Italian’s Christmas Acquisition

Chapter Fifteen

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

N OELLE HAD NEVER been so happy.

Italy was beautiful. They had stayed in his house in Milan for a while after the train trip, and then they had gone on to Lake Como, then to Florence. Then on to Rome. It wasn’t anything like the quiet life she had imagined for herself, but it was magical.

It was because of him.

She realized that her concept of home had shifted.

Rocco Moretti now felt like home. More than Wyoming ever had.

Even more than Holiday House. It was terrifying how quickly something like that could shift. Terrifying just how glorious a shift like that could be. If she had been told a few months ago that her whole life would change, she would have been sad about it. But now she realized that change wasn’t always bad. Sometimes it was simply the right time.

Sometimes, you were ready for it.

That was astonishing.

After a month overseas, though, she was beginning to feel like she wanted to visit home. It had been three months.

Three months in total since she had seen Melody, since she had been back in her familiar territory.

Just a small visit would be nice.

It was the strangest thing, because she had a deep level of intimacy with him, and yet there were some things she still felt afraid to approach him about at times. The way he handled his issues around his childhood being the biggest, because last time it had been such a disaster. He talked about things, but she always felt reluctant to push when he wasn’t the one leading.

It was because there was something under the surface, and she couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but it was beginning to fill her with a sense of disquiet that she didn’t quite know how to manage.

She could tell him that she loved him, of course. Take the pane of glass she felt like was between them sometimes and shatter it. Test to see if it was her fault. If her not being able to tell him the truth of her feelings was why sometimes she felt distant from him.

It was a beautiful day, and the apartment they occupied in Rome had the most stunning view. In the evenings, they sat out on the balcony, and looked at the city below.

She had a new appreciation for cities. She didn’t think they would ever feel like home, but now that she had been to a few, she could appreciate that they were all different. That they had different rhythms, different personalities.

She really did love Rome.

The history, the iconic sites, the food.

She loved listening to Rocco speak Italian. She tried to learn a little bit herself. It had turned into an extremely dirty lesson. He had taught her words that she didn’t think she could ever repeat in polite company. But that she used on him with impunity, whispering in his ear when they were at restaurants, or galleries. So why couldn’t she say the one thing she probably needed to say most?

Because of the illusion.

That realization stunned her. Astonished her. She stood there, on their balcony, looking out at the city, realizing that she was afraid.

That it was terribly, terribly worrying that someday, she would say the wrong thing to him. That she would uncover the fact that this happiness wasn’t real. Just like her childhood. Because you could be blissful, and not realize the people around you weren’t.

That filled her with panic. It made her feel like her little boat was adrift, not connected to the shore.

No. She was fine. And Rocco wasn’t her only anchor. She had Snowflake Falls. She had Wyoming and Holiday House, and friends. She just had to remember that. She had been lost in a haze, and it had been lovely. But she had perhaps let herself become too comfortable with this part of her life.

Maybe she needed to remember to anchor herself.

So she went and found him, lounging on the couch in the living room, and she decided to crawl on top of him, folding her hands and resting them palms down on his chest as she looked up at him. “Hi,” she said.

She could feel his body hardening. And she smiled.

“Hello,” he said, wrapping his arm around her waist.

“I wanted to talk to you,” she said.

“This does not feel like a prelude to talking,” he said.

“How very rude,” she said. “As if me pressing my body against you could only be an invitation for one thing, and not conversation?”

“You know how it is between us,” he said. He held her chin, and she looked at him. She wanted to freeze time. She wanted to make it so that this moment was the only moment. Nothing after it, nothing before. Nothing to worry about.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing I... Except something. I need to go home for a while.”

He frowned. “Why?”

“I just... I miss everybody. I miss home. I’d like to actually invite people to the wedding in person. Just maybe spend a little time getting back to myself...”

“You don’t need to leave,” he said.

“Rocco, I have other parts to my life. I still own a bed-and-breakfast. I need to go and check on things.”

And she needed to reclaim old parts of herself, but she wasn’t going to say that. Especially not when the expression he was treating her to was so stormy.

