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There isn’t a cloud in the sky on the day Eugenio Castellotti dies.
Twenty-seven years-old, her Il Bello is, when he hits that high kerb and his body is flung into the endless blue. When Cecilia closes her eyes, she can still see the pavement rising viciously to catch his fall—the way it melted his body into nothing but shattered bones and blood.
The clouds open up on Modena the next day. A storm as heavy as her heart, as dark and unforgiving as her grief. The town is soaked in rain and tears.
They lay him to rest in a small cemetery in Lodi next to his father. His mother, Angela, weeps so loudly it hurts Cecilia’s ears. She wails her sorrow ceaselessly, caring not for the priest as he recites scripture and the Lord’s Prayer. He speaks as though he cannot hear her; his voice is even and steady.
Cecilia’s gaze passes between him and Angela—the woman who hated her from the moment they met, the woman who looked her up and down in that restaurant on Via Serravalle and told her, “You look like a waitress. The kitchen is over there.”
She was horrid until the very last day they shared together, urging Eugenio on an early morning telephone call to set his sights on better things, better women. “The whole of Italy is in love with you, gioia,” she’d said. “Why waste it on that arrampicatore?”
Cecilia could hate her. She could curse the tears that fall down her cheeks, for if she truly loved her son, she would’ve loved the woman he chose to marry. But as they bury him deep in the earth, she decides there should be no grudges held toward childless mothers.
When she returns to Modena that afternoon, a car is parked outside the apartment she shares with her mother. As she approaches the front door, a man gets out of the driver’s seat, holding a brown envelope tightly in his hand. Cecilia doesn’t recognize him, but she recognizes the envelope.
“Signorina Manzini,” the man says, walking cautiously toward her. When he is within arm’s length, he holds out the envelope. “The Commendatore sends his condolences.”
Hesitantly, Cecilia takes it. The surface is rough against her fingertips, and it weighs next to nothing. She’s heard of this protocol—a driver dies in one of the Commendatore’s cars, and the widow receives a hefty sum of money to ease her sorrow. But this envelope feels anything but heavy. It would be rude to open it in front of him, so instead she tucks it into her bag and nods in thanks.
“It is a property in Castellaccio, signorina. The Commendatore will retain the freehold, but you may live there as long as you please.”
Cecilia cannot contain the gasp that slips through her lips. “Castellaccio?”
“Yes, signorina,” he says with a firm nod. “A large property with a beautiful house and many olive trees. You will be very happy there, should you choose to go.”
She can’t help turning to look at the run-down door that leads to the crumbling courtyard of her apartment. Someday soon, she thinks, the entire building will collapse into dust. She wasn’t supposed to live here forever; when she married Eugenio, he was supposed to take care of her. With his money, and his fame, and his speed, he would’ve kept her in diamonds and silks and villas in the countryside.
Cecilia pushes her sunglasses up her nose, willing herself not to think of what could’ve been. She glances back toward the man. “What is your name?”
He stands at attention, holding his hands behind his back. “Peppino, signorina.”
She nods. “Peppino, will you take me there? To Castellaccio? I would like to see it for myself before I accept the Commendatore’s offer.”
It’s bold, she knows. Beggars cannot be choosers in this world, and this gift is not one she should question. She should take it graciously; she should fall to her knees and thank God for Enzo Ferrari’s generosity. But he has put a price on her grief, the same way he has done hundreds of times before. All of Italy mourns for the sons that have died behind the wheels of his cars. And yet, he hears the cries of mothers and wives and children and still demands of his men: faster.
Peppino hesitates for a moment. He briefly looks at his watch, then his car, then back to her. She wonders what he is calculating—if he is weighing the consequences of her ingratitude.
Whatever it is matters not, because seconds later, he agrees with a single nod.
The property is idyllic in ways that Cecilia is not accustomed to. Having grown up in the center of Modena with little to her name, it was not often she was able to travel to faraway places that looked like something out of a storybook. She’d seen glimpses of it with Eugenio, driving through the countryside on crispy spring afternoons, wondering if they would grow old in a house just like this one.
Peppino’s car rumbles down the long drive toward the house, rocks ricocheting under his tires. He was right about the olive trees—their thick stumps and verdant leaves cover the land in a grid-like pattern for as far as the eye can see. She envisions herself in thick of them, eating ripened olives straight from the vine. She can almost taste the fruit as it bursts on her tongue; she can almost feel the pit, hard and unforgiving, between her teeth.
