers and beige stripes and had two little handles on the side. Grabbing the spoon like a starving woman, she nearly dug in then and there, but she felt Alex’s gaze and remembered her manners, setting the spoon down again, her cheeks hot.

‘Bon pitìc,’ he said with a hint of a smile – the closest he’d come to one since she’d seen him again that evening. ‘Our version of “buon appetito”. Don’t wait. You look like a wolf.’

‘A dog, a cat and a wolf. You’ve got a menagerie tonight.’

She sipped her first spoonful and stifled a groan. ‘Wow,’ she mumbled, taking another spoonful. ‘This soup could put the entire world to rights.’

Alex took his seat opposite her with a doubtful smile. Tugging a cork out of a bottle of white wine that was already open, he poured a small amount into two glasses. ‘Cure the world with polenta and radicchio? You sound like an Italian grandmother.’

‘Radicchio? Is that the taste I couldn’t work out? I didn’t think I liked it.’ With a pinch of discomfort, she remembered Luca’s mamma constantly trying to educate her palate.

‘It has the amaro taste – bitterness. Perhaps it takes some getting used to. Cooking it takes some of the bitterness away, but I enjoy it raw.’

‘Perhaps I have enough bitterness,’ Jules joked, taking another spoonful of soup and hoping he didn’t ask why.

‘Here in Fri?l we appreciate bitterness,’ was all he said, propping his chin on his fist. ‘Sometimes life is hard. Bitter is one of many natural flavours.’ With a thoughtful frown, he picked up his wine glass for a sip.

She took note for the first time of the strange wine glasses. Although the stem was conventional, the top part was made of green glass. Peering at her own, she said, ‘Are these genuine seventies vintage? It kind of looks like we’re drinking absinthe.’

‘They came with the place,’ he explained. ‘The bowls too, although none of them match.’ He gestured to his own soup bowl which was decorated with colourful, swirling flowers and leaves, along with a sentence in a straight, sharp script.

‘Benvign?ts in cjase nestre,’ she read out, squinting. ‘Benvenuto in casa nostra?’ she guessed.

‘Benvenuti a casa nostra in standard Italian,’ he corrected with a nod. ‘Welcome to our house – or my house in this case.’ The smile he gave her was tight and puzzling.

‘Well, thank you for putting me up for the night,’ she said, raising her glass. ‘So, this place was a B&B? How did you end up here?’

‘I inherited it,’ he explained. ‘But it’s a long story. It’s been nearly ten years since the business operated.’

‘Have you thought about starting it up again?’ Not that it was a simple thing to just open a B&B, she thought bleakly.

His grimace seemed to match her thoughts. ‘Sometimes it’s easier to leave things be.’ He sipped his soup without looking at her, a shadow over his eyes that made Jules think about ‘nots’ and bitterness and hard times. He was a puzzle of a man. His fingers were blunt and his hands a little raw, with specks of something dark under the fingernails. He’d arrived home with an accordion case and he’d inherited an old B&B from someone he didn’t want to mention and his family – at least she thought he’d called Maddalena ‘zia’ for aunt – seemed keen to imagine him together with any old stranger who turned up in his life and insisted they’d only had casual sex.

Perhaps he was right and it would have been less awkward if they hadn’t slept together the night before. Now her stomach was full, her mind kept snagging on the memory of his mouth on hers until she was worried she was staring at his lips. They were nice ones – the bottom lip full and soft – contrasting with the light scratch of his trimmed moustache and beard.

‘What about you?’ he asked.

‘You mean why am I at the very edge of Italy with all of my physical possessions stuffed in a backpack and only a dog for company?’

‘Exactly.’ Propping his elbows on the table, he leaned forward, his expression making her wonder again where his smiles from last night had gone.

‘That’s also a long story,’ she mumbled, eyeing him pointedly. ‘But I’m trying to leave Italy.’

‘Trying to?’

‘I told you I lived in Parma for three years… well… now it’s time to go home, except I’m at the mercy of the government. I don’t have a current passport. I’m officially Italian now, but I only have a certificate to prove it. It should only take two weeks to process the application once I’ve got an address for them to send it to, but until then I’m in a bureaucratic black hole with no savings.’

‘Which is why you were supposed to work on Maddalena’s farm.’

‘Yeah,’ she agreed with a sigh. ‘But apparently the room for workers at Due Pini could electrocute me, so that won’t work out. I just seem to stumble from one disaster to another. I spent today hauling water so the group booking at the restaurant could go ahead. I didn’t sign up for a bodybuilding boot camp.’

She flexed her arm for emphasis, but he ignored the joke.

‘Wasn’t there someone in Parma you could have stayed with?’

‘Well that someone is the reason I’m “not”,’ she said, catching his eye.

‘Ah.’ Alex looked as though he wanted to say more, his lips moving from uncertainty to a concerned pout. ‘He didn’t… Are you all right?’

‘Yes, I’m not on the run. You don’t need to beat anyone up.’

He choked on a sip of wine.

‘We wouldn’t want you to damage those accordion hands.’

This time he coughed and spluttered.

‘Do I need to pat you on the back?’ she continued while he got his breath back. ‘I thought you liked my jokes.’

When he met her eye, instead of the warmth from the night before, there was a sheen of dismay over his expression that made her neck prickle with disappointment. ‘I use these hands for lots of things – not just playing the accordion, you know.’