“You can come with me,” she said.

Though she did think that might be defeating the purpose.

“You don’t need to leave,” he said. “And in fact, now that we are on the subject, I no longer think it is a feasible idea for you to live away from me for half the year.”

She agreed, actually, but she wanted to know why he thought that.

“Why is that?”

She was so close to him, she could feel his heart beating beneath her hands, she could see his chest rise and fall with each breath. And she could see the tangle of emotion in his eyes. The confusion there. He didn’t know the answer. And she already knew that when Rocco didn’t know, he simply didn’t speak.

He didn’t share, he shut down. Shut parts of himself away.

“Rocco,” she said. “Please... Just tell me. Tell me what the problem is?”

“There is no problem,” he said. “It is only that I need you in my bed, so I cannot have you away.”

She stepped closer to that glass pane that existed between them, and she pressed against it, taking the chance that it might crack.

“Is that all I am? Am I simply sex to you?”

“Of course not,” he said.

“Then what else am I?”

“It isn’t that simple. I cannot simply... Name all of these things. But you know that you are an important part of my life.”

“You’re an important part of mine. I don’t want to be away from you half the year either, but we are going to have to work some things out. Because me keeping the bed-and-breakfast was part of our marriage arrangement.”

It was the wrong thing to say. He growled, and rolled her off him, safely onto the cushion of the couch, as he stood, pushing his fingers through his hair. “I see. And you remind me of our agreement now, is that it? Because that is why you’re here, isn’t it? You are here because you want me to let you keep your bed-and-breakfast.”

“I’m here because you have to get married to appease the terms of your mother’s will. Has that changed?”

He looked at her again, with that same conflicted look. Why wouldn’t he just say it. Why wouldn’t he tell her what he was feeling. It didn’t make any sense.

“I... I have no words for you, Noelle. You are being impossible.”

“I’m not being impossible. And here’s an idea, you can say some words, and if they are the wrong ones, you can try to find some right ones. It’s all right.”

“What’s the point?”

“I need to... I need to understand you. Because I can’t... I can’t live life thinking that everything is okay between us and then randomly finding out that it isn’t.”

“I see. So when I am not my mother, I am your mother.”

“That’s not fair,” she said.

“I think it is.”

Maybe this was what she had sensed, this fight. This unrest between them. Maybe this was the disquiet that she felt.

She hated it. And yet, she didn’t quite know what to do about it.

She wondered if it had to happen. If they had to have this discussion.

What about you? Are you ever going to tell him? You’re demanding information from him, and yet you’re keeping plenty to yourself.

But he was so important. She couldn’t mess it up.

He was integral. If she took a risk, then she might lose everything. She had accepted this change, and she couldn’t endure another one. She couldn’t lose him.

Because she had chosen him. And chosen this life with him.

And what if all it ever is to him is an arrangement. What if it’s only sex? And you fall deeper and deeper into love with him, and you have a child, and then that child leaves, and then he leaves you. What if he has affairs?

She had to know.

She had to know.

Her heart was thundering so hard it made her sick.

“I do not wish for you to be away from me,” he said. “I want to keep you.” His words were feral and fierce, and they tugged at her soul.

It felt so big. So impossibly big.

And she had just wanted to be a simple girl who lived on top of the mountain. She hadn’t asked to fall in love with a man that was bigger than any mountain she had ever seen.

She hadn’t asked to live an extraordinary life. She had wanted safe. She had wanted ordinary.

No, you didn’t. You never did. Or you would’ve never left. You would never have touched him. He was an invitation to risk the entire time. Because you’re not going to live like your mother.

No. She wasn’t. She had been worried that love would be an endless series of compromises, but she had a feeling it was only if you didn’t speak the truth to the one that you loved.

That meant she had to.

She had to.

“I love you, Rocco.”

He looked at her, something like granite in his dark gaze.

“You...?”

“I love you. I realized it a while ago. But I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t want to disrupt what we have. But I... I love you.”

“I don’t know how to give you that,” he said.

