Emma stared at Nonna Rosa for a long moment, blinking.
"Gone?" she repeated. "What do you mean gone?"
Nonna Rosa sighed and adjusted the scarf around her head. "He left early this morning. Took the truck. Said nothing but 'Tell her I'm sorry.' Men," she added with a huff, "have the emotional range of overcooked pasta."
Emma was too stunned to laugh.
She walked back to the grove alone. The sun was high, but the air felt colder. Under the olive tree where they first met, she sat down hard, dust puffing beneath her skirt.
Had she done something wrong? Scared him off? Maybe she'd said too much. Or maybe—her stomach turned—this had been a beautiful, olive-flavored vacation fling and nothing more.
She looked up at the tree and muttered, "Stupid legend."
For the next week, she did what she came to do. She wrote. Pages and pages poured out of her—memories of James, moments with Luca, the strange beauty of grief wrapped in new beginnings.
But something felt missing.
She didn't realize how much she'd grown used to seeing Luca's shadow around every corner, hearing his laugh in the grove. Even his awful habit of sneezing after drinking red wine.
Then, one rainy afternoon as she sat at the café, sipping an espresso that could legally be classified as jet fuel, she heard a voice behind her.
"You're sitting in my chair."
She turned.
There he was. Soaked from the rain, hair dripping, holding a bouquet of crushed wildflowers and looking like a very handsome, very confused stray dog.
Emma blinked. "Your chair?"
"Okay," Luca said, "technically it's nobody's chair, but I had this whole dramatic speech planned, and you're throwing me off."
She stood, arms crossed. "You left."
"I panicked," he said. "I told myself I didn't deserve something good again. That if I stayed, I'd ruin it."
Emma raised an eyebrow. "And how'd that theory work out?"
"I nearly ran over a goat on the road and cried in the truck like a Roman poet."
She laughed then—really laughed. "You cried over a goat?"
"No," he said, smirking. "I cried over you. The goat was just… collateral damage."
She stepped closer.
"You're an idiot."
"I know."
"I wrote about you."
He blinked. "Was I handsome?"
"Painfully."
He grinned. "Then I'm staying. If you'll have me."
Emma kissed him, rain and all.
And when the café owner came out, grumbling in Italian about kissing and wet chairs, they both just laughed harder.