Page 20 of My Dark Fairy Tale
“Something unpleasant in the news?” I asked as I moved forward into the doorframe. “How shocking.”
He looked up at me without surprise, as if he’d known I was there the entire time. The expression on his face was too bland to be called a smile, but there was amusement there.
“This is universal, I think,” he agreed, gesturing for me to sit across from him. “Help yourself to fruit and bread, but do not eat too much. We have things to do today.”
“Yeah, I was going to have a bite to eat and then go to the bank. I researched, and there is one in this neighborhood.” It was only a fifteen-minute walk, which I could manage easily even with a stiff hip. “I just have to call my parents to ask them to transfer me some money. Then I guess I’ll go to the police and file a report. It seems like I’d have to do that in order to get an appointment at the consulate for a new passport.”
Raffa crossed one ankle over the opposite knee, and I noticed he was wearing leather loafers without socks. The sight of his olive-brownankles shouldn’t have been shocking or sexy, yet it made my pulse pound. I wanted to reach out and touch the knob of bone and the plum-thin skin to see if he’d shiver.
“No.”
I blinked away the fantasy, heat rushing to my cheeks as I stared up into his implacable gaze. “Sorry, what?”
“No,” he repeated clearly. “I have a better idea. You will finish your breakfast, and then we will go get you some clothes. As tempting as you are in my shirt, I do not think it is appropriate attire for a police station or the consulate.”
I winced because somehow I’d forgotten that little detail.
“Maybe I can borrow a belt?” I suggested.
Raffa’s full mouth twitched. “That will do until we get to the stores, maybe. Do not worry about money, Guinevere. You may have noticed I am not exactly worried about it myself.”
I sat back in the wrought iron chair with a slice of melon in my hand and sighed. “I just feel like I’ve taken a lot from you.”
“Is it taken if I have given it freely?” he asked imperiously.
He should have been condescending, speaking like that,lookinglike that, but there was an unmissable warmth I couldn’t pinpoint to any one mannerism. It was obvious he liked helping me. That maybe he even liked me.
“I’ll pay you back,” I insisted. “My father raised me to believe it’s vital not to be in debt to anyone.”
“Smart man.”
“He is,” I agreed. “And I still need to call him ... I sent a text saying I was under the weather, and they’ve been checking in on me. I didn’t want to worry them unnecessarily.”
They would have been on the first flight out if I’d told them what had happened to me, especially if I’d been forced to admit I was in Italy, and not France as I’d told them. It would have meant the end of my trip before it even had a chance to begin, and after everything—my illness,the years of anticipation, the loss of Gemma—I found it was the final straw I couldn’t allow myself to lose.
“You are their child. It is their right to worry.”
“Hmm, well I guess you have a point there.” Only, I’d never thought of it quite like that. I’d always been vaguely annoyed by, though always accepting of, my parents’ concerns and hovering.
They’d almost lost me twice to brutal kidney infections when I was a child and then had to watch as I underwent major surgery for a kidney transplant at sixteen. Then we’d lost Gemma, and whatever gains they’d made in giving me some autonomy had diminished like smoke in the wind.
“I’ll call them,” I told him, feeling properly chastised.
He shrugged a shoulder. “Do what you want. I was merely telling the truth from my experience. I do not have children, but you cannot grow up with an Italian mother without hearing how difficult it is to raise and love your children, then let them go off into the world on their own. She is always happier when we are all under one roof, and all of us are grown.”
I plucked a clementine from the fruit bowl and picked at the peel anxiously. “They’re going to flip out.”
His expressive, slashing brows rose. “Well, their daughter was almost raped and then hit by a car. Can you blame them?”
“No. But they’ll want me to go home immediately.”
Another flippant shrug as if he didn’t see the problem.
“So? You are a grown woman, are you not?”
“Of course!”
“Then, you can do as you wish.” He sighed at my flat look and leaned closer so that the sunlight caught both of his eyes and turned them to burnished gold. “There is a difference between respect and blind obedience,capisci? You can respect them by telling them the truth about what has happened to you, but you do not owe them submission to their desires. I do not know why you are in Italy, but does one not usually spend time abroad to discover oneself?” When I noddedsomewhat woodenly, a little cowed by his wisdom, he leaned back in his chair and opened his palms. “Then, do what you want and only what you want. This time and this place are for you. It is rare we get so much freedom. Do not squander it before your adventure has even begun.”
