There was an edge to his voice. Not defiance, exactly, but something close to it.
“I bet it was an interesting journey,” she said softly.
“I am a very private man, Emilia mia. I have been asked to tell the story of my life at least a hundred times but it is a story that is no one’s business but my own.”
She could almost see the wall go up around him. It hurt. She wasn’t sure why it should, because he was right—his life was his private affair. Still, after the intimacy of the long night…
“I understand.”
A muscle knotted in his jaw. Then he put down his cup, reached for her hand and brought it to his lips.
“No. You do not understand. It has never been anyone’s business—until now. I want you to know about me.”
“Marco. You don’t have to—”
“Italy is different from America. It is all very modern, but under the surface many of the old ways still survive. There is what remains of centuries-old aristocracy. There are those with new money. There is a middle class. Small, but there is one.” The muscle in his jaw knotted again. “And then there is what Italians call the popolino.”
“The people,” she said.
“Si. The people. What they really are is the underclass. The poor. The uneducated. I was born to a teenage mother. Her family disowned her when she became pregnant with me.”
Emily wanted to take him in her arms but she knew better. Instead, she nodded.
“It must have been a hard life for her. And for you.”
He shrugged. “She died when I was small. I don’t remember her very well.”
“And what happened to you?”
“I lived with her mother and father for a while.”
He’d called them her mother and father. Not his grandparents. There was a world of meaning in the way he’d phrased that.
“The state put me there but—but it did not work out. So the state put me into a home for kids like me.” His mouth thinned. “That didn’t work out, either.”
“And after that?” Emily said, while her heart broke for a little dark-eyed boy, all alone in the world.
“I ran away when I was sixteen. Worked odd jobs. I was strong. Big for my age. I saved and saved. Then I landed a job as laborer with a crew building a vacation home for a rich American.”
“The stone wall,” Emily said.
He nodded. “Si. I learned a great deal that summer, not just about walls but about America. The American told me he had worked hard at my age, too. He said America was a land of opportunity. He said a man could come from nothing in America and if he worked hard enough, he could become somebody.” Another eloquent shrug. “So I saved my money and came to this country. End of story.”
“Why do I think there’s more to that story than you’re telling me?”
“Ah, cara, don’t look at me that way.
This is not the sad tale of a boy who led a difficult life; it is the tale of one who saw the chance to change what fate had planned for him and took it.” He brought her hand to his lips again. “I tell you all of this because I want you to know me. Not the Marco Santini the world knows. The real one. The one who still lives inside me. He is a street kid who knows he has to fight for what he wants. And sometimes—sometimes, he is hard on those around him.”
Emily smiled a little. “Is this an apology in advance for the times you’ll turn into a snarling Simon Legree with no patience for errors?”
“Who is this Simon Legree?”
“A character in a book. He was a slave driver.”
“I am never a slave driver...” He sighed. “Are we talking about my temporary PA?”
“You mean,” Emily said sweetly, “the one I never saw because you’d terrified her into running away?”