‘Oh, I know,’ she teased him with a wink, even though she knew she was poking the bear. Apparently he didn’t like her jokes today.

‘That— I… That wasn’t what I meant. I just thought I should mention my real job. I work in a bike shop – bicycles. I repair them.’

‘I thought you were a bad busker!’

‘Thanks,’ he muttered.

‘No, I mean you didn’t even have a hat set out for money.’

‘It’s one of the places people don’t usually mind me practising. Siore Cudrig – Signora Cudrig – in the building across the courtyard yells at me if I play here when she’s trying to take a nap.’

‘She must be one of the vampires! Have you ever actually seen her in daylight?’

‘Yes, I have. She hangs her washing every Wednesday afternoon at one o’clock.’

‘She probably also saw you half-naked in your doorway last night, right? I bet she wanted to put her fangs in that!’ She should probably have taken pity on him and stopped cracking jokes, but she was too tired to filter herself.

Then he laughed. It wasn’t much more than a chuckle, but when relief washed over her, she realised how much his reserve had confused her.

‘Don’t come running to me when you wake up from your bad dream,’ he said drily, as though he didn’t realise what pictures that put into her head. ‘So, you’re an Australian-Calabrian Volpi just waiting for a passport so you can leave your ancestral home again?’

‘Volp e ,’ she corrected him glumly, staring into her soup. ‘A homeless, penniless, jobless Australian-Calabrian Volpe.’

‘Julia Volpe.’ It felt as though he were trying out the shape of her full name on his lips. Giving her a short, rueful smile, he held out his hand over the top of their bowls. ‘Nice to meet you properly, Julia Volpe. I’m Alessandro Mattelig.’

She took his hand haltingly. ‘Huh. Wow.’

‘Hmm?’

She should let go of his hand but her thoughts had got stuck. ‘I suppose I… Last night was so wonderfully out of normal time, I keep assuming you don’t exist except as a perfect figment of my imagination, like I’ve hit rock bottom, so I invented you to make me feel better. But you have a full name. You exist.’

‘I do,’ he ventured doubtfully. ‘At least, I think I do. Are we ever really certain about that?’

‘I couldn’t have made you up.’ She hadn’t imagined after the past year that she could still feel that warm tingle when she looked at someone. She didn’t have the optimism for that. ‘I’ve never heard your surname before, so I couldn’t have made it up.’

She was relieved Alex didn’t look concerned that she’d lost her marbles. He just studied her and said, ‘I know what you mean. Last night felt imaginary. But here you are – again.’ He didn’t look happy about it and she wished she weren’t so disappointed that he hadn’t been as drawn to her as she’d been to him.

‘I really appreciate you putting me up for the night,’ she said, pulling her hand back from his warm, rough one. Standing, she took her plate to the sink and turned on the tap.

‘Don’t worry?—’

‘You cooked, so I should clean up,’ she insisted.

But he reached around her and turned off the tap, and all she could do was go still and try to stop her knees from giving out when his presence seemed to melt her from the inside. She remembered him holding her in this kitchen last night, before she’d bolted.

‘Go to bed,’ he said gently. ‘You’ve been at bodybuilding boot camp all day.’

The joke made her drop her guard and she looked up at him – bad idea. He was standing far too close and her memory was too good. Jules had made so many bad decisions in recent years, but she’d be gone for real tomorrow and what was one more kiss?

Lifting her palm to his cheek, she leaned close to press her lips softly to his.

She didn’t know what she’d intended, but she hadn’t expected his hand to slip around her back and haul her closer after he’d been a frowny grump all evening. But the grump kissed her back.

The kisses started slow – teasing even – but it wasn’t long before she had her fingers twisted in his hair and they were both gasping for breath. He nudged her chin up to kiss her neck, a shudder racing through him. She had to fumble for the kitchen bench as her spine melted.

‘Why does that feel so good?’ she mumbled, her eyes falling shut.

She shouldn’t have said anything because he stopped abruptly, pressing his cheek briefly to hers before drawing away.

‘I don’t know,’ he said flatly. ‘I didn’t mean to do that again.’

His words prickled over her with misgiving and she dropped her hands, grasping his pullover to steady herself – steady both of them. Glancing at the kitchen window with its gauzy lace half-curtains, she almost expected to see Berengario peering in.

Alex was real – a man with his own life and family, his own secrets. He wasn’t an anonymous accordion player whom she’d asked out on a whim and then had the most unexpected, wonderful date with.

‘We shouldn’t then,’ she forced out, stepping away firmly. ‘Thank you for dinner. Goodnight,’ she murmured and ran for her room before she did something else stupid.

Tucked up in bed fifteen minutes later, she congratulated herself on her sensible behaviour as consolation for the cold and rather lumpy bed. The radiator was more lukewarm than hot, but she couldn’t go back down and ask Alex or she might find him half-dressed and looking ridiculously attractive. Arco lay across the door which would have been sweet if it had been out of protective instincts, but Jules suspected it was because he wanted to go back downstairs into the warmth – maybe even to Alex, the traitor.

Despite her conviction that she’d done the right thing, she slept poorly. She awoke several times thinking she heard the faint ghostly humming of an accordion. Once she dropped into a deep sleep, she had vivid dreams, although whether they were of zombies and vampires she didn’t remember in the morning.

All she did have when she woke up was the lingering panic about the state of her life and the stab of regret that she’d stopped kissing Alessandro Mattelig.