“Did you still love her, even after you knew she was having an affair?”

Their room was dark, but the window was open to let in the moonlight. His skin glowed blue in the velvety darkness. She lay naked on the bed, covers kicked off, feeling the cool night air and his delicate fingers dance up and down her back. Her eyes opened and closed heavily; she spoke quietly, her words slow. He paused at her question, looking up from the small of her back to meet her eyes.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“She left. Not me.”

Tabitha’s eyes opened wide, the sleepiness vanished. The warmth of the velvet night now changed, the light seemed to become electric, and his body looked edged in sharp relief against the blackness. Her skin goosefleshed where his fingers rested on the rise of her ass. She turned on her side to press her body against his, nestling her face into his neck and kissing the divot beneath his Adam’s apple.

“Why would anyone leave you? She must be insane. I can’t think of any other reason.”

He did not answer for a moment, just held her and stared out the window into the night sky. Finally, he spoke, his voice low and throaty. “I was not enough for her. My life, my winery. She did not enjoy it.”

Tabitha’s lips continued to move over his neck for a moment after he spoke.

“What’s it like to have daughters?”

“It’s…” He paused and stared up at the ceiling. “My twins are my life.”

“I’m a twin.”

“What is it like to have a twin?”

“She’s been with me longer than anyone else.”

She pulled her head back to look him in the eye, but his hand remained on the small of her back.

“It’s so strange that you have kids. I guess I should have asked? I don’t know, like, is that standard to ask people if they have kids before you sleep with them? It didn’t occur to me that I’m having sex with someone’s father. That’s kind of crazy.”

He silenced her with a kiss, long and deep, and she let her eyes close again as she sank back into the familiarity of his touch. He lifted his hand to her hair, dragged his fingers along her scalp, grasped chunks of her hot-pink strands to push her lips harder into his. She tightened her arm around his waist, slid her other underneath his neck to mimic his movement and grasp his thick brown hair in her palm, feeling the softness of it, feeling the thickness, letting her thoughts drift and abandoning herself to the contradictory sensations of his body. Hard and soft, velvet and knife-edged, gentle and strong. Giovanni pulled her over him, and she sat astride his narrow hips and let her head drift back and her eyes close. She put her hands over his as he ran his palms up her body, covered her breasts, and then moved down to her waist, pulling their bodies closer together. She opened her eyes to gaze down at him. He watched her in the moonlight, his eyes clear and direct, full of fire. They moved together with their eyes locked until Tabitha’s body convulsed and she tipped her head back again in climax. Giovanni sat up, pulled her to him, and clenched her mouth into a kiss as her body pulsed.

He kicked the remaining sheets to the floor and flipped her on to her back. Her body weak and shaking, Tabitha let her hands drift above her head and float in space over the foot of the bed. Giovanni moved above her, his eyes still on hers, his hands wrapped around her waist and shoulders, his hips pushing into hers.

She wrapped her arms around him, pulling his body closer, opening her mouth to meet his, absorbing him from their intertwined legs to their grinding hips to her soft breasts pressed against his hard chest to his soft, full lips smashed against hers. Their bodies as one, they came together, pulsing in a matching rhythm, holding each other tightly through the crest of ecstasy.

Tabitha felt strangely shy as they dressed together the next morning. As she put on her makeup, she watched him towel off his body and rummage through the drawer to pull out clothes. They smiled at each other each time their eyes met.

“Would you like to ask me something?” he finally said.

“Yes.”

He spread his arms out in an expansive gesture as if inviting her somewhere.

“How old are they? Are they nice? Do they have hair like yours? Do they get along with each other? Do you miss your wife?”

He put up a hand, his mouth breaking into a tentative smile, his teeth bright white against his tanned skin. His eyes looked soft, and a wave of protectiveness toward him washed over her.

“I will tell you everything you wish to know. But you have a lot of questions so early in the morning. What is your most important question?”

“How could anyone leave you? Is she on drugs or something?”

The smile left his face, and he sat on the edge of the bed. Tabitha resisted the urge to sit next to him, to run her hands over his body and soothe away whatever he was going to say. She stayed at the vanity mirror, watched him in reflection. Waited.

“Aurelia, my former wife, wanted children, but after we had them, she did not. They are a lot of work, and the winery is a lot of work. She is a businesswoman. A good one. She travels and works all the time. She likes people and wants to move around and know other men. She does not want this, what we had, this life at home with the girls. She knows the country is a good place for the children, but Aurelia is glamorous. The girls are a beautiful accessory for her, nothing more.”

“The girls must miss her.”

He shrugged, a small smile on his face and a soft look in his eyes. “They get what they can from her. She brings expensive gifts and takes them to nice hotels. This is how she loves them. They have fun with her and come home to me to have a family. They are young but so smart. They understand what they will never get from her.”

Tabitha’s breath hitched in her throat when she asked him the next question. “How old are they?”

“Twelve. Aurelia left when they were two.”

“What are their names?”

He looked far away. “Alessia and Nicoletta. They are my life. I never understood how Aurelia could— Well.”

“My twin sister is Gabrielle. Did I tell you that already?”

He smiled, a knowing look in his eyes. “You did not tell me about her, but I guessed that you were a twin the night we met.”

Tabitha stopped and considered his comment. “What do you mean you guessed? You can tell?”

He stood to finish dressing. “You have a way about you; I can tell you are connected to something. When we met, you had lost your husband, but I could tell you were—what is the word? Sewn together? Your hands are always clasped to your twin. My girls are that way. I am very happy that they are twins. Without one another, I do not believe they would be so satisfied, so contenta, even though they do not have a mother who cares for them.”

Tabitha turned back to look in the mirror as if to continue putting on makeup. But she was grateful Giovanni was occupied getting dressed, as she could not move to finish. Her eyes had unexpectedly filled with tears, and her hand trembled so hard that she thought she might stab herself in the eyeball with her mascara wand. She glanced down at her phone but resisted picking it up to call her sister. She knew already how the call would proceed—he said we were sewn together and even when I was lost he could tell that I had my hands clasped to you. And she knew, without a doubt, what Gabrielle’s response would be. That is kind of weird and creepy and serial killer to say we are sewn together, but also cute and totally true and also how is the sex?

Tabitha dabbed off the mascara that had smeared beneath her eye. Someday soon she would tell Gabrielle about this conversation. Tabitha suspected that the way she would describe the moment would be that it had never occurred to her that the most intimate moment with Giovanni would be when they were both fully dressed. And she also suspected that her sister would understand that.