The house itself is bare and dusty, but its bones are good. There are many windows that allow light to leak in, and it is open in a way that a city apartment could never be. It’s easy to imagine herself here—cooking in the bright kitchen, sitting at the small but sturdy dining room table, enjoying a book on the couch with an espresso.
Peppino stands by the open door as she walks through and admires every room, a silent sentry waiting for her verdict. She is on the verge of giving him one, of rushing toward him with open arms and shouting that she wants it—that she loves it—when she finds herself in a room with a bed big enough for two.
Grief bubbles up from her belly to her chest to her throat, a painful death rattle that shakes the foundation on which she stands. The bed is no longer a bed but a tomb where she will sleep and sob and die an old, lonely woman. A lover without any love, she will rot in this cage of wood and concrete.
How can she live in this place, this house made for a family, for a life of togetherness, when Eugenio is not here? He will never hold her in this bed, or kiss her awake on a rainy morning, or smile in that wry way of his as he sips wine straight from the bottle.
He will never do anything ever again.
He will never be anything ever again.
Cecilia gasps for air, holding her throat as if willing it to open, to allow oxygen into her lungs. She stumbles out of the bedroom, nearly tripping over her own feet as tears begin to stream down her cheeks. She covers her mouth to spare Peppino the sound of her sobs, but it is a futile attempt at grace. He looks at her with alarm in his eyes, stunned by the sudden change in her demeanor.
He asks, “Signorina, are you alright?” as he reaches for her elbows to steady her.
Cecilia shakes her head, and as her eyes scan her surroundings once more, it dawns on her that this house, this gift, is nothing more than a soulless consolation.
It is easier to be angry than it is to be devastated, so Cecilia catches her breath and allows her lungs to fill with rage. Her tears begin to dry as her eyes harden, and her feet plant solidly into the oak floor below. When Peppino looks into her eyes this time, it is not with pity. It is with trepidation, for he seems to know exactly what she is about to say next. Perhaps she is not the first to make such a request.
With a voice that is both watery and steely at once, she says, “Take me to the Commendatore.”
Ferrari’s offices aren’t far from her apartment in the Modena city center. Racers and mechanics and businessmen all bustle around the compound, eyes down and feet fast, rushing off to do his bidding. She hates them all on sight for their blind loyalty to such a rotten king. If Eugenio hadn’t been among them, hadn’t shared in this delusion of grandeur, he would still be here.
Peppino had tried and failed to talk her out of showing up unannounced.
He is a busy man, signorina.
His assistant would surely be able to make an appointment for you at a later date.
This is quite unusual.
She’d said nothing; she’d kept her eyes on the road ahead and her mouth in a straight, rigid line.
His assistant, for her part, does try to stop Cecilia when she rushes into the building, sunglasses still on, hair tangled from the wind, dress wrinkled and slightly askew on her shoulders. “Signorina,” the woman scolds, standing before the door to his office with her arms held out. “The Commendatore is presently unavailable. May I take your name and telephone number to schedule an appointment?”
She hadn’t started the day with the intention to act so brutishly, but grief is a fickle thing. It toes the line of sanity, of logic. It turns even the gentlest of women into beasts.
“Get out of my way,” Cecilia demands, her voice sounding not unlike a growl.
“Signorina—”
“Get. Out. Of. My. Way.” Each word is punctuated by a step forward, and by a flicker of violence in her dark brown eyes. She will physically remove this woman from where she stands if it comes to it. After all, what does she have left to lose?
The assistant seems to battle internally, knowing she will have to answer for this, should she back down, but whatever she sees in Cecilia’s eyes must be more threatening than facing Ferrari’s ire.
Slowly, without breaking eye contact, the woman moves.
The second the doorknob is accessible, Cecilia does not hesitate. She enters the office and comes face-to-face with the man that murdered her fiancé.
He is clearly in the middle of a conversation with the man sitting across his desk—the man that has turned to look at her with widening eyes, stunned at her brashness.
Ferrari’s eyes do not widen.
They take her in, scanning quickly up and down her haggard form, and then settle on her face. He is as still as a statue save for a flex of his jaw and a slight quirk of his left eyebrow.
A pleading voice echoes from the door frame. The assistant sounds close to tears. “Commendatore, I’m sorry, she wouldn’t listen. I tried to get her to leave, but—”
He raises one hand, and she is silenced.
With one look toward the other man, he seems to convey another silent command. Within seconds, he is standing up, gathering the papers spread out on the desk and rushing out of the room.
