“Yes, there is.”
He arched one eyebrow at her. “What reason?”
“I don’t want to meet your parents unless I look my best.”
He leaned over to kiss her and she let the caring that she felt for him surround her. She felt safe with Marco, which was silly, considering he had the power to ruin her life.
“You look wonderful. They aren’t shallow people.”
She suspected that. Marco couldn’t be the man he was without having been raised by two extraordinary people.
“I just…”
“What?”
“Do they know that I’m Cassia’s granddaughter?”
“Yes, they do. Why does that matter?”
Virginia pulled away from him. There was no way for him to really understand the bitterness her nonna had felt toward the Moretti family. It was impossible to think that the Morettis wouldn’t feel the same way toward her. That they wouldn’t resent the fact that her nonna had ruined any chance at complete happiness for them.
“What are you thinking?”
“Why?”
“Your eyes are suddenly very sad,” Marco said, carefully running his finger over her eyebrows.
“I’m thinking that if my grandmother hadn’t cursed Lorenzo, your family would be a lot happier and so would mine. I don’t want to see your parents knowing that.”
“My parents are the happiest couple I’ve ever met. They don’t feel the burden of the curse.”
“Are you sure?”
“I promise you. I think because my father followed his heart, he has no conflict. Not the way Nonno Lorenzo did.”
That made an odd sort of sense to her, and she had a moment of clarity about the curse. What if it isn’t really a curse against happiness, but a curse that dealt with not really knowing what you wanted? Cassia and Lorenzo had each wanted something different.
Cassia wanted Lorenzo and needed him to be happy with her love and living in their small village. Lorenzo needed Cassia to understand his love of cars and speed and his need to make a fortune before he could settle down with her.
With a bit of twenty-twenty hindsight, she realized that Lorenzo had loved cars and racing more than he ever could have loved Cassia.
She pulled away from Marco. Was she simply stepping into her grandmother’s shoes? Letting herself fall in love with a man who would never fall in love with her?
“Come and meet them. I think you will see that they aren’t at all unhappy with the way things have worked out.”
“I wonder why not?” she asked. Her grandmother had been utterly miserable every day of her life. She’d kept a picture of Lorenzo in the kitchen and every morning Cassia would look at him and curse him. Every day.
Her earliest memories were of a certain disdain…okay, to be honest, it was a hatred of the Morettis. Only as she got older and could ask questions did she realize that hatred wasn’t helping the Festa women.
“Because my father finds absolute joy in my mother. He likes cars, but as he said to me when I was eight, there is nothing in this world that can compete with my mother’s smile.”
“He really said that?”
“Yes, he did. Then he kissed her when she came out to bring us some lemonade. To an eight-year-old boy, it was a bit on the gross side.”
“What was gross about it?”
“Kissing,” he said with a big grin. Then pulled her close and kissed her.
He whispered something in Italian that she couldn’t translate, and although she didn’t want to look at it too closely, it felt to her that Marco was starting to care for her, too. She knew that she could never be more than second in his life, behind his love of racing and speed, but at that moment she wondered if that hadn’t been Cassia’s mistake with Lorenzo—not realizing that she could still love him even if he loved something else more than her.
“Ciao, Mamma e Papa,” Marco said as he entered the den. Virginia was still a bit reluctant to meet his parents, but she stood by his side.
His father was seated at the desk in front of the iMac computer and his mother was perched on the desk next to it. They were both staring at the screen.
“Ciao, figlio,” his mother said. “Your papa is trying to show me the Moretti Motors Web site…have you seen it?”
“Not yet. What is the problem, Papa?” Marco asked as he walked into the room. “Mamma e Papa, this is Virginia Festa. Virginia, my parents—Gio and Phila.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” Virginia said.
“We’re pleased to meet you, too, Virginia,” his mother replied. Phila gave Marco a hug and a kiss and ran her hand over his hair the way she always did. He hugged his mother close for a minute and then leaned over his father’s shoulder to see what the problem was. To say that Gio Moretti wasn’t too tech-savvy was a major understatement.
“Ciao, Virginia,” Gio said. “This is on the company intranet, and I think I entered the proper password.…”
“Let me see what you typed in,” Marco said, working over his father’s shoulder. His mother drew Virginia aside and they began to talk quietly.
He’d always been aware that his parents were special. They had that something that just always made him happy to be with them.
That didn’t mean he hadn’t gotten into his fair share of trouble as a teen, but he’d always been aware that his parents had a bedrock of love for him and his brothers.
Virginia’s cell phone rang and she excused herself to answer it. Even though she was on sabbatical from her work as a college professor of anthropology, she had students sometimes call to ask for her expert opinion. He was impressed by her knowledge and the rapport she had with her colleagues and students.
“She’s a nice girl, Marco. I didn’t expect that.”
“What did you expect, Mamma?”
“I don’t know. I just wanted to make sure you were okay and that this girl wasn’t taking advantage of you,” Phila said.
Gio got up from the computer and wrapped an arm around Phila’s shoulder. “Antonio told us about the spy and Dom’s suspicions, so we thought it was time to meet this girl.”
