his shoulder. “There they are.” He gives me a look as he wades in. “I hope you weren’t expecting privacy.”
I shrug, following him, the sea cold at first, but warming up as it gets up to my knees, the water impossibly clear. I can even see a few fish darting around. “I’m happy I can just talk to you out of ear range,” I tell him.
He steps forward a few feet, and I watch the bronzed muscles on his back as he pushes off the bottom and dives elegantly into the water with minimal splash.
I, on the other hand, take my time wading in until the water is chest-high and then I’m swimming toward him.
“I have a feeling you were once part fish,” I tell him.
He spits out water and grins, his hair sticking to his forehead. “My mother can vouch for that. Living right there” —he gestures to the house— “meant I could swim before I could walk. I think it was the only thing that kept me sane when growing up. And when we moved to Lucca, we had a pool there too. I was in it more than I was out of it. Before my art took hold … it was the only way I could deal with life.”
I cock my head, wondering what he had to deal with. “You don’t strike me as a person who had a rough childhood. Your parents obviously love you very much.”
“Yes,” he says carefully, dark eyes watching the sun touch the water on the horizon, the sky slowly growing brighter. “They do. But you saw my father last night. I am always measured to him. It was worse when I wasn’t making art. My sisters, they were allowed to do whatever, but I, well, I was expected to carry on the Romano name. The genius.”
He turns around, facing me, slowly swimming backward. “When I was a child, my father did what he could to teach me how to paint like him. I tried. But I just … I am not talented like him in that way. Just as he can’t sculpt. We are both good at our own things. But I was young and I wanted to please him, and he demanded so much of me…” He swallows, eyeing his parents on the cliff for a moment, before meeting my gaze. “I grew up believing I would never be good enough. Perhaps I still carry some of that with me.”
I shake my head. “How could your father even think that? I’m sure he doesn’t. He seems so proud. I mean, look at your work. It’s perfect. It’s like … I get why sculptors were so revered back in the day. They were almost like gods. Wasn’t Michelangelo called The Divine One?”
His brows raise, impressed. “Oh. Someone has been doing some reading.”
“Research is the best part of writing. Also the best way to get to know someone.”
“I’m touched,” he says. “But of course I am no Michelangelo. He could at least paint.” He gives me a warm, patient smile as he treads water. “There’s an old joke that sculpture is the thing you bump into when you back up to get a better look at a painting. If that doesn’t sum up my relationship with my father and I, then I don’t know what does.”
He licks his lips, head tilted. “And even though artists like Michelangelo were revered in the day, can you name me any sculptors now? No. The art isn’t dying but the interest in it is. It’s just not sexy.”
I laugh. “Sexy? I think watching you work is the sexiest thing. Your art is pure sex, the women you sculpt…”
He grins. “You are a bit biased, don’t you think?”
“Maybe. But I mean it.”
He exhales and looks away, the water glinting in his eyes. “I love what I do and I know that is good enough for me. But you know … parents are hard to, how you say, negotiate, sometimes. Sometimes their opinions matter more than they should.” He glances at me. “How about your father?”
My arms move faster to tread water, and I stare down through the clear depths at my wavering feet and the pebbled bottom just below. What about my father? Where to start?
I take in a deep breath, feeling as if I’m about to dive under. “As you know, he left my mom when I was about Vanni’s age. Went to London. Fell in love and started a new family. Forgot all about me.”