Cecilia does not break eye contact with Ferrari, even when she hears the soft click of the door latching shut.
The entire hour and a half drive from Castellaccio, she’d readied herself for this moment. She swore to herself that she would not cower under his scrutiny, under his relentless glare.
Now, standing here in front of him, she understands that some things are easier said than done.
Because seconds later, Ferrari rises from his chair, and he is mountainous.
It is a wonder that he is even able to live comfortably in a town as small as Modena. She thinks idly that he must often hit his head on door frames and car roofs, for he is a giant living among men.
He understands this better than anyone, it seems, and has learned instead to use it to his advantage. He is intimidating in a chilling way, and she feels immediately shrunken in his presence.
When he rounds the desk and comes to stand in front of her, she is no longer five-foot-five. She is tiny, a shrimp of a girl, ready to be squashed under his massive thumb.
The fire that raged within her only moments ago begins to wither as he towers over her, unblinking and intense. She’s never seen him without his sunglasses on. His eyes are a strange dichotomy of soft and steel—the color reminds her of unripe olives on the trees at Castellaccio. Brown, mostly, but deep and rich, and smattered with startling flecks of green.
He stares down his prominent nose at her, his lips set in an impatient line.
Some part of her knows that he will not budge first. He is nothing if not the jagged boulder that others shatter themselves against.
That’s just fine. Cecilia is far past caring about her pride.
“I’ve come to ask you a question, Commendatore,” she says, and such an honorable title feels like vinegar on her lips.
Ferrari finally blinks, but stays silent. He moves only to fold his arms over his chest, pressing into the butter yellow sweater vest.
When she does not speak right away, his eyebrows raise infinitesimally. Daring her.
Cecilia lifts her chin. “How much is the property at Castellaccio worth?”
A tiny wrinkle forms between his brows. His eyes narrow slightly.
Her nostrils flare; she is growing impatient with this taciturn tree of a man. “How much money?” Her voice begins to grow louder. “How much did you deem Eugenio’s life was worth when you told him to go faster in that dreadful car?”
Something passes over Ferrari’s face that Cecilia cannot name. A flash of some emotion, there and gone too quickly to categorize. There is a swift movement of his throat as he swallows.
“Twenty-five thousand dollars,” he says flatly. “Fifty million lira.”
The rage returns with a vengeance, boiling in her gut. It takes every ounce of composure she has not to beat her fists against his chest, to scratch that indifference off his face with her nails. “It is true what they say about you,” she hisses instead, violence dripping off of her tongue. “You are like Saturn, devouring sons. But you, Enzo—”
At the sound of his first name, one hardly spoken by those not in his immediate circle, and certainly never by scorned lovers of dead drivers, he finally reacts.
“What, Cecilia?” He prods, stepping into her space. “What of me, Enzo?”
Cecilia’s upper lip curls. “You are no god. You send men to their death and you cover your tracks with blood money. Tell me, how much have you paid in widow’s fees? How many women have stormed into your office demanding retribution?”
“Most of them just take the money and I never hear from them again,” he replies, and his cattiness is enough to spot her vision with red.
He must recognize that she is at a tipping point, and that his remark has crossed a line, because as Cecilia opens her mouth to tear into him once again, his face softens.
It’s strange, the way his features shift into something nearly unrecognizable, when they are not warped with cold fury.
“Cecilia.” His voice is softer, too, tinged at the edges with some newfound warmth. It sounds foreign and unwelcome in her ears. He puts up two hands, a sign of surrender, of pleading. “Please. Sit.”
He does not wait for a response, and instead moves to reclaim his seat behind the desk. Cecilia is stock-still in the middle of his office, recovering from the whiplash of the shift in his demeanor. He leans back in his chair as he waits, casual and confident now that he is back on his throne.
Despite herself, she obeys his quiet command and sits in one of the plush chairs across from him, her posture ramrod straight. She wrings her hands together in her lap, rough and uncaring with herself, knowing he cannot see the action.
For a moment, they sit in tense silence. A thousand emotions run rampant within her; she wants to scream, cry, shatter, crumble. She does nothing except hold her shoulders back and maintain eye contact with him. Now that they are on the same level, it is somewhat easier.
Somewhat.
His fingers drum against the desk as he surveys her, looking slightly bemused. She has given him quite a show this afternoon. He clears his throat before asking, “How long did you know Eugenio?”
The question shocks movement back into her body. She blinks, shoulders sagging a little, and then breaks away from his gaze. “We were together three years.”
