The Itinerary

Appearing to Move On

Trailing after Marco and the irritable blonde woman, Nico felt as though he'd been plunged into an waking dream saturated in disjointed details. The villa's rustic aesthetic with its cracked stucco walls and terracotta roof tiles. The subtle fragrance of ripening grapevines wafting through the open windows. And that precocious, green-eyed cherub cavorting ahead with all the unbridled glee and mischievous spirit Nico himself had possessed as a young Romany wanderer.

Luca... A name etched across Nico's soul like a searing brand from the moment it rolled off the child's tongue with such innocent, uncomplicated joy. As if sensing the upheaval of emotion roiling through Nico in a vortex of bewilderment, protectiveness, and dawning fury.

This boy - this tiny, vivacious being - carried Nico's likeness so blatantly it was impossible to deny their biological truth. From the cocoa-colored curls and feline bone structure to the decisive angle of his jaw and luminous Pruitt eyes, Luca bore all the hallmarks of being flesh-carved from Nico's own lineage.

Which begged the question... How? A stabbing amalgam of betrayal and wonder lanced his vitals as Nico realized the only plausible answer. That the soulfully tempestuous American woman he'd loved with such cataclysmic fervor in Amsterdam carried away a significant more memento from their impassioned encounter than either had foreseen.

His son. The thought shuddered through Nico with a series of oscillating revelations and reverberations.

"If you'll follow me, these double doors lead out to the courtyard grounds," Marco announced, sweeping through a broad portal.

Momentarily jostled from his cyclone of reflections, Nico registered that they'd entered some sort of lounge or parlor area. Potted palms shaded a plush grouping of couches arranged before a hearth fashioned from intricate stonework.

"Perhaps we could take refreshments outside?" Marco suggested with a gracious smile. "The villa's gardens are quite verdant and peaceful this time of day."

Beside Nico, the statuesque blonde issued a delicate sniff. "I suppose if this hovel is the height of luxury you've arranged."

Marco's polished expression faltered infinitesimally, though he recovered with admirable aplomb. "The villa itself is nearly two centuries old and reflects the typical hacienda architecture of the region. However, I assure you the accommodations epitomize rustic refinement and every modern amenity."

With that, the man strode away to attend to the requested refreshments, leaving Nico and the blonde woman alone in the small parlor. She immediately slanted him an arch look from beneath her expensively-coiffed swath of platinum tresses.

"Well? Aren't you going to say anything about this...." A fresh moue of distaste contorted her surgically-enhanced lips. "Unexpected development?"

Nico felt the tendons in his jaw lock with carefully restrained ire. Gretchen von Houssen had proven herself a reliable travel companion over the past several months - sophisticated, well-connected, and undeniably beautiful in that austere, towering way of women born to rarefied privilege. She cut a sharp contrast against the faded opulence of this Tuscan estate.

But in that moment, her patrician upbringing grated against Nico with all the finesse of ill-bred gartered hose. Though he loathed acknowledging it, thoughts of Haley and Luca consumed his faculties to the exclusion of little else.

"I'm going to step outside," he clipped in a tone that brokered no argument. Turning on his heel, Nico exited through the French doors to the villa's terraced courtyard beyond.

Golden sunshine dappled across the lush vegetation thriving in this secluded grotto. Wandering a filigreed wrought-iron footpath, Nico inhaled the earthy perfumes of blossoming lavender and emerald grapevines heavy with burgeoning fruit. The courtyard's periphery of stone walls and the villa's original hacienda structure lent the whole enclave a sense of quaint isolation from the outside world.

A sound like delighted squeals filtered through the greenery, redirecting Nico's wayward footsteps through a trellis archway into a terraced kitchen garden bursting with rows of herbs and vegetable patches in freshly-turned loam.

At the far corner stood Haley, her petite frame drowned in an oversized knit sweater that slipped casually off one tanned shoulder. With tousled dark tresses tucked behind her ear and bare feet sinking into the rich earth, she looked like some mystical woodland naiad manifested from the very foliage surrounding them.

Movement in her arms drew Nico's focus to Luca wriggling happily against her as she doted on the cherubic boy with tender, smiling affection. The scene unleashed a molten cadre of emotions through Nico - gut-punching protectiveness...white-hot fury...the undeniable pang of desire that this woman could still unravel him so exquisitely even after all this time.

Then Marco emerged from nowhere, laughing as he scooped Luca into his own embrace and swung the little boy aloft with paternal ease. Suddenly the pastoral tableau took on an entirely new resonance that sucker-punched Nico with savage impact.

A family. Haley, the woman who enraptured and shattered him in equal measures, had not only moved on but created a new life - a household with a devoted partner and son she seemed to adore beyond measure.

The sight lacerated Nico in a way he'd never envisioned feeling possible. His existence had always been rootless by design - an endless roving from one escapade to the next before wanderlust seized him anew. Emotional or marital entanglements bred restrictions he dared never shackle himself with. Hell, even conceiving a child had seemed an impossibility considering his near-permanent bachelor status.

Yet here was tangible evidence that Haley had embraced the extremely attachments he'd always unconsciously craved yet never dared to name. And the vicious sting of being left outside that intimate sphere lanced through Nico with a devastation more ruinous than any imagined.

She raised Luca toward the sun, spinning him about as his tinkling peals of laughter mingled with Marco's rich baritone and Haley's wind-chime soprano in a tapestry of joyful harmony.

Just then, Haley registered Nico's presence and the radiant smile froze across her features. Her crystalline gaze collided with his in shared shock and no small amount of wary dismay. In that crystalline heartbeat suspended between them, Nico sensed Haley's instinctive retreat back into her labyrinth of protective barriers where no one could reach her innermost heart.

Well, he'd never been one to resign himself to the path of least resistance.

Squaring his shoulders, Nico strode forward until the dappled sunshine illuminated his features through the shadowy glade. Haley shifted closer to Marco in an unconscious tether of reassurance as their son wriggled energetically between them. The man draped one negligent arm around Haley's trim shoulders, cementing the familial intimacy and comfort Nico could never seem to locate for himself.

"It's been some time, Tesoro," Nico uttered in a rumble of calm stoicism that belied the cyclone of emotions churning through him. "I searched for you after our encounter in Amsterdam, you realize."

He let the quiet accusation linger, noting the wince that flickered across Haley's delicate features before she visibly steeled herself once more. The woman simply stared back, as defiant and enigmatic as the day she walked out of his life without explanation or backward glance.

Yes, whatever sense of closure Nico had conned himself into believing about their incendiary parting, it was blatantly obvious unfinished business remained between them. If this tangled garden path was the only way to unravel those knotted threads with Haley, then for their son's sake, Nico vowed to follow it.

No matter how overgrown and painful the journey ahead might ultimately prove.