by Nicole Fox
I don’t miss how his eyes flash to me. He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to.
That one glance alone is enough to make my insides melt.
He offers me an elbow as I approach. On the other side, he clasps Evie’s little hand in his.
And together, the three of us step through the massive front door and out into the night.
The car is waiting in the driveway. Raffaele is holding our doors open for us. I help get Evie strapped in in the backseat, then I slip into the front passenger seat.
“Thank you, Raffaele,” I say politely.
He nods and shuts my door.
Lucio comes around the other side and gets behind the wheel.
“So where are we going?” I ask. “Is the Queen of England in town or something?”
Lucio laughs. God, how I love that sound. Dark and rich and seductive without even trying to be.
“Il Dolore e Il Piacere,” he says in that delicious accent of his. “I think you know it.”
“Huh?”
I frown and ask more questions, but Lucio just turns up the music with an infuriating wink.
Bastard.
I don’t have to wait long for answers.
When we pull up outside the restaurant, my stomach drops.
White tablecloths and red lanterns hang over the door, bathing everything in a warm, gentle light.
Il Dolore e Il Piacere.
Lucio’s restaurant.
As in, the same one I’d been caught dining and dashing from.
When I turn to face him, jaw hanging open and eyes wide, Lucio’s grin notches wider. And that laugh, that damn laugh…!
I shiver and turn away so he doesn’t see what it does to me.
“You jerk!” I cry out, half-laughing and half-mortified.
I don’t have much time to pile on him, though, because the valets are scurrying to open all our doors and help us out.
I thank them as we emerge. Stopping in front of the restaurant, I take in the sight.
It’s a little bit like returning to the scene of the crime.
Actually, it’s exactly that.
But in a way, it’s also like remembering a long-forgotten dream. So much has happened since I was here. It feels like that was a different Charlotte.
Lucio and Evie come up. “Ready?” he asks.
“After you,” I say with a melodramatic flourish.
He smiles and goes ahead. I stay a step behind intentionally, so I can observe how Evie takes his hand as they walk into the restaurant together.
The sight of his huge, tattooed hand holding hers makes my heart do a backflip.
Slowly, their bond is beginning to form. She’s getting more and more comfortable around Lucio.
And clearly, the feeling is mutual.
I’m surprised by how left out it makes me feel sometimes, though.
It’s a reminder that they’re family. And I’m… not.
I’m decidedly not.
So these little excursions we make together? They’re all just pretend. We may look like a perfect little family from the outside.
Inside, we’re a jumble of broken parts.
Me most of all.
“Charlotte?”
I blink, realizing that Lucio and Evie are waiting for me at the entrance of the restaurant.
“Sorry,” I say, snapping out of my reverie and moving forward.
“Where’s your head at?” Lucio asks as I walk into the restaurant beside him.
“Nowhere. Here.”
His eyebrows rise but he doesn’t push me.
A skinny maître d’ approaches us with a bright smile. I recognize him immediately.
It’s a little different than the last time we met.
“Welcome, Mr. Mazzeo,” he greets. “It’s a pleasure to have you here tonight.”
“Grazie, Giraldo,” Lucio returns.
“Would you like a private room, sir?” he continues. “Or—”
“A booth in that corner is fine,” Lucio says, walking towards one.
He takes Evie with him, and Giraldo turns to me. The smile on his face falters just a little, but he manages to pick it back up almost immediately.
“Remember me?” I ask mischievously.
“Uh… of course, madam.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I say. “Charlotte is fine.”
He seems a little shell-shocked as he follows me to the booth that Lucio and Evie are sitting at. They’ve already got the cutlery out and Evie’s arranging the forks and knives into a weird formation.
She’s commandeered one corner of the booth. Lucio lounges in the middle. So my only option is to sit right next to him.
My skin tingles as my leg brushes up against his when I sit down.
“Would you like menus?” Giraldo inquires.
“I’ll have the same thing I ordered last time,” I say. “You remember, don’t you, Giraldo?”
He flushes a little, looking between Lucio and me.
“Oh, I’m sorry, madam—”
“Ah, what did we just talk about, Giraldo?” I remind him playfully.
His eyes flicker to Lucio. “Charlotte?” he says dubiously.
“Charlotte,” I reaffirm with a pleasant nod. “That’s right. We’re old friends, aren’t we, Giraldo?”
“Of course, Ms., ah … Charlotte,” he says uncertainly. “But I don’t actually remember what you ordered the last time.”
“Really? Wow, I’m offended.”
His cheeks flush with color. I’m biting back a smile, but I figure I should just put him out of his misery at this point.
“You know what, that’s quite alright,” I say. “Lucio, you know the menu. I’ll eat whatever you order.”
Lucio gives me a small smirk, before turning to Giraldo.
“We’ll get the pappardelle pasta with lamb ragout. The pumpkin gnocchi with lamb shank. One frutti di mare and some cheese wheel pasta.”
“Very good, sir,” Giraldo says. “Any drinks?”