Ferrari nods slowly. “And you were to be married, yes?”
Cecilia’s jaw flexes uncomfortably. Her throat burns with the grief she is trying to tamper down—the last thing she wants is for this heartless villain to see her cry. “Yes,” she says quietly.
He nods again. “So then you must know that, since boyhood, Eugenio wanted to be a racer.”
Of course she knows that. She knows—knew—everything about Eugenio. She nods, looking away.
“The first car he bought was one of mine,” he continues. “The 166MM.”
Cecilia says nothing, and her eyes stay focused on the wall near the window.
“The moment he sat behind the wheel of that car, his fate was sealed.”
At that, she turns sharply to look at him. Did he just—
Her mouth opens, ready once again to shred him apart, but Ferrari holds up a hand. It’s a practiced gesture, it seems. He is used to silencing others in favor of his own voice. “He was a racer, Cecilia. In that car, and in every car after. Racers—true competitors—know that every time they get into a car, it could be the last. They know that, and they do it anyway. Why?”
Cecilia’s breath becomes shakier with every second that passes, the tears welling in her eyes more difficult to hold back. She knows what he is going to say, but that doesn’t mean she wants to hear it.
“Because it’s their purpose. The thing that gives their life meaning. They can be sons and fathers and husbands and brothers. They can belong to their families, but at the core,” he points to his chest, “they belong to the track. To the chicane and the kerb and the asphalt.”
Cecilia stares at him in horrible wonder. He fancies himself a sage, she understands now. A man whose word is anointed by gasoline and grease.
“When a man’s heart is an engine,” he says, his entire fist pressed against his heart now, “he will never be happy dying old in his bed, carina.”
Part of her wants to laugh at how dramatic it is.
Another part of her wants to cry because she knows, deep down, that it’s the truth.
Back at her apartment that evening, Cecilia finds her mother wrapping her belongings in paper. She looks around the tiny space and sees boxes littering the kitchen and living room, and despite the door slamming shut behind her, her mother doesn’t look up from the vase she’s stuffing with hand towels. She is single-mindedly focused, packing up Cecilia’s entire life in the span of a few hours.
“What are you doing?”
Still, she does not look up.
Cecilia plants a hand on her hip. “Mama.” She reaches out and grabs the vase from her mother’s grasp, which finally earns her a vexed acknowledgement. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” Her mother reaches to reclaim the vase, then abruptly walks away to tuck into a large box in the corner of the living room. “I haven’t started on the bedroom yet. Grab a box and get going,” she commands.
“Why are you packing my things? Where do you think I’m going?”
Cecilia’s mother throws her head back in frustration. “Ay, Ceci. Do you think I don’t know about the property the Commendatore put in your name?”
Cecilia’s nostrils flare. “Just because he put my name on it doesn’t mean I have to live there. I don’t want Enzo Ferrari to be my landlord, mama.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, stellina. Of course you will go.”
She throws her hands up and begins to storm away, needing to put space between her and her mother as quickly as possible. “You can’t tell me what to do. I am not a child. I will stay here if it’s where I wish to be.”
“And what?” Her mother’s voice echoes from behind her, equal parts rebuking and exasperated. “Continue to live among the rats and roaches? You should start charging them rent for how often they sleep in your walls.”
Cecilia says nothing, and instead begins to unpack her meager kitchenware—a random assortment of hand-me-downs from her mother and grandmother.
When her mother speaks again, her voice is much closer, much louder and more grating. “Ferrari is many things, but he is also fair. A good businessman. Think of this as a transaction—one that allows you to live a better life. Don’t let your pride stop you from taking what you are owed, Cecilia.”
She’s halfway done unpacking a pitcher when her hands freeze. She sets it down, grabs onto the lip of the counter and squeezes so tightly that her knuckles begin to pale. “I will be at his mercy,” she retorts. “He will call on me eventually.”
“And what if he does?”
Cecilia whirls around. “Mama. Please tell me I am not hearing this right now.”
Her mother gives a cavalier purse of her lips. “He wouldn’t be the worst man you’ve taken to bed.”
Cecilia’s eyes bulge. “He’s twice my age, and he is married.”
She scoffs. “Hasn’t stopped him before. Don’t be naive.”
“I’m not talking about this,” Cecilia snaps, turning away from her once again, but her mother catches her by the elbow. Her eyes are hard as steel, her mouth set in unsettling sternness.
“You are going. You will go there and you will live there and you will never look back. Over my dead body will you stay in this hole of filth. Do you hear me, daughter?”
