Perhaps it’s the pressure that’s causing my muse to stall.
“Is this your father’s?” Grace asks, appearing beside me.
I glance up at the painting hanging above a statue of an eagle that I made. “It is an original Sandro Romano.”
“It’s beautiful,” she says softly.
And it is. There is no denying that my father has the gift of interpreting beauty in the world. His paintings are often of flowers or the ocean, hyper realistic with pastel colors. This one is of a cove on the island of Elba. I’ve heard people say his work makes them feel like a baby, I guess because there’s something so pure, peaceful, and soothing about looking at them. His art makes people feel cradled and protected.
However, that’s not what I see when I look at them. I look at his talent and what he’s been able to do, and I realize that I will never be enough no matter how much art I create. He likes to remind me that I wouldn’t be where I am if it wasn’t for him. He doesn’t mean harm by it—he’s just a boastful man, and he aims to keep me humble.
I just think it works a little too well.
Even now, Grace is staring at the painting with awe, and I have this bitter pinch inside me, almost like jealousy. It doesn’t matter that I’ve caught her looking at my work with that same expression. I feel replaceable. Like my art is forgotten.
Or maybe I just want her to look at me that way.
Nine
Grace
Though I’d only been at Villa Rosa for a week, not having Vanni around for the last two days has been weird. It’s not just that I miss being around the kid, because he definitely keeps me on my toes, especially with his impromptu Italian lessons, it’s that being alone in the house with Claudio has made things … well, complicated.
There’s much irony in the situation. The house should feel bigger, emptier, but instead it feels smaller and more intimate, like there is no escape from each other. Every corner I turn, I find I’m running into him, and every time he sees me, he smiles as if I’m a Christmas present under a tree. He makes me feel wanted, which, considering my upbringing, is hard to come to terms with, and when I’m not finding moments to write, he’s by my side, asking me questions, becoming a constant in my days here.
Which brings me to the other irony, that he sent Vanni away so he could work with less distractions, but I’m the one who is more distracted now.
How can I not be?
I know my experience with men is quite limited compared to others. I am by no means a virgin, but I didn’t have my first boyfriend—or have sex—until I was in university, and since then there’s only been two relatively long-term relationships, both of which just sort of fizzled out. I know with my writer brain I can be spacey and forgetful, and I think the guys just expected more from me. Maybe it’s not in me to give, maybe it’s the way I’m built. Or maybe they weren’t the right guys.
Whatever I felt for them, sometimes I think it must have been love (but it’s over now, ha), but I never had that jolt. I never looked at them and had my heart skip, never had the kaleidoscope of butterflies unleashed in my belly.
With Claudio, I do.
I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t. I know that encouraging any feelings toward a man that is completely off-limits is a bad idea and I’ve done what I can to ignore it, but it’s getting to the point where it’s a battle. A battle against my body. I don’t want to lust over Jana’s ex-husband—but I do. I don’t want to feel this bubbly sensation, like my body is flowing with sweet champagne.
But I do.
And so, being around Claudio has gone from being this easy, comfortable thing, to being something heavy and weighted, strung tight as a piano wire.
Oh, who am I kidding? It was never easy around him to begin with. While his personality is charming and the way he moves through the world is so confident and effortless, from the beginning I’ve felt overwhelmed by this man. I feel like a shy young girl, blushing at the drop of a hat, looking up at him in quiet awe.
He intimidates me, the way he stares into my eyes, so bold, so unapologetic, so completely at ease with himself. It’s like he wants me in a way I can’t figure out. Sexually, yes. Maybe. I know how his gaze feels when his eyes linger too long on my chest, on my legs, on my lips. And maybe I’m reading too much into it, but it’s like he wants more from me.
Like you’re the art he needs to unearth.
I swallow that feeling down and focus my attention back on my work. Today I’m outside in the covered veranda, a tall glass of mineral water beside me garnished with a slice of lemon from a tree on the property, effervescent fizz emanating into the air. Dinner will be ready soon, though I’ve told Claudio he shouldn’t have to cook for just the two of us, that I’ll easily be satisfied with some wine and bread.
Last night Emilio came over, which was nice and a bit of a reprieve from the strange tension that’s brewing between me and Claudio. But tonight, Claudio’s insisted on cooking again.
At least my book is coming along—when I’m not being distracted. I’ve only written two chapters but those two chapters are symbols of the biggest hump I had to get over.
Of course, tonight I’ve stalled again, but it’s on purpose. I think, when it comes down to it, I’m a method writer, and my heroine is facing her mother’s death. I know what to pull from, I know what to write. I know exactly what she’s going through. Except there’s a block inside me, a wall that refuses to let the bad feelings out. I need to access them, and I know I can if I push, but I’m afraid.
“Am I interrupting?”
Claudio’s voice pulls me from the page and I instinctively hit the save icon.
I twist in my seat to look at him.
This evening he’s dressed in cream-colored pants and a black dress shirt, untucked, his collar open, showing a slice of bronze skin. His chiseled face is taken over by scruffy beard, the dimple in his chin barely visible. He calls it his “frustrated artist” beard, so I guess I won’t see him clean-shaven until he’s broken through.
He looks good with the beard. More rugged, slightly wild. Sometimes I imagine what his face would feel like on my skin, the roughness tickling between my legs.
Stop that.
“I was just finishing up,” I tell him, quickly snapping my laptop shut. “Is it time for dinner already?”
He nods, jamming his hands in his pants pockets and rocking back on his heels, watching as I get up and grab my laptop, cradling it under my arm.
“Stop,” he says quietly.
I halt, halfway between him and the veranda. “What?”
He holds out his palms as if he’s framing me. “I wish I could paint this.”
I look behind me. The veranda’s ochre pillars seem to glow in the evening sun, pink oleander framing the corners.
“It is very pretty,” I comment as I look back to him.
“You are very pretty,” he says, his voice husky and low, and the compliment makes me feel as if I’ve become unanchored from the ground. “I wish I could paint you. Here. Just as you are.”
Damn.
I smile awkwardly. “I bet you could.”
Paint me like one of your French girls…