Page 63 of My Dark Fairy Tale
I flipped that card over with my fingernail to read what I had written that day.
Gemma,
Even in the tomblike hush of the museum, I know you would have burst out laughing seeingDavidin real life. He is just a boy, curly haired and slim, with fabulous definition because Michelangelo is a genius, but still, just a boy. And yet people come from all over the world to see him. After seeing so much of the art this city has to offer, I think I will stick to my appreciation of its food, architecture, and living—and much more handsome—men.
Xoxo,
Jinx
The postcards were new. But I had started writing to Gemma the day after my parents told me she was dead, and I wasn’t sure I would ever stop. She had emailed me throughout her own travels through Europe, and I still had the message she’d sent the day before she died.
Just as she had been in real life, writing to her was a direct link to my sanity. She was still my cheerleader, urging me to experience life, to make mistakes and get messy because even when it hurt, you had a good story to tell.
And Gemma had been a masterful storyteller.
Which was what made her such a fucking good liar.
It hurt to know I was channeling that part of her along with her more admirable characteristics, but I was ruthlessly unable to give up on this dream.
Especially when it now included Raffaele Romano.
There was a quote by the Italian poet and translator Petrarch that I had written into every journal I had kept for the last few years: “The more we live, the more constellations we discover.”
The more I grew to know Florence and Raffa, the more questions I had about each and the farther down this path I felt compelled to travel.
I wasn’t sure anything could stop and make me turn back now.
A horn honking outside my window drew my attention away from the postcards. I checked my phone screen and winced because I’d had a short run after my last day of language class, and I needed a shower before I could get ready for the charity event at Pitti Palace with Raffa that evening.
Another honk, this one a long, obnoxious blare.
I stopped halfway to the bathroom, something drawing me toward one of the big windows so I could lean out and look at the street.
Laughter frothed over when I saw Raffa’s Bugatti out front, illegally parked in a way that took up almost the entire narrow street. He had his suited forearms crossed over the roof of the car as if he had been waiting for me for ages, and he checked his watch dramatically at the sight of me.
“About time,” he called up to me, amusement tamped down in his tone. “Vieni, Cenerentola!Your carriage awaits.”
I laughed again. “If I’m Cinderella, does that make you Prince Charming?”
“Mmm,” he pretended to muse, uncaring of the two cars piling up behind him and the small crowd of people watching our interaction. “In that case, perhaps it is better to say that you are Kore and I am Pluto.”
“I like that more,” I agreed, crossing my arms over the wrought iron railing of the Juliet balcony. “I don’t suppose you have any pomegranate we could have for dessert?”
His grin creased the tanned skin beside his eyes and mouth, those uncharacteristically sharp canines flashing in the sunlight, his hair as darkly bronze as that of a sculpture of the god of the underworld excavated from the past.
He was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, and I was currently living in the most beautiful place in the world, so that was saying a lot.
“I think something could be arranged,” he said. “Now, come. We do not have much time before we have to arrive.”
“Clearly, I am not ready,” I told him, gesturing to my damp tank top and running shorts.
Carmine had showed up with most of my things the day after I’d moved into the apartment, though I noticed not everything had made its way from Raffa’s house. It was hard not to hope that it was because he still expected me to spend a lot more time there.
“No, but you cannot prepare properly here. Just take your phone and come,cerbiatta.”
“Bossy,” I called as I turned into the room to grab my things.
“Iama god,” he retorted, making me snort.