Cecilia yanks her arm away, and for a moment, they seethe at each other in silence. The air between them is taught, a balloon overfilled and ready to pop.
It is Cecilia who eventually looks away, lowering her eyes and dropping her chin in deference.
After twenty-one years with this woman, she understands an argument with her mother is an argument she will never win.
She takes a deep breath, swallows her pride and integrity in one painful gulp, and begins to pack.
For the next two weeks, Cecilia makes great effort in turning Castellaccio into her home. She sweeps and dusts and polishes until she’s sweating through her clothes; she scrubs baseboards and bathroom tile and every inch of every window. Now that it sparkles, it is more beautiful than she could’ve imagined. Bright during the day, warm and glowing at night.
The field of olive trees is where she spends most of her days, teetering precariously on an ancient step stool to snip ripened green olives off of the vine. She tends to them with the care of a mother, caressing and cooing at the cuts she creates while she harvests.
She drinks wine on the wraparound front porch, reads Alessandro Manzoni, and sways back and forth in a rocking chair with the sounds of the countryside buzzing around her.
Cecilia thinks maybe she’s gotten off easily—that her mother was right, and this home will give her a life she wouldn’t have known without Eugenio. Part of her wonders if she’d been too harsh to assume that living here would mean being at the beck and call of Enzo Ferrari, for he has not shown himself in the days since she moved in. She thinks maybe, just maybe, he will leave her be, and she won’t ever have to see him again save for an accidental run-in in town.
Until one particularly quiet night in April, when a knock sounds at the front door.
She’s making dinner, a simple tortellini en brodo—because that’s all she can really manage—with fresh bread and parmigiano. It’s already set out on the table, and she’s halfway through pouring a glass of wine when she hears it, and her movements cease.
Frozen in place, she considers who it could be—Mama, coming by with another bag full of sauce and vegetables from her garden, or a friend, Bianca or Arianna, checking in on her and scoping out the house they’ve both chidingly referred to as il palazzo.
But in her heart, she knows it is none of those people.
In her heart, in her gut, there is only one person it could be.
When she opens the door to find him leaning against the frame, it is a striking sight. He is more casual than before in only his white button-down shirt and dark slacks, and his undershirt is visible from the way he’s unbuttoned the starchy white fabric down to his sternum.
Cecilia swallows roughly at the sight of him. Though she knew he would be waiting for her once she opened the door, his presence is no less daunting. “Commendatore,” she says quietly.
He tilts his head, a little smirk folding onto his lips. “Are we back to formalities now?”
The moonlight gives his skin a strange glow. He is less rigid under its light; his edges are softer. Cecilia clears her throat before replying, “I meant no disrespect.”
“Of course,” he replies.
They stand there quietly for a moment, and Cecilia feels awkward, unsure of what to expect. His eyes dance between hers and the house within—they are full of expectation. She suddenly realizes he is probably used to being ushered in with open arms, and has likely never been made to hover in a doorway.
Hesitantly, she opens the door wider. She clears her throat, and with a sweep of her hand, says, “Please, come in.”
His size has him almost ducking under the door frame as he enters, surveying the home he owns, transformed into her sanctuary. With his hands on his hips, he nods. “I like what you’ve done.”
“Thank you, Commendatore,” Cecilia replies, dipping her chin slightly. It’s a reflex that comes to the surface in his presence, this odd deference. “I will never be able to repay your generosity.”
She hears a little huff of a laugh from his nose. “Cecilia,” he beckons.
Cecilia looks up to find him smiling.
“You will repay nothing.” He shakes his head. “This is a gift.” He turns toward the kitchen and takes in the table made up for one, the bottle of wine and the basket of bread. “It smells good,” he says.
Cecilia follows his gaze. Her mother’s voice in her head is loud and incessant—she mustn't be rude, especially to him. So, she takes a deep breath and manages the most welcoming smile she can. “Would you like to stay for dinner?”
The warm light in the house has the same effect on him as the moon—he is soft and almost approachable as he looks back to her with eyes more amber than brown.
It makes no sense, but she finds herself hanging on his next words.
When he responds, it is with a soft smile and a single nod. “Alright.”
If her cooking is as terrible as she thinks it is, he does not call attention to it. Instead he eats with a rapt kind of focus, slicing the tortellini roughly in half with his fork and shoveling it into his mouth. He washes it down with gulps of wine, through two glasses already by the time Cecilia’s finished her first.