“I don’t think that’s true. I think you do. I think you can, I think...”

“You don’t know,” he said. “You don’t know... I don’t love you, Noelle. I fantasize about putting you in a room and locking you in there. Keeping you. Because I am like my mother, I suppose. In all the ways that matter.

“I need to control everything and everyone around me. I need... That’s why I can’t let you out of my sight. I can’t bear it. I brought you to Italy to make you happy. Because I want you to stay with me.”

“I’m happy with you,” she said slowly. “I promise you that I am. I am happy with you, Rocco, but I also need to have other things in my life. You cannot be everything to me. That is far too dangerous of a proposition for me.”

“You are the only thing that I have,” he said.

“One billion dollars, and you. A thousand properties, and you. And if I had to choose to keep one, it would be you. But that isn’t love. It’s like a sickness inside of me. And it grows, more and more by the day. I don’t want you to leave. I don’t want you to have a bed-and-breakfast. I want to keep you so happy that you forget that you ever had a life with anyone else.”

“Rocco...”

His eyes were wild, and she knew that what he was saying was true, but there was a fury in it. One that she couldn’t even see the bottom of. He was angry. With himself, possibly. With her.

With everything.

“We can talk about this...”

“No. It’s unbearable. You... You need to go home.” He forked his fingers through his hair. “I need you gone.”

“What?”

“I need you to go. Because this growing thing inside of me is... It’s the thing that I’m most afraid of. And I will trap you with me. In my room. There will be no boundaries, there will be no escape. I won’t do it to you.”

“You can’t make my choices for me.”

“The hell I can’t. Because I’m making them for me too. I need things to go back to the way they were. There is... There is something... I can’t put my finger on it, I can’t name it, but ever since you came into my life something inside of me has shifted, and I can’t figure out how to put it back.”

“It’s the same for me. It’s love. It changed me. It made me want different things.”

“If you wanted different things you would never have asked to leave.”

“No, I would have. Because it is still part of me. But so are you. Love doesn’t have to destroy everything that you are. It just makes you more.”

“Not me. It is destroying me.”

Love. He said it was destroying him. Which meant that he must feel it. But he wouldn’t admit it. He was absolutely terrified, and she could see it. This brave, mountain of a man.

Was afraid of her. Afraid of what she made him feel.

“You said you wanted to feel the happiness that I felt. The wonder that I felt, can’t you try to feel the love that I feel.”

“No,” he said. “Please... Do not ask me to.”

“Rocco... Don’t ask me to go.”

“The damage is done,” he said. “I have ruined us both. The papers have already run all the stories and...”

“So don’t send me away.”

“It is one or the other,” he said. “Either I want to hoard, or I want nothing. And I need to go back to wanting nothing. I need to go back to when it all felt simple. When I figured out how to need no one.”

“This isn’t about you wanting to lock me away. This is about you being afraid of needing me. Because your mother left you alone, and you couldn’t count on her and...”

“You are not my psychiatrist. Do not seek to tell me what is in my heart or in my mind. Just go.”

It was shattered. The glass. The illusions.

But perhaps it was for the best.

Because it would have ended. She had been right. All those years later, it would’ve ended. There would’ve been infidelity. There would’ve been messes and weeping and their children would’ve gone, and it would’ve been the two of them, not knowing how to be.

But even as she obeyed him, as she allowed herself to be driven to the private plane with her heart shattered into pieces, and her very breath painful, she foolishly wished that they’d had that life. All those years between now and heartbreak. Because at least they would’ve had that life.

And now, she had nothing. Nothing at all.

She knew the plane would have to stop for fuel on the East Coast, and she asked that they go through Florida.

When she ended up at her mother’s new home, furnished by Rocco, her palms felt slick and sweaty.

“I need to talk to you,” she said.

“What about?” her mom asked.

“Everything. I just want to know... Was everything in my childhood a lie? Did you not love dad? Did you not love me? What did you want instead? Were you so unhappy that you were just dying to get out?”

Her mom’s face softened. “Come in, Noelle.”

