Page 3 of The Virgin’s Dance with the Devil (The Martinelli Wedding #3)

Chapter Two

Dear Marisa,

I hope you don’t mind me writing to you like this.

I respect that you said I couldn’t call you, but as you didn’t forbid me from writing, I hope you will forgive my way of getting around it.

It has been many years since I put a pen to paper, so I hope you can forgive the messiness of my handwriting too!

I am writing because I can’t get you out of my mind. Please, allow me to take you to dinner next Tuesday evening. We can dine anywhere you choose. I just want to get to know you.

Yours without expectation but with hope,

Rico

PS: My private phone number is…

Dear Rico,

My thanks for your letter – reading it made me feel like a heroine from a twentieth-century novel!

My thanks, too, for your offer of dinner, but I’m afraid my book club meets every Tuesday. Although I have no wish to hurt your feelings, my answer would have been no, whatever date you had suggested.

I wish you well.

Regards,

Marisa

Dear Marisa,

Thank you for writing back to me. Having read your letter, I understand what you mean about feeling like you’ve stepped into a 20th-century novel.

It feels so much more personal to receive your words in your own hand than through an email or message (and your handwriting really does put mine to shame!).

When I wrote my first letter to you I was tempted to buy myself a quill and ink set as Yuri uses when writing to Lara in Dr Zhivago (have you read it?

It’s one of the few books I’ve read where I prefer the film, but I think that might be due to the translation rather than the book as it was originally written)!

While your answer to my offer of dinner was not what I wanted, I respect your decision.

If you ever change your mind, just let me know.

I give you my word that I will not do or say anything that makes you feel uncomfortable.

To prove my intentions are honourable, I will not complain if you bring a chaperone along (although I might complain if they sit at the table with us!).

With much affection,

Rico

Dear Rico,

Please don’t hate me for saying this, but I would never have guessed you were a lover of books!

I’m afraid I’ve never read Dr Zhivago, but it was one of my grandmother’s favourite films and I watched it with her many times as a child.

It is so funny you mentioning about the quill and ink set as I remember badgering my parents to buy me one, and all because of that scene.

Unfortunately, I was a clumsy and messy little girl, so I don’t blame them in the least for saying no.

Thank you for respecting my refusal of dinner with you.

I don’t want to lead you on or give you the wrong idea.

If I were to meet up with you, it would be on the strict understanding that it isn’t a date.

If you are willing to respect that, then I am travelling to Milan for work next week and can meet you on Wednesday for lunch.

A colleague recommends Gio’s restaurant, off Piazza San Baila. I will be there at 1 p.m.

With warm regards,

Marisa

Dear Marisa,

I never knew time could pass so quickly. Every minute we spent together has been seared into my heart.

Forgive me for coming on so strong, but seeing you again only confirmed what my heart was already telling me – I’m in love with you.

I know it is too soon for you to hear words of my love, but I’ve been raised to believe that when you love someone, you should only speak truth to them. As Denisov says to Sonya in War and Peace, ‘We are asleep until we fall in love!’

I have been asleep for thirty-two years, and now I am awake.

I will not pressure you into meeting up with me again, not now I know the circumstances of your home life and why a relationship is impossible for you, but please, my angel, write back to me.

With love and affection,

Rico x

Rico,

My apologies for taking so long to reply. To be honest – and I always try to be honest – I was afraid. You speak of love, but Rico, we don’t know each other. One dance and an hour together eating gnocchi, and now you’re in love with me?

When I told you about my parents, it wasn’t me pushing you away, it was me explaining my life to you.

My father’s illness doesn’t make a relationship between us impossible (difficult, yes, but impossible, no).

I’m afraid it’s your own actions that have made it impossible for me to entertain a relationship with you.

If even a fraction of the stories about you are true, then yours is a world I do not want to be a part of.

I also cannot be with a man who has spent a decade treating women like disposable toys.

When I fall in love, I want it to be forever, and we both know you don’t do forever.

I do like you, Rico, very much, but it can never be more than friendship, so please, forget about me. Any love you think you have for me will die when the next woman catches your eye.