“Evie?” Lucio asks, turning to Evie. “What would you like?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she says, looking very intimidated all of a sudden.
“How about a nice orange juice?” I suggest.
Evie gives me a shy little nod.
“Two orange juices, Giraldo,” I tell him.
“And a glass of wine for me,” Lucio adds.
“Coming right up, sir.”
He hurries off. A little bubble of laughter escapes my lips.
“Did you enjoy that?” Lucio asks.
“Very much,” I reply. “You ordered too much.”
“I’m hungry.”
I shrug. “Suit yourself.”
There’s something off between us. An uncertainty born of all the things we’re not saying to one another.
Giraldo arrives a second later with our drinks and a basket filled with an assortment of different artisanal breads. The smell alone has me leaning in hungrily.
“Wow, that smells heavenly,” I sigh.
“Are you really friends with the waiter, Charlotte?” Evie asks.
“Well, a little bit,” I say. “In a way. I met him just before I met you.”
“Oh.”
“Charlotte?”
“Yeah?”
“How did you become my nanny?” Evie asks.
I glance at Lucio, blindsided by the question.
“Um, well, I… Lucio?” I say, looking to him. “Maybe you should field this one.”
He tears off a piece of focaccia and pops it into his mouth. “She asked you,” he says reasonably.
“Lucio!”
He chuckles, but he makes no attempt to help me. I throw him a dirty glare and look back at Evie.
“Lucio took one look at me and he just knew I would be a great nanny,” I say, flailing terribly.
He frowns. “Hmm, that’s not how I remember it.”
This son of a bitch…
“Then maybe you should tell the story,”
I snap.
He chuckles again. The musical sound forces me to take a deep breath. I relax a little as we talk, using Evie as the buffer between us.
When the food arrives, I relax a little more.
Mostly because, when you’re stuffing your face with food, there isn’t much room for conversation.
The heat of last night has followed us into today.
He took care of me even though he didn’t have to. He was there for me.
If he only knew what I’ve done.
What I’m still doing.
I stare down at my pasta and my appetite fluctuates dangerously.
Last night was the first time we came close to discussing what was going on between us. But it was clear that Lucio didn’t want to go there.
“How’s the food?” Lucio asks.
I glance up at him. “Great. The food’s delicious.”
“You seem distracted.”
I hesitate. “I am, a little bit.”
“Anything you want to talk about?”
I frown. His kindness is making it harder for me to swallow my guilt. It’s making it harder for me to keep the secret.
“You seem sad, Charlotte,” Evie says loudly.
“What? I’m not,” I reply indignantly.
“Yeah, you do. Are you and Papa fighting?”
I raise my eyebrows and stare at her for a moment. “What makes you say that?”
Evie glances between Lucio and me and then shakes her head, as though she’s scared to say.
“Hey,” I say, giving her shoulder a little shake. “It’s okay, kiddo. Just tell me.”
“It’s just, sometimes you look sad when you look at him.”
I feel the hair on my arms rise a little. This kid is too damn observant for her own good. And if she has noticed that, has Lucio noticed the same thing?
“Evie,” Lucio says, stepping in, “Charlotte and I are not fighting.”
“You like each other then?” she asks, almost pleadingly.
Lucio’s eyes meet mine for a second. I can’t hold the expression in them long enough to identify what I see.
But it scares me anyway.
“We’re friends,” he tells Evie.
Friends.
Why does that make me happy?
Why does that make my heart skip a beat?
I concentrate on Evie, and force a smile on my face.
“See?” I tell her. “You don’t have to worry about a thing.”
Evie scrutinizes my face for a moment. “Okay,” she says hesitantly. “Because I like when we’re all together.”
I feel tears spring to my eyes faster than I can catch them.
I remember myself fifteen years ago.
A sad, lonely little girl who just wanted a family. When you’re six, that’s all you really want.
Someone to love you.
Someone to make you feel safe and protected.
Someone who has your back.
I lean in and place my forehead against hers for a moment. “Me, too,” I say, softly enough that I hope Lucio can’t hear.
When I pull my head back, he’s still watching us with an unreadable storm in his eyes.
“Evie,” Lucio says, “are you done with your pasta?”
“Mhmm.”
“If you go over to the bar, Sampson will make you a root beer float,” he tells her. “He makes a really good one, too.”
“Okay!” Evie says excitedly. She slides down the booth and pops onto her feet.
As our little blonde buffer leaves the table, I feel my heart rate increase immediately.
“Here,” Lucio says, handing me a tissue.
Shit.
“Oh, thanks.”
“Why are you crying?” he asks.
“No reason, really,” I say, stumbling over my words. “I’m just being silly. It’s nothing.”
“Charlotte.”
I sigh. “She reminds me of myself a little bit,” I concede. “Sometimes. She craves a family… like I did.”
“She’s got me,” he says. “And you.”
“We’re not a family,” I point out. “Whatever this dynamic is, it’s temporary. I won’t be around forever.”
“Never say never,” Lucio says, with a shrug that seems to suggest something more.