When he finally comes up for air, he shifts his attention to her, and it is with that same intensity that he stares at her across the table. Cecilia continues to eat her dinner and tries not to squirm. She looks down at her plate to avoid his eyes, only returning his gaze when he breaks the silence and asks, “Tell me about you and Castellotti.”
She is chewing on a piece of pasta when his words register, and it begins to feel like ash on her tongue. She swallows, trying not to grimace, and says, “What do you want to know?”
Ferrari shrugs, dabbing at his lips with a cloth napkin. “What made you say yes?”
Cecilia takes a deep breath, eyes drifting back down to her half-eaten meal. She pushes around the food with her fork, thoughts drifting to the beginning of it all—to the moment those eyes that made all of Italy swoon landed on her. “Eugenio was beautiful. He was kind and attentive. He had a way about him. I don’t know how to describe it in words.”
“Charisma,” Ferrari replies. Cecilia looks at him and finds his elbows pressed against the table, his chin resting on his hands.
“Yes.”
“And what about you?”
Her eyes narrow. “What about me?”
He nods. “Besides the obvious—you’re a beautiful woman, of course,” he says casually, taking another sip of wine. “Striking, truly.”
Cecilia’s heart thuds in her chest. His outright admiration, his unabashedness is disarming and entrancing all at once. She’s been told she is beautiful her entire life, and yet from his lips, the words feel sharper, truer. Suddenly, she is beautiful and striking because he has deemed her so.
He snaps her out of the haze with another question. “But a man like Castellotti had his pick of beautiful women. What was it that set you apart?”
Saying he was in love with me will never be enough—especially considering it was far more complicated than that. There were layers to it, but peeling those back isn’t something she wants to do with Enzo Ferrari at her dinner table. “He wanted to have someone to come home to.”
Ferrari nods again, slower this time. He tilts his head, a motion she’s learning means he is assessing, observing. “But?”
Cecilia’s jaw flexes. If she weren’t a lightweight and already feeling the pleasant buzz of the wine in her head, she would probably shut this down, say no buts, and send Ferrari on his merry way. And yet—
“But I don’t know if it would’ve been enough for him,” she replies, only a little sad. It was a truth she’d come to terms with long before his death. “Eugenio was a man that loved to be desired. He enjoyed being the center of everyone’s attention.”
Ferrari’s face remains neutral, but his eyes are still dark and piercing. He seems to give her a moment to decide if she wants to continue down this line of conversation; he seems to be giving her a chance to veer into more appropriate territory. When she doesn’t, he smirks.
“He was a racer,” he says, as if that is the answer to everything.
Cecilia rolls her eyes and reaches for her wine glass. “Yes, he was. And racers are all cut from the same cloth, aren’t they? With egos bigger than their cars.”
At that, he laughs. It’s a booming, joyful sound that causes her wine glass to pause halfway to her lips. It crinkles his eyes and dimples his cheeks. It’s striking and beautiful and strange.
“Ah,” he sighs, shaking his head. “This is true. But there is something else that is true, carina.”
There it is again—that pet name. It hadn’t landed in any specific way when he’d called her that in his office, felt more like pity than anything. But here, in her kitchen, in the glowing light of night, it makes her skin feel warm. “What’s that, Commendatore?”
He leans his chin onto his fist, his eyes so black they nearly sparkle. He stares at her for a long moment, scanning her face. Finally, in a deeper, scratchier voice, he says, “There are only two highs in life worth chasing: when you win a race, and when you come inside a beautiful woman.”
Cecilia’s breath catches in her throat.
“All racers know that,” he continues, as if speaking about something as simple as the weather. “So they are constantly seeking both.”
“And you,” Cecilia replies, the words moving past her lips before she can stop them, “were a racer, too. Were you not?”
His nostrils flare as his gaze grows, somehow, more intense. “In many ways, I still am.”
For many breaths, they just stare at each other.
The heat beneath her skin is beginning to burn. It’s ridiculous, unbecoming, and utterly too predictable that she’s fallen into his trap, so she stands abruptly, gathering the plates from dinner to give herself something else to do besides stare into his endless, unblinking eyes.
He says nothing as she scrambles, stacking dishes and utensils and cups haphazardly, making her way from one end of the table to the other. When his space is cleared and her arms are full, she turns to rush to the sink, but a hand at her waist stills her movement.
Cecilia’s eyes fall shut as he grips her there, unyielding.
“Commendatore,” she says breathily, shaking her head.
“Put them down,” he replies, his voice dripping with confidence and authority.