“So you came to Monte Carlo?”
“Well, that, and I promised your mother a week at sea on our yacht.”
“Marco, we are concerned about you and your brothers.” Phila said.
“Don’t be. We are big boys.”
“I know that. How is the curse-breaking going?”
“Mamma, are you asking about my love life?”
She blushed and smacked his arm. “No, I’m not. I really don’t want to see you bring a child into this world without loving the mother.”
He watched his father hug his mother. “Tell us more about Virginia. Why does she want to end the curse? Cassia certainly never wanted to.”
“How do you know that?”
“Nonno went to her when he was in his fifties and tried to rebuild the trust that had been broken. But she refused.”
Marco didn’t know that Lorenzo had done that. “I don’t know about Cassia, but Virginia said that the women in her family have been doomed to live solitary lives devoid of love. She thinks if she has my child, the Morettis and the Festas will be free.”
His mother walked over to him. “Do you like her?”
“Mamma, of course I do. She’s very smart and sexy.”
“Good. Will you two stay together after the baby?”
“I don’t think so, Mamma. Remember, she believes that we can’t fall in love, or the curse won’t be lifted.”
“I don’t like that,” Gio said. “We want a chance to know this grandchild of ours.”
“I will have joint custody of the child, so you two will be able to see the baby.”
“How will that work? It’s silly to have a child, knowing that you aren’t going to stay with the mother,” Phila said. “Have you thought this through, Marco?”
“Sì, Mamma. I have thought about it a lot. Having a child is the thing that will break the curse.”
“Are you sure that Virginia isn’t interested in the Moretti fortune?”
“No, Mrs. Moretti, I’m not interested in Marco’s money,” Virginia said as she came back into the room.
His parents turned to face her. “This just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me,” Phila said.
“Mrs. Moretti, if there were another way to break the curse, I’d do it. But this is the only thing there is.”
Phila put her hands on her hips as she looked at Virginia. “How did you figure this out? When Marco told us about this plan, I thought it was crazy.”
“Well…my grandmother and mother both lost their men before they could marry. Both of them were pregnant at the time their lovers died, and both of them never loved again.”
“I’m sorry to hear of such heartbreakingly lonely lives,” Gio said. “But how did you reach the conclusion that having Marco’s baby will fix this?”
“I studied the Strega lore that Cassia used to curse Lorenzo. There is more to love curses than just making it so the lover of the one spurned doesn’t fall in love again. It has a backlash on the lover placing the curse.”
Virginia explained her reasoning to his parents. Her body seemed to vibrate with passion as she stated her belief.
“Until the curse in broken, Festa descendants will have no happiness in love. And I’m tired of being alone. The only way to fix this is for me to have a Moretti baby.”
Nine
After Monte Carlo and spending time with all of Marco’s family, Virginia felt like nothing could ever be that intense. Dinner with his brothers had been nice, and she saw how close the three of them were. It was obvious to her that Dom wanted to make sure she wasn’t the corporate spy, but by the end of the evening she felt confident he knew that the only thing she was interested in was Marco and breaking the curse on their families.
Still, the Morettis didn’t really seem to like her. They weren’t rude or mean to her, it was just that…she guessed it was that they didn’t trust her not to hurt Marco.
Which she thought was silly. Marco wasn’t the kind of man who’d let any woman hurt him. He was careful to make sure that she was only allowed to participate in his life in two areas—in bed, where he made love to her, and in public, in front of the camera, where he made it seem as if she were his newest plaything—which she guessed she was.
The trip to Canada had been pleasant. She’d enjoyed being in Montreal, and Marco had taken two days out of his schedule to visit her home on Long Island. They’d made love in her bed in the small bedroom of the house she’d grown up in, before heading back to France, where they were now. It was the end of June and they were in Magny-Cours for the Grand Prix de France.
They were south of Paris and she liked the area. The race fans were sophisticated and some of them were cordial to her. Others thought she was distracting Marco and made no bones about wanting her to leave him to racing.
They were staying in a chateau owned by a friend of Marco, Tristan Sabina. The chateau was like something out of a fairy tale and the Loire Valley was charming.
Yet Virginia couldn’t relax. She’d been feeling a bit nauseous for the last few days, and this morning had thrown up after Marco left for the track to take his practice runs.
She suspected she might be pregnant. She’d asked Vincent to get a pregnancy test for her. She was both hopeful and frightened to learn the result.
She was falling more in love with Marco each day. It was the little things he did, things that she knew probably meant nothing to him. Little things such as finding a book of poems by Robert Frost, who she loved. Or sitting on the balcony late at night and talking about the constellations and the legends that surrounded them.
She’d ordered a book of Russian legends off the Internet for him, and it was supposed to be delivered today. She knew he’d enjoy it, and that gave her pleasure.
A part of her knew that what they had wasn’t real. But this quiet time together was nice.
There was a knock on the door of the suite. She walked across the marble floor, loving the life she was living. She had to stop for a minute and remind herself that she wasn’t dreaming. That she was really here in France.
