Page 89 of Ricardo

This time, I do not bristle.

Maybe because I am beginning to understand the difference between being ordered and being cared for.

He steps out into the storm, opens the umbrella, then comes around to my side. The driver opens my door, and Ricardo is already there, holding the umbrella low enough to shield me from the sideways rain.

I climb out carefully.

The air is colder here. Wet leaves, stone, rain, the faint clean smell of grass. My heel slips a little on the damp pavement, and Ricardo’s hand closes around my elbow.

I feel the warmth even through my blazer.

“Thank you,” I say, looking into his eyes a moment too long.

His eyes hold mine. “Careful.”

I pull in a breath and step under the shelter with him. The front door opens before we reach it, spilling warm light across the stone.

A woman in her late fifties stands inside, silver-streaked dark hair pulled back, cardigan buttoned neatly over a black dress. She looks at Ricardo first, then me, then the storm behind us.

“Signor Ricardo,” she says, concerned.

“Sei fradicio,” she says, immediately displeased. “Te l’avevo detto stamattina che il cielo non mi piaceva.”

Ricardo answers in Italian too. “Marisa, sto bene.”

“Stai sempre bene,” she says. “Poi mi lasci il pavimento pieno d’acqua.”

I catch enough to understand she is scolding him about the floor.

But his response is what shocks me. It's not cold. It’s said with affection, softness. One that I haven't seen him use with anyone else.

Then her gaze returns to me, and she switches to English at once. “Forgive me. Come inside, miss. You must be cold.”

“I’m fine,” I say automatically.

Marisa gives me the same exasperated look she just gave Ricardo.

Ricardo’s mouth moves faintly. “This is Julia O’Brien. Julia, this is Marisa.”

Marisa’s face warms instantly. “Welcome, Miss O’Brien. Come in before you catch your death.”

“Thank you.”

I step inside, and the first thing I notice is warmth.

Not temperature, though the house is warm. It is something else. The entry is broad but not showy, with stone floors, a long wooden table, a large mirror, and a bowl for keys that looks used rather than staged. A runner softens the hall. There are framed photographs on the far wall, some old, some newer, mostly family from what I can see at a glance. Men in suits. Children in summer clothes. Someone holding a baby. A younger Dante grinning with an arm around a boy on either side of him.

This is not just a showroom.

It is a home.

It's the home that Ricardo lives in. And the home that Dante lived in until recently.

Back in Naples, I never spent time with Dante in his home. I met his father and his family, but this? Spending time in such an intimate setting?

This is different.

I stand just inside the doorway, soaked despite the umbrella, and suddenly I feel as if I have stepped past some boundary I did not know was there until I crossed it.