Noelle did. The house itself was an explosion of color. Rocco would hate it, and that kind of amused her.

“Do you want a margarita?”

“No,” Noelle said, feeling somewhat taken aback by the question.

“Well, I might have one. I’m surprised you’re finally asking these questions.”

“Well. I don’t think I wanted the answers to them before.”

“I think that’s kind of the moral of the story, honey. It’s really easy to not ask questions when you’re afraid of what the answers might be.”

Noelle frowned. “Do you mean you?”

Her mother got out margarita mix, tequila and ice, and poured it all into the blender. She pushed the button, and it twirled around while Noelle stood there, trying to find her equilibrium.

“That was my whole marriage to your father. Being afraid of asking questions. Afraid of what the answers would be. But no, I wasn’t unhappy the whole time. And of course I loved him. I love you.”

“Then why did you have an affair?”

“Because things are complicated sometimes. And I’m not perfect. Because instead of talking to your father when I felt like he was distant from me, I thought it was easier to pour my heart out to a man who didn’t actually know me. A man who wouldn’t bring my own frailties into the conversation. What a neat trick that is. If you bring up the problems that you’re having to your husband he might tell you things you don’t want to hear. I didn’t want that. No, I wanted easy. So I took easy. Except, in the end of course it wasn’t. Because I hurt your dad, and I didn’t actually want to do that. Whether you believe me or not. But it’s easy to get caught in your own made-up stories. Way too easy. Our life wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t nothing. It was everything to me. And within that there were failures. On both our parts. It was imperfect, and it was hard, but it was good. You were always the best part of it. So sunny and warm and you loved everything about Holiday House. I would never have asked you to leave it.”

“But you did. You wanted to sell it.”

She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “You were an adult, and I thought maybe it would even do you some good to have some other experiences.”

“Well. Now I have had them. And honestly, they just kind of hurt.”

“Being an adult hurts sometimes,” her mom said. “There was no way to spare you from that forever. I... Maybe it was selfish of me. I wanted to leave some of the harder parts of that life behind. And get something out of it. I’ve been living a different life, and it makes me feel new. I can finally escape the ways in which I disappointed your dad. The ways I disappointed myself. It isn’t that it was all bad. And in the last few years, it was really good. But it’s my mistakes that haunt me now that he’s gone.”

“Oh,” Noelle said.

She didn’t know what to do with all this information. It didn’t solve anything, not really. It didn’t magically fix what had happened between her and Rocco. But it definitely showed her childhood through a prism of fractured glass, rather than an illusory windowpane. It wasn’t half so simple as perfect or not perfect. A life her mother loved, or a life she hated. It was just human frailty. It was a difficult thing to accept. But her father was gone, and she could never really have that revelation with him. That whole realization that he was just a person like she was. Trying his best, or not on a given day.

She could still have that with her mother.

“I keep wanting things to be simple,” Noelle said. “Right or wrong, happy and unhappy. Perfect.”

“But it isn’t.”

“Rocco sent me away. Because I asked him the hard question. I told him the hard thing.”

Her mom closed the distance between them and put her hand on Noelle’s shoulder. “Noelle, you will always be glad you did that. Because eventually, secrets come to collect. And the unspoken things come out in ways that are far more painful than if you had just talked about them.”

“But I don’t have him anymore.”

“I’m sorry, honey. You’re welcome to live a single life with me here.”

“I think I’m going to go back home. Try to get back to who I was.”

“Don’t do that,” her mother said. “That’s actually what keeps you in regret. When something changes you, you have to follow that change all the way through to the end. There’s no point resisting it. That’s how I ended up here.” She gestured around her pink and aqua kitchen.

And Noelle realized that what her mom said was true. She couldn’t go back to how she was. To how things had been.

She was going to have to persist with what was new. Figure out what living with heartbreak looked like.

“I’m still going to go back,” she said. “But I’ll remember what you said.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t have some magic words for you.”

“I think you gave me better than that. You gave me the truth. And I’m thankful that you’re still here to give it to me.”