She opened the door to find Vincent standing there. “Ciao, Vincent.”
“Ciao, Miss Virginia. You have a guest waiting downstairs.”
“Who is it?”
“Miss Elena.”
Keke’s fiancée. They hadn’t spoken since Spain, when Elena had warned her to watch herself around Marco.
“I’ll be right down to see her. Where is she?”
“I asked her to wait in the courtyard. I know you like to be outside.”
“Grazie, Vincent.”
Vincent left and Virginia took a quick minute to fix her hair and make sure she looked presentable. It was hard to feel confident in her looks when she was in the same room as the former Sports Illustrated model. But Virginia decided she wasn’t going to let Elena’s looks intimidate her.
She went downstairs and stepped out into the courtyard. It was a huge landscaped area complete with a hedge maze. She saw Elena sitting on a bench a few feet away. The other woman turned and smiled at her as she approached.
“Thank you for seeing me.”
“You’re welcome. Why are you here?”
“Two reasons.”
Virginia was a little leery of hearing them. “And they are?”
“Well, first I want to apologize. I was worried about Marco and I shouldn’t have followed you like I did when we were in Catalunya.”
“That was okay. I think it’s great that you care so deeply for Marco.”
Elena smiled at her. “I don’t have a lot of friends, because I’m a bit…well, Keke says I have a forceful personality, but others have called me a bitch, and I’m sure I came off that way to you.”
She smiled at the other woman, thinking that Elena was actually a very nice woman who cared deeply for the people she called friends.
“You didn’t. Please don’t worry anymore about what was said in Spain.”
“Good. The other reason I’m here is to see if you want to sit with me at the race this weekend.”
“Um…I’m not sure I’ll be attending.”
“I think it bothers Marco that you aren’t there. When Keke and I talked about it, I realized that you might not feel comfortable with the other wives and girlfriends because you don’t know anyone…so I wanted to invite you to sit with me.”
“I’d like that, but to be honest I can’t stand it when Marco is racing. I keep worrying that he’s going to lose control of the car and crash.”
“I worry about the same thing with Keke, but these men of ours, they know what they are doing. They’ve both been driving fast all their lives. I have a feeling the only place they feel alive is behind the wheel.”
Virginia kept up the small talk with Elena, but a part of her mind was on the fact that Elena had named her real fear. That Marco would never be able to love anything other than the speed he found on the racetrack.
Since he’d started living with Virginia, Marco had started a new ritual the night before race day. It involved dinner alone with her under the stars while they talked about whatever innocuous topic either of them came up with. Both of them avoided mention of their families and their pasts.
Tonight, when he came out to the courtyard where he was meeting Virginia, he saw that the table was set for four and not two. There was a wrapped package with his name on it and a note in Virginia’s handwriting that told him she was waiting for him inside the maze.
This villa had been his grandparents’. And though he barely remembered his Nonna Moretti, he had happy memories of the time that he’d spent here as a boy. His brothers and he would spend endless hours at the Grand Prix track, and his parents—who never seemed interested in racing—would actually attend the races here, even though Nonno had long since stopped racing.
“Virginia, mi’angela, where are you?” he asked. The maze in this garden wa
s familiar to him, and he knew there were many hidden benches and places to get lost. As a child, when his brothers were ganging up on him, he’d come out here and hide. He’d had his last conversation with his grandfather in this garden, on a bench in the center, near the fountain that was topped with a statue of Nonno Lorenzo’s prized Moretti Vallerio open-wheel race car.
“Come and find me.” Virginia’s voice came from farther up the path. It was soft, and he heard a hint of laughter in the tone.
“Aren’t we a little old for hide-and-seek?” he asked, but continued down the path toward the center of the maze.
“Are we?” she asked. Again her voice came from farther up the trail, but this time it sounded as if it came from the left.
Usually, he didn’t like to play games. His life wasn’t the kind where he often had time for these kinds of amusements, but with Virginia he was finding he was a different man.
No longer the driven Formula One driver who was focused on speed and winning.
“I had hoped to make love to my woman, but if you prefer playing childish games…”
She giggled. And he smiled. From what he’d come to know of Virginia, she’d had too little happiness in her life. And as silly as he thought this game was, he didn’t mind doing this for her.
Plus, he was intrigued. She’d gotten him a gift and he wanted to find her and learn what it was. He’d never received a gift from a lover when it wasn’t a holiday or his birthday.
What had she gotten him? And why?
“Marco…” she called softly, and he realized she’d stopped moving.
“Yes?”
“You’re supposed to say ‘Polo.’”
“Why?”
“It’s a hiding game that kids play in the pool.”
He was certain he had narrowed down her location. But wasn’t ready to end the game yet. “But it is also my name.”
“I know. I was wondering if you’d played that game as a child,” she said.
He smiled to himself, realizing that she’d forgotten the rules of her own game. Perhaps she’d even forgotten that she was hiding from him.
He stepped around a bougainvillea bush and onto the cobblestone path that led to a small alcove near the back of the walled garden and maze.
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