I’m curious about the estate, but mostly, I just want more time with him. This is the first day I’ve been fully conscious and felt well since arriving here, and it feels strange to be divorced from my usual routine. There are no babies to help distract and play with, no children to help dress or feed or get off to school, no sticky hands or small laughing voices or crying to soothe. It’s just me–and it hasn’t been just me since I left Russia and ended up in Viktor’s household. Max is the only familiar thing here, and even aside from my feelings for him, I can feel myself clinging to that familiarity.
I find him in the living room when I come down, thumbing titles on a bookshelf by the fireplace. I clear my throat as I walk in, and he turns instantly, smiling at the sight of me.
“That looks more comfortable for walking around the estate in, for sure.” He slides the book he was looking at back onto the shelf and strides toward me. “Shall we?”
We go out through the kitchen and the backdoor onto a large stone deck. To the right of it, there’s a huge pool, surrounded by stone and lounge chairs and cabanas, complete with a fire pit and a bar at the far end. There’s a small villa-like structure next to it, and I nod toward it. “What’s that?”
“The indoor heated pool,” Max says with a smirk, and I cover my mouth with one hand, laughing.
“That seems a little excessive, doesn’t it?”
“Very,” he agrees. “The Agosti family was well known for their wealth, and you can see it here, plain as day.”
We head down off of the deck, out towards the sprawling estate beyond the house. Max leads me to an older model Range Rover that’s parked on the road leading past the mansion, and I frown.
“I thought we were going to walk?”
“We will,” he promises. “But it’s a lot of ground to cover, and you’re not well enough to walkthatmuch yet. I’m not sure either of us would be up to walking it normally. It’sacres.”
I give in, climbing up into the grey-green vehicle and buckling in as Max slides in behind the wheel. He starts it up and nods towards the far distance, where I can see the dotting of the vineyards over the field. “We’ll drive out there first, and then I’ll show you the stables.”
We pass a large stone house with a small garden next to it on our way out to the vineyards, and I look curiously at it. “What’s that for?”
“The groundskeepers’ house,” Max says. “Like what the house I live in on Viktor’s property used to be. It’s not used now; Giana and Tommas have rooms in the main house. It was the least I could do. It’s kept up like everything else here, but no one lives there.”
“Can we go in?”
Max’s lips press together. “There’s really nothing to see; it’s empty.”
I have a feeling that I know what he’s thinking, and I don’t press him. It wasn’t my intention to remind him of the day I was in his house with him, at Viktor’s. Still, now all I can think of is going inside that small old groundskeeper’s cottage, of standing in the close, warm darkness with Max and feeling him take me in his arms again.
Will I ever want anyone or anything as badly as I want him?I can’t imagine it. Everything in me feels drawn to him, as if it’s begging for him, calling to him, and it’s all I can do to keep the desire on a leash. It’s the first time I’ve everwanted, the first time I’ve felt desire, the first time my body has been my own to give instead of being used against me like a weapon. I wasn’t a virgin that night with Max, but I was in the ways that mattered.
I was his first, and he was the first that I chose.
I can’t come to terms with the idea of it being over so soon–or being over at all.
“The vineyards are beautiful this time of year,” Max says, entirely oblivious to the thoughts running through my head. “It’s getting close to the harvest in August–if we’re still here, we’ll be able to help. It’s something I always wanted to do–to get out there and really experience it, but of course, back then, growing up here, I wasn’t allowed.”
August?I try to imagine being here with him that long, alone, hiding out with nothing and no one but each other for company.We’ll either give in again or implode.
The images that come with Max’s description of the grape harvest that he’s always wanted to take part in only make things more complicated. My romantic mind takes the description of picking grapes down long rows into buckets and later squashing them underfoot–not all of them, just a ceremonial amount before the rest are sent off to a more effective method–and turns it into a montage of Max and I doing just that together, my hand holding a straw hat atop my head to block out the Italian sun as he feeds me a grape, kissing me with juice on both of our lips. I saw a movie once with a grape harvest as a part of the plot, and in my head, it’s me that Max picks up out of the wine-crushing barrel, carrying me into the nearest bedroom as our desire spills over beyond containing, his hands pushing up my thin sundress, the sheets stained with grape juice as he slides into me, fingers laced with mine, lips pressed against mine.
“--and over there, there’s the stables. We’ll go after we’re done walking around the vineyards–Sasha?”
I break out of my reverie, cheeks flushed to see Max looking at me concernedly, the car idling. We’re stopped at the end of the vineyard rows, and he’s waiting for me. “Are you alright?” he asks, and I let out a breath, feeling embarrassment creep up my neck.
“Yes–of course. Let’s go.”
Max turns off the car, and we step out into the sunlight and fresh air. It’s invigorating, and I suck in lungfuls of it as we walk down the rows of vines, Max gesturing and explaining as we go. I always preferred the more country setting of Viktor’s estate to the city, but this is another level, an openness and freedom that makes me almost wish we could stay here forever, if that didn’t mean being so far away from the people that I’ve come to see as my family.
“It’s beautiful.” I glance over at Max as we walk. He’s unbuttoned his shirt a little more, two buttons down from the collar, his shirtsleeves rolled up, and what I want to say is thathe’sbeautiful, handsome in a way that defies explanation. That seeing him out here like this, alone with me, makes my heart race in a way it never has before. His hair is messy from the light wind, his olive skin ruddy from the sun, his hands shoved in his pockets, and as much as he’s said he doesn’t feel at home here, he looks it. He looks like a country gentleman, like he belongs in this place. I have a sudden rush of wishing that I could show him that he could have all this in a different way, that it doesn’t have to mean becoming his father or his brothers.
But what do I know? I’m not really a part of this world, and I don’t really know what any of that means. I’m a poverty-born girl from Russia. I fell into this world by accident, through events out of my control. I’m the fucking nanny. Who am I to tell him any of this?
“Are you alright?” Max glances at me, asking me that same question, I realize, in far too short a span of time. “You seem far away.”
I hesitate, not sure what to say. I know if I blame it on being tired, we’ll be headed back to the house in no time at all, and I’m not ready to leave the sunshine and open air behind just yet. “I’m just taking it all in,” I say quickly, nodding out over the expansive vineyard. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. I could stay out here forever, I feel like.”