She thought she was escaping his hold, thought she had made it into the clear.
Now she knows that she’d been lured in long before this moment.
She obeys, setting the tableware down, then lets him pull her toward him, whirling her around until she is facing him. Their eyes meet and there is no doubt in his, no hesitation.
He tugs her body as though he owns it, molding it to his liking until she is straddling his lap, the small of her back pressed into the lip of the table. Her dress is hiked up to her hips, and against the thin material of her underwear, she can feel his growing hardness.
“You are so sweet,” he says quietly, his hands falling to her thighs. He grips her there, nearly encompassing the entirety of them in his grasp. His hands are large and warm and feel as though they are streaking fire over her skin as he rubs down toward her knees. When he rubs up toward her ass and squeezes, Cecilia’s mouth drops open.
She sets her hands weakly on his shoulders, feeling like a rag doll in his grasp. His face is so close to hers, his eyes black and slightly hooded. When he uses his grip to pull her further into him, rubbing her center over the hard ridge in his pants, they both sigh.
“Would you like me to touch you, bella? Would you like me to make you feel good?”
If she tries to speak right now, she’s certain it will come out as gibberish. Instead, she nods.
What happens next is a blur of movement—she is lifted off of his lap and onto the table in seconds, the wood cold against her bare limbs. He pushes her dress further up her body, still seated with her knees pressed into his biceps.
She is exposed to him save for her underwear, and this kind of intimacy with a new lover would usually make her nervous, but then he leans forward and presses his nose into her clothed center and moans, and she is suddenly too hot, too wet, too wanting, to feel anything but ready.
Cecilia’s head falls back with a thump as he mouths her underwear. Only when her hips begin to buck does he finally give in, pulling the material down her legs in one swoop. She looks up as he tosses them over his shoulder and sets his eyes back on her, and there is a sort of wonder in them, alongside the burning hunger. “So sweet,” he says again. Then he dives in.
Growing up in Modena, she’s heard many things about Ferrari’s finesse with business, with cars, with women. She knows that he has a reputation for perfection, and has built an empire around it. There seems to be no difference between that and the way he eats her cunt; he is precise and calculated and knows exactly where to put pressure and ease off, and she is putty under his ministrations. When the point of his tongue makes contact with her clit, she screams. It’s uninhibited and animalistic, and when he pushes two thick fingers inside her at the same time, the entire world turns white.
She comes harder than she ever has before, and he licks her through it all like a man starved.
When she can finally breathe and her limbs have stopped shaking, she dips her chin to find him panting heavily against her thigh, his mouth and chin glistening with her wetness. His eyes are closed, and she finds herself reaching for him, caressing his cheek and running her nails through his silver hair.
His eyes flutter open, and it is then that she knows he is not finished with her yet.
This time, Cecilia is the one that moves, lifting herself off of the table and resituating until she is once again straddling his lap. They are both breathing heavily as she unbuckles his belt, then his pants, and when she reaches into his underwear to grip the length of him, his forehead falls onto hers with a groan. “Carina,” he sighs. “Take it out.”
She does, and when it is fully exposed, hard and thick and leaking, her mouth starts to water.
He seems to recognize this flash of need, and his hands move to her cheeks. “Later,” he says against her lips. “Right now, I want to be inside you.”
Cecilia nods, then secures her arms around his neck as she lifts up. Their noses touch, mouths open and breathing the same air as she sinks down. He’s big—she should’ve known he would be, but it’s a different kind of big when it’s undoing her from the inside out, reshaping her until she fits perfectly snug around him. As she slides down to the hilt, he’s deep enough that she can feel him in her throat.
He closes his eyes as his head falls slightly back against her arms. “Ah. You are so warm.”
She leans forward and kisses the column of his throat, and he moans. His hands grip her ass and he begins to move her, just slightly up and down his cock.
Cecilia whimpers, her head falling onto his collarbone as they start to find a rhythm. The orgasm he gave her with his mouth is still buzzing under her skin, and the pleasure he sparks now with his cock feels amplified by its echoes. She is beginning to sweat, feeling already close to another precipice of euphoric heat.
On one particularly hard thrust, he grunts, pulling her body up to rid her completely of her dress. Now naked fully, he buries his face between her breasts, mouthing at her sternum as he bounces her roughly, spearing her over and over again.
“Commendatore,” she moans, head falling back.
She feels his teeth then, at her throat, her earlobe, her jaw.
