“With you it was exactly the same. I didn’t see it at first, fooled myself into thinking my soul hadn’t discovered you as its own, but when we made love, when I held you in my arms, in my bed, skin against skin, I knew. I was changed. I knew it in my head, I felt it in my heart, and I knew it by our touch . . . it was . . . it was . . . destined.”
“Achille,” I cried. I wanted to move to him, to touch him like he had just described. But he shook his head slightly, begging me not to approach.
“That night, I knew that would be all we ever had. Even before you spoke those words and they met my ears, I knew.” He dropped his eyes, and the defeat in his beautiful body broke my heart. “We are made of the same soul but not of the same life. I knew that we were one of the lost causes my father told me about. Not the all-consuming, not those who find their forever peace in the other, but those whose circumstances don’t align. The unfortunates that in an alternate universe would be the happiest of hearts but are forever broken and lost in this.” He finally met my eyes. “So I can’t hear this from your mouth, Caresa . . . I can’t do this anymore . . . it hurts . . .” He laid his hand over his heart. “It hurts so much that I can’t bear it.”
He pointed at my engagement ring. “You are not meant for me after all. You are marrying the prince. I have let myself pretend that it isn’t happening, but soon, you will marry the prince. You will become his under God’s eyes. Never mine.”
“No.” I ripped the ring from my hand. Achille watched me with wide eyes as I held it up in front of him. “He gave me this tonight.” I gestured to my dress. “He gave me this to impress his guests. It is an empty promise, not given through love. I don’t care for this ring, or this damn marriage.” I threw the ring to the ground.
Achille was rooted to the spot. But in the light of the moon I could see his face reddening, his hands fisting at his sides. He raised one fist and pressed it against his forehead in frustration.
“Achille—”
“I can’t give you what he can,” he said, his voice deep and hard. His hand dropped back to his side. “I can’t give you jewels and banquets and festivals in a mansion.” He slapped his hand on his naked chest. “I could give you me, and my vines, but that is all. I have little money. I know nothing of the world you have traveled. I know Umbria and Italy, and I know my small house and horses.” His face screwed up in pain, and he gasped, “I can’t even read or write. I am not what you should have.”
“You’re enough,” I whispered, my softly spoken words seemingly daggers to his heart. Because they didn’t fall on accepting ears; they were fuel to an already sparking flame.
Achille reached for a vine beside him and ripped it from its branch. He marched toward me and took my left hand. He wrapped the brown vine around my ring finger three times and knotted it.
He knotted it.
The hands that he so struggled to use for smaller movements had tied a ring to my finger. “There,” he said harshly. “That is what I could offer. A ring of vines and earth, not diamonds and gold. Is that enough for you, Duchessa? Is this simple life enough?”
I wanted to shout back. I wanted to hit his chest and release my frustration at his cutting tone. But I looked into his eyes and saw nothing but embarrassment and agony, and I knew this was just like when I discovered the secret of his reading. This anger was his shield, his way of coping with a truth that hurt him deeply, irreparably . . . it was how he planned to push me away.
Achille watched me, nose flaring, waiting for me to go, to leave him alone. But instead I reached out and ripped off another tendril of vine. I lifted his rough left hand in my own, and wrapped the brown thread around his finger.
His finger that was shaking.
Shaking so hard.
Achille held his breath as I tied the knot, securing the vine in place. Even when I was done, I didn’t let go of his hand. I stroked my fingers over his knuckles, then guided his hand up to my lips and grazed the delicate vine ring with my kiss.
An exhale escaped his lips at my touch, its warmth ghosting over my face. Without lifting my eyes from his work-roughened hands, I said, “If my ring is made of a simple vine born from this earth, then so is yours.” A strained sound caught in Achille’s throat. I lifted my eyes, making sure I held his attention. “I love you, Achille Marchesi, winemaker of the Bella Collina merlot. I found you, my missing part, here amongst the vines, and nothing you say will ever change that fact.”
“Caresa.” Achille’s eyelids drifted shut as the fight left his tired body. I edged closer, so close that my lips hovered over his chest. Needing to taste him, to have Achille eradicate the feel of Zeno’s lips, I brushed a kiss over his chest . . . exactly where his heart lay.
It beat in perfect sync with my own.
Achille hissed at my touch, and as if a dam broke inside him, his hands threaded into my hair and tilted back my head. His mouth came crashing down on my own, a loud groan sailing from his throat. The instant his taste hit my tongue, my blood spiked with fever, my hands gliding to Achille’s back to rake at his bare skin.
He groaned as I strived to get him as close as I possibly could. We were frantic and untamed as we drank each other down, starving for the other’s touch. I broke from Achille’s mouth, searching for breath, and his mouth continued south, laying kisses over my jaw and my neck.
“I need you,” I whispered. “I need you now. I need you close.”
Achille pulled back and searched my eyes. His were almost black, his blown pupil eradicating the sweet blue. The next minute I was in his arms as he dropped to his knees, placing me gently on the flat, cold ground. But I didn’t care. I would have let him take me anywhere, just to feel him inside of me again. Just to feel his chest against my breasts and his body on mine.
Achille crawled over me, his warm skin seeping through the material of my dress. The crystals on my expensive gown sparkled in the moonlight—jewels on a bed of earth.
Achille stilled as he stared down at me. I shifted, feeling nervous at the way he studied me. As if I was everything in his world.
I was in his head, his heart and his hands.
Achille lifted his hand and stroked it down my cheek. He pressed his forehead to mine. “Did you know that you were my first? That night, when we made love, did you know it was you I had been waiting for?”
I didn’t think it was possible for me to want or need Achille more than I had. I didn’t think it was possible for my heart to expand any further. For my soul to mold any closer to his.
But I was wrong. I was so wrong. Because as his cheeks flushed pink when he drew back his head, everything magnified on an impossible scale. Like a dream, my love for him was endless and boundless. And like the simple vine ring wrapped around my finger, I knew it was eternal.
“I knew,” I said as I ran my thumb over his kiss-swollen lips. “I knew, and I was honored. I . . . I still can’t believe it was me you chose. It is me who was given a gift. Your heart.”
Achille turned his face into my hand, his cheek nuzzling the palm. He bent down and brushed his lips past mine. “Mi amore. Mi amore per sempre.”
My love. My love forever.
I crushed my lips to Achille’s. I shivered as he pushed up the skirt of my dress. He shifted until he was completely above me. And then he was filling me. He was taking me, our souls and hearts bared, and no secrets left inside. My back arched as he filled me completely. His arms shook at the side of my head as his eyes closed.
And then he moved. He rocked into me, slowly, purely, on the soil he tended, under the naked moon and twinkling stars. The rich smell of the surrounding vines merged with the fresh smell of his skin and the peach scent from my hair.
My hands explored his bare back, my fingers running through his hair as his rhythm increased and his breathing grew labored. His eyes opened, and they stared down at me with such intense admiration that tears built in my eyes.
“I love you,” I said, needing him to hear those words again.
Achille groaned and took me deeper, making me his own.
“Mi amore,” he murmured over and over as he increased his speed, my hands clutching onto his hair as a familiar pressure built at the bottom of my spine. Shivers exploded through my body, and Achille stilled.