I feel my guilt fester.
“She’s perceptive. Too perceptive,” I sigh.
I hesitate, then ask, “Lucio?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you really not know what happened to her mother?”
He meets my gaze. “I really don’t,” he replies. “The last I heard from her was months before our planned wedding.”
“You were engaged?” I gasp.
He nods. “We were. But…”
“But?” I press.
“She disappeared one day,” he tells me. “She left.”
“What if she was taken?”
“She wasn’t,” Lucio says. “She’d taken all her clothes and belongings with her.”
“It could have been staged.”
Lucio smiles. “No kidnapper would have been able to pack her bags that well. She’d left the shit she hated behind,” he tells me. “She left because she wanted to.”
“So you didn’t look for her?”
“Why look for someone who doesn’t want to be found?” he asks. “She left because she knew that getting married would never last. We were too different. Too rigid together.”
“You didn’t know she was pregnant?”
“Of course not. If I had, I wouldn’t have just let her walk away,” he says. “Maybe that’s why she didn’t just tell me. End things properly. She wanted a clean break. Didn’t want any part of my world.”
“Was it hard when she left?”
“I was angry at first,” he admits. “I was bitter and resentful for a bit. But I knew why she’d left. I understood… eventually.”
There’s a question I really want to ask, but I’m scared that asking it will cross a line.
He can tell, too. He’s every bit as perceptive as his daughter.
“What is it?” Lucio prods.
“Were you in love with her?” I ask delicately.
He pauses, his eyes search mine for a moment.
“What answer are you looking for?”
I feel a tingling in my chest. A strange, nervous worry that I can’t control or suppress.
“The truth.”
“I proposed to her,” he answers. “So at one point, I thought I loved her. But when she left—and once my anger faded—I was actually relieved.”
I absorb that for a moment. His answer is surprising enough. The fact that he’d chosen to share it with me feels significant.
“So no, I don’t think I loved her,” he tells me. “I think I only proposed because I wanted to prove once and for all that I wasn’t like my father.”
His eyes are distant, guarded. Only his fingers move. Tapping on the white tablecloth restlessly.
“I thought if I could be a decent husband, a decent father one day, then it would show the world that I’m nothing like him. That I could be a strong don and a good man at the same time. That I didn’t have to choose.”
“You don’t,” I say. “You can be both. You are both.”
He raises his eyebrows.
“I just… I see how you are with Evie now,” I gush. “You two have come a long way. And you didn’t exactly have a smooth transition into parenthood. But you found your sea legs, sooner than most would have.”
He smiles, but there are reservations in the expression.
“Sometimes, I think my father was right,” he admits. “There’s a cost to this kind of life. The price is family.”
“That’s not true,” I insist. “Look at Enzo. He’s an amazing father.”
“Enzo works for a don. He’s not one himself. That changes everything.”
“Only if you let it,” I say firmly. “You’re the one with the power here.”
He smiles. “You say it like i
t’s easy.”
“Sometimes, it’s about making a decision. That is easy.”
I’m vaguely aware that the words coming out of my mouth are painfully ironic. And possibly even disingenuous. But this conversation rings true.
I’m drawn to Lucio. And I’m starting to think that maybe he’s drawn to me, too.
We’ve both had painful pasts.
Cruel and neglectful parents.
The odds stacked against us.
But we’ve persevered.
We’ve survived.
That has to mean something… doesn’t it?
Our eye contact is broken when Evie comes running back to the table, the shadow of an ice cream mustache smeared across her upper lip.
“That was so yummy,” she exclaims, slipping back into the booth next to Lucio.
“Yeah, we can see that,” Lucio laughs indulgently.
He picks up a napkin and wipes her face clean. Evie sits there with bright eyes and lets him do it. It’s a small gesture, but it’s also a show of trust.
For both of them.
“Are you ready to head home?” Lucio asks.
“Do we have to?”
He chuckles. “It’s already past your bedtime,” he says. “We’ll come here again soon.”
“Promise?”
“Promise,” Lucio replies.
“Yay!” Evie sings, clapping her hands together. Having secured a promise, she slides back out of the booth again. “Okay, let’s go.”
Even though I’m confused as hell, racked with guilt and completely terrified of the future, I find myself smiling.
All I have is now.
But that’s a start. That’s enough.
Our eyes meet as we both exit the booth. There’s still a lot we’re leaving unsaid. But tonight was a step in the right direction.
I’m still not sure what direction that’ll be.
But I’m hopeful.
Hopeful that soon, I’ll be able to tell him the whole truth. And maybe when I do, he’ll understand.
I’m aware that it might be naïve of me to believe that.
But hope is all I have at this point.
We leave the restaurant and get into Lucio’s car.
Everyone is tired and stuffed from dinner, and the mood on the ride back is sleepy. That is, until I notice Lucio sit up suddenly, his eyes shifting from thoughtful to alert in a matter of seconds.
I glance back at Evie, but she’s whispering to Paulie in the back seat.
I notice that our speed is increasing slowly, too.