Best wishes,

Marisa

PS: Thank you again for the book and the quill and ink set. I will treasure them always.

Dear Marisa,

I hope you will forgive me for writing again.

I know I am not worthy of your love, and I have tried to do as you asked, but forgetting you is proving impossible.

I can’t get you out of my mind. I see you in my dreams every night, and they are the sweetest dreams in the world, and then I wake up and know they are dreams that will never come true.

One dance and sixty-three minutes of eating gnocchi might be all the time we’ve spent together in the flesh, but my heart feels like it’s known you forever.

I will not defend myself against your accusations.

I can’t. You see me more clearly than I think I see myself.

I am a sinner, my angel. It is true. I have indulged in all seven of the deadly sins and now I repent them.

I repent every sin, but it runs deeper than mere repentance.

There is something about you that touches my heart so deeply that I find myself wanting to be a better man, not just to prove myself to you, but for the sake of my soul.

Rico put his pen and paper down and did another internet search. After thirty minutes of searching and reading, he’d found what he needed. Sure, it was another War & Peace reference, but it was the best reference the internet had thrown at him.

Let me be like Pierre Bezukhov. Only through embracing spiritual growth and discovering his morality was he able to find lasting love and happiness with Natasha. I will take your friendship with both hands, but please, my angel, don’t give up on me.

Tell me what to do to deserve you and win your heart. I will do anything. Anything.

Just don’t tell me to forget you. It would be easier for me to capture the moon.

My love always,

Rico x

Dear Rico,

It isn’t a case of you deserving me. Everyone deserves love and happiness, and I feel that if circumstances were different, our story would be different too, because I do have feelings for you, but I know nothing can come of them.

I can’t change your fundamental nature any more than you can change mine, and I wouldn’t want to.

The Rico I’m getting to know is someone I like very much (and very different to your public persona), but the life you live is so different from mine and so antithesis to everything I value that it would never work between us, but I would like us to be friends – I think we are becoming friends?

With friendship and affection,

Marisa x

PS: I’ve tried reading Dr Zhivago, but I think your initial assessment of it was correct. I will stick with the film. In fact, I shall see if I can watch it as soon as I’ve posted this letter to you.

PPS: My book club have chosen Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend as our next read. It’s set in Naples, which made me think of you.

Dear Marisa,

It warms my heart to read that you have feelings for me, but I accept your wish for our relationship to be only that of friends. Under your tutelage…

Rico smiled to himself. Tutelage. What a word! At the rate he was going, his vocabulary would soon be as impressive as his bank account!

… I believe I can become a better man. My soul needs me to become a better man. Please help me, my angel.

I am travelling to Florence next week. Please allow me to buy you lunch. I swear I will not speak of love – I just have a deep yearning to spend time with you and grow our friendship. I will make myself available any time, date and location of your choosing.

All my love and friendship,

Rico x

Dear Rico,

I can meet you at 1 p.m. on Wednesday at Piazza del Duomo. Wait for me by the carved lion at the door of the cathedral.

With affectionate friendship,

Marisa x

Four months after the engagement party

Marisa read Rico’s final letter for the hundredth time. She was glad there wasn’t time to send a reply to him. She didn’t know what she would say.

She knew what she wanted to say, but it was impossible. They were impossible.

Dearest Marisa,

If love is a sickness, then mine is terminal. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. You have infected my mind as effectively as you have infected my heart. You warm my heart with your smile and with the softness of your lips on my cheeks.

Love of my life, I am counting down the hours until I can see you again.

Believe in me, my angel.

Rico x

She was counting down the hours too.

She’d dreamed of him last night. When she’d woken, she could have sworn she smelled oranges warming under the sun.

There was a knock on her bedroom door. “Marisa, are you ready?” came her mother’s voice. “We need to go.”

They were supposed to have left an hour earlier, but Marisa, awake until the early hours with thoughts filled with Rico, had overslept.

“One minute,” she called back, before looking again at the pile of letters scattered over her bed. Seventeen of them. Roughly one a week since Niccolo and Siena’s engagement party. In a few minutes, Marisa and her parents would be leaving for their pre-wedding celebrations.