As school was out for the summer, Eliana’s life revolved around Alessio even more now. Still, she never thought of him as a burden—only as her boy. A little boy with a big heart who sensed her sadness and solitude and tried to be the man in her life. She didn’t know what she would do if something ever happened to him.

Nor did she allow her thoughts to linger on the possibility. It was far too real. There had been too many close calls in the past six years. Too many white-knuckle, late-night runs to the emergency room.

She was weary of being strong and stoic, and, most of all, alone. She wanted a partner in life’s journey. A man to share a glass of wine and then a bed with. Someone to make her feel worthy of love again. But, as hope can be the cruelest of tormenters, she learned to avoid such thoughts. For better or worse she was married. Married and lonely and locked away in her beautiful villa in the quiet Tuscan countryside twelve kilometers from Florence.

CHAPTER 2

“Of all the fairest Cities of the Earth
None is so fair as Florence. ’Tis a gem
Of purest ray; and what a light broke forth,
When it emerged from darkness!
Search within, Without; all is enchantment!”

—Samuel Rogers, 1830

“I have seen pictures of Florence in books and travel guides and thought it beautiful, but now, surrounded by the sensuality of the city, I realize that it has been the difference between looking at a menu and eating.”

—Ross Story’s diary

JULY 1999. FLORENCE, ITALY.

The Arno River flows west from the Apennine Mountains, snaking through the Valdarno Valley until it breaks through the center of Florence, dividing the city like a broken heart. Scores of bridges had been built to span the river, but through time and war nearly all have been destroyed. Of the ancient city only Ponte Vecchio, the “old bridge,” remains.

Ross Story stopped near the center of the bridge to rest against its broad metal railing and rub the beaded sweat from his face. The bridge looked more like a mall than a thoroughfare. To both sides of him were the bright, glittering shops of jewelers and goldsmiths, crowded with tourists and sidewalk merchants, as they had been for centuries.

“The climate of Florence is brutto,” a Portuguese woman had told him. “The worst of all Italy. The hottest summers, the coldest winters.” Then she warned, “The people are like the weather. Settle in Capri or Sicily, where the weather and people are kind.”

In the stifling heat, Ross knew that at least half of what the woman had said was true. He slipped his backpack from his shoulder to the ground and looked east, into the warm wind, then to the river below. The river’s surface reflected the ochre and mustard hues of the old city, both vague and beautiful, like an Italian dream. A slim canoe glided across the green, rippled water near a group of old men fishing from the river-bank in the shade of the bridge.