“Call me by my name, sweet Cecilia,” he commands. “Call me by my name when my cock is buried in you.”
Cecilia swallows thick and hard. She picks up her head and nuzzles his face, her hands pushing into his disheveled hair. “Enzo,” she says with a sigh. “Enzo.”
With one hand, he pushes her by the torso until her back is pressed into the table. She is bared before him, and his eyes travel over her body as he grits his teeth and continues to pull her into him. Into her depths, his cock plunges over and over, and when he leans forward and takes the entirety of one of her breasts into his mouth, she nearly short-circuits.
“Enzo,” she cries out.
He growls, his movements growing more rough, more stilted.
“I will come in you,” he tells her. There is not a single ounce of question in his voice. “You will take it.”
It was never a question for her, either.
She nods, knowing she has mere seconds before she loses herself completely.
“Are you going to come for me, carissima? Will you squeeze me nice and tight?”
“Yes,” she moans.
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, Enzo.” Her eyes screw shut, and she feels the beginnings of it in her toes. “Yes, I will come.”
“Go on then, lovely girl. Come,” he orders, voice rough. “Come hard.”
The pleasure is blinding and paralyzing and she is grateful the table is at her back because her limbs seem to lock in place as it hits her. She clenches onto his cock as though she is trying to pull him in fully, never to be released, and only when she can finally feel the air hit her lungs does she finally scream. It goes on and on, a graceless bellow that bounces off the walls with its thunderous volume.
Enzo’s hands tighten on her hips as wave after wave crashes inside. “Oh, God,” he moans. “Oh, God, yes.” She somehow has the wherewithal to let her eyes flutter open, wanting nothing but to see his face when it hits him. It’s a lovely sight, the way his eyes roll back in his head and his mouth drops open.
He keeps her in place as he spills deep inside of her, and she can feel the way he paints her from within as he gasps for air, face contorting with the severity of it.
She leans forward as the last vestiges of it pulse through, kissing his neck, his chin, the corner of his mouth. He doesn’t let her stray, and it’s then that he presses his lips against hers, immediately licking the seam of them with his tongue, an order to grant his entrance.
They stay like that for an eternity, lost in drugging kisses and tangled limbs.
After, on her couch with her feet in his lap, she smokes a cigarette. His hands massage her ankles and calves, and when he looks at her as she blows out a plume of smoke, he shakes his head. “That’s a habit to be broken,” he says. Cecilia looks into his eyes and takes another drag.
At the front door, as he smooths his hair back down and buttons up his shirt, she stands in the foyer, watching him. “Will you come back?” she asks, because there’s no more room for shame tonight, and because she’s been fucked and licked and held better than she ever has before, and she needs to understand if it was for the last time.
He looks up from his task to meet her eyes, and the answer is there, staring back at her with a sad smile. “It is a time of great demand for me,” he says, stepping toward her. “My focus cannot be split among so many things.”
Cecilia folds her arms over her chest. “Among your many women, yes?”
He smiles again, now completely in her space. His hands cradle her cheeks as he says, “No. On the Mille Miglia. We must win it.”
She cranes her neck to look into his eyes. “You will.”
He kisses her. Long, hard, and deep. When they are both gasping for air, he leans forward, pressing his lips to her ear and says, “And when we do, I will come back.” He licks the sensitive spot beneath her earlobe and Cecilia sighs, gripping harder to his biceps. “I will come back and I will bury my face deep between your legs and drown myself in you. How does that sound, carissima?”
On the twelfth day of May, Ferrari wins the Mille Miglia and kills ten people in the process. More blood coats the Commendatore’s hands, but he does not cower under the weight of Italy’s scorn. He continues to build, he continues to improve, he continues to be the standard that everyone else tries and fails to live up to. Cecilia hears whisperings that he’s moved one of his mistresses to Modena to be closer to him—one with whom he’s fathered a child. She tries not to let her face betray the jealousy and anger that floods her at this news, but it festers in her gut like an infection.
He does not come to her for months. She moves on, continuing her work on the house and in the fields, and makes a life for herself that is quiet and easy and soft. She does not think of him except for at night, when she dreams of his hands on her body, and his tongue in her mouth, and his cock so deep inside that it becomes part of her makeup. She makes herself come with her fingers when she wakes up alone, pretending they are his.
It isn’t until November, when a chill has set in and the air smells of honey and rain, that she hears it. She is standing at the sink, scrubbing a grass stain out of a pair of pants, and the knock echoes through the house like a church bell.
Like a reminder.
It is time for worship.