Page 58 of Ciao, Amore

That night,around sunset, Dani strode into the villa. Nico was in the theater room, where she’d thought he’d be, with little Eimy’s soft dark head curled up asleep on his shoulder. Isa was on the far end of the couch, also sleeping. Seeing them like that, remembering him saying that’s what he wanted, with her, made her ache inside.

“Hey. How was Milan? Why didn’t you let me come get you from the airport?” he asked in a hushed voice.

“No need. I just came back to get my things. I’m going into the city to get a room for the night, and I’ll be flying back to Milan in the morning.”

Startled, Nico stared at her. He stood up to follow her after she turned to leave and headed for the stairs.

“But you’re not supposed to start living in Milan until next week. What’s going on?”

“I’ll stay at a hostel until I can move in with my roommates and start work. I’ll call Nonno in the morning to thank him for the hospitality.”

“Dani, stop. Wait a minute. What happened in Milan? Did Brizio do something to you?” Nico demanded, following her to the room, eyebrows drawing together. Eimy stirred at the disruption, and Nico patted her back soothingly. “Dani, what is going on?”

“They know, Nico.”

“Who knows what?” he asked in confusion.

Dani hauled her bag onto the bench at the foot of the bed and flung it open. “Your family. Everybody. They’ve known about our arrangement the entire time we’ve been here. It was—” She didn’t know why she was laughing when this shit wasn’t funny. “It was Tino all along.”

19

REBELS, PIRATES, AND GREEKS

NICO

Ever since childhood,when the family was visiting the villa, Nonni would whip out the threat of the infamous dungeon in the basement if Nico or his siblings were naughty. This warning extended to Steffi and Brizio when they joined the family at ages ten and nine, respectively. Such threats were made regularly, considering they were a bunch of bad-assed boys and two smart-mouthed girls.

“Rebels, pirates, and Greeks were imprisoned down there in the darkness,” Nonni would whisper theatrically with huge eyes and hooked, claw-like fingers. “And their ghosts are still hungry, just waiting to feast on misbehaving children like you.”

If Nico could have gotten away with locking Tino up in one of its chambers and torturing him with some medieval device, he gladly would have. As it was, he had to settle for hauling Tino’s ass into his room while Daniela was down at the beach, in one of the public areas far away from their section.

With some fast talking, he’d managed to convince her to stay the night, saying it was too late to go into Naples at that hour to go looking for an available room during the feast—a room she’d most likely not find. She’d stayed far on her side of the bed, hardly allowing him to touch her.

Now he towered over his baby brother, who sat petrified in the high-backed chair with his fingers digging into the armrests like his palms were already nailed to it.

“Alright. Start slow like I’m fuckin’ stupid. Tell me why—after yousworeto me you wouldn’t say anything—you would tell everyone about how me and Dani met and our arrangement?”

“See, what had happened was, Vanessa was on my ass about Antoinette again.”

Antoinette was Tino’s high school sweetheart. When she returned from college, she reached out, and they’d started communicating. Tino swore nothing was going on, but his wife clearly believed otherwise.

“That’s not new information.” Nico folded his arms.

“When we got here, Antoinette texted me to ask if I made it okay. She’s a very caring person.”

“Tino, I’ve already told you talking to her looks bad.”

“I’m not cheating. Why doesn’t anyone believe me?” Tino cried.

“For someone who swears he’s innocent, you sure go out of your way to make yourself look guilty. Look, I don’t really give a shit about that right now. Stay focused.”

“Okay. So, Vanessa got suspicious about who was texting me. That night, when you got here and I came outside to see you, I fucked up and left my phone in the room, and Vanessa got into it. She found the last couple of messages I forgot to delete from when I told Dani where to meet me—you.”

Nico shut his eyes. “Christ.”

“And she thought Dani was really here forme,and you were posing as her cover so we could, I don’t know, fuck around behind her back. In the same house. I know I pull some shit, but that would be crazy. Can you imagine?” Tino cried with wide eyes, laughing. “I had to show her the app and admit that it was for you, that I set you up because you needed the date, not me. And then she told Tori, and Tori told Ma, and the next thing I knew…everybody knew. But I swear, bro, I swear, I only told Vanessa.”

“Only told Vanessa? Why didn’t you just take out a fucking ad on the cover of the Daily News?” Nico shouted with a sardonic laugh.

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