Raised by the Mafia

24. The First of Many (Mila)

My first lunch date with Luca turned into more dates, spaced out to fit the insane hours he worked back then, grinding his way to the partnership. It was in the best traditions of his ancient profession. However, never once did he show up so tired as to lose the thread of our conversation. Never once I felt that his attention wandered from me.

I've been raised among the street-smart men who acted on instinct until it failed them. I lived with the ruthless men who played the never-ending game of chess in their heads. At school, I rubbed shoulders with the nerds.

But Luca impressed me. I'd never met a man with intelligence that spread its network so wide and so deep in efforts to study every aspect of other human beings. He wanted to absorb their histories, their poetry, their motivations, their nature. And with women, his love of the hunt only sharpened. Luca never asked direct questions about something he wanted to know. He believed in the old adage that to understand a woman, one must look at her, rather than listen to her. Or maybe not, because he listened, just maybe not to the things you thought he was listening to?

He read, and he observed, and he memorized and cataloged in his own way.

Perhaps, if it wasn't for his family name, he could have risen as a politician.

When this powerhouse turned to me, his attention flattered me out of my mind. I was walking on clouds, while he tirelessly filed everything in the great warren of his mind to be pulled out at the right moment. Then he dazzled me with a treat or a word designed to please me and only me. I thought—this is a man in love.

The first time Luca kissed me was in a winery in the Napa Valley.

We sat on the terrace of the idyllic restaurant, with fruity red wine filling the glasses in front of us like magic gems. My gaze swept from the verdant rows of the vines on the hill slope to the empty plate. The plain white of it had a smear of sauce they'd dripped around the veal and blue stars of borage flowers that I had refused to eat. They were too pretty for eating. And, being used to plainer yet heartier fare, I was still hungry.

Luca leaned over the table to take my hands into his and said the three most beautiful words.

"The desert's coming."

Of course. I laughed, stroking his thumbs. "Lovely. I hope it's rich."

"Rich and creamy," he promised. "And they have an exquisite coffee roast this year."

Our hands were still linked, making me too dizzy to talk sense, but Luca would have been disappointed with silence. "Coffee is the gift from the gods."

"When it's this good, it could only mean one thing. Prometheus smuggled it from Elysium along with the fire." He smiled before inventing the rest of the tale for me. "With all the excitement over the eagle pecking out his liver, stolen grains were forgotten and lay hidden until now..."

"Then it must have sprouted in a beautiful and troubled place." Beautiful and troubled, like Luca himself.

"Fortunately, he gave humans fire to roast it over." He squeezed my fingers.

This weekend his power suit gave way to a loose burgundy shirt, opened at the collar, teasing me with a curl of dark hair. The stubble shadowed his cheeks, inciting my tactile curiosity... I turned away, ostensibly to study landscape. What I actually wanted was to run my tongue discreetly over my lips. Even the best lipstick struggled to keep them moist in his company.

"A penny for your thoughts, beautiful lady?"

"I can imagine you as an owner of this place." I squinted at the rolling hills to help my fantasies. "Yes, yes, I could just see you surrounded with the sunshine dapples, ruby wine and neon-green leaves."