“Really?” George remarked.

“Ja, this place was like the Studio 54 of Capri in its day.”

Lucie wasn’t sure whether to believe this woman, but she was fascinated all the same. “So how did Fersen die?”

“They say it was suicide, that he drank a lethal cocktail of champagne and cocaine in his opium den. But you know, I don’t believe that. His spirit is telling me that he wouldn’t kill himself like that.”

Lucie and George contemplated her words for a moment, and when George looked up, he saw his mother waving at him from a few tables down, trying to get his attention. “Excuse me for a moment,” he said, getting up from the table.

Lucie smiled at Petra, deciding that she liked this girl in spite of her strange stories and all her talk of spirits. Petra returned Lucie’s smile and said, “You know there’s a full moon tonight. Anything can happen. I’m so glad I changed the place cards for us.”

Lucie’s jaw dropped. “You changed the place cards?”

“Yes. I was staring at the seating chart up at Villa Jovis, and the name card beside us said ‘Colby,’ and I thought, No, no, that’s not right. There isn’t supposed to be a Colby sitting between me and you. The energy is all wrong. So I looked around and something made me pick up George’s card. And when I placed the card next to us, I could feel the flow. I thought, Lucie and George and Petra. We three were meant to be together tonight.”

Lucie looked at her with a mixture of surprise and confusion.

Petra caught her look and gave a throaty laugh. “I hope you didn’t think I meant a three-way! No, thank you, I’m not into three-ways. I did it for you and George.”

“I’m not sure why,” Lucie said stiffly.

“Oh, come on. The chemistry between you two is crazy. All my chakras are opening just thinking of you two!”

“But I don’t really know him.”

Petra laughed again and shook her head. “You two have known each other over many lifetimes. You just don’t realize it yet.”

You two have known each other over many lifetimes. The words echoed in Lucie’s mind all through the five-course dinner, the toasts made by various Chius and De Vecchis, the cutting of the wedding cake, the handing out of bomboniere, and Isabel’s first dance with Dolfi while some guy named Erosfn4 serenaded them and all the Italians went nuts, and even now, as she wandered the grounds of Villa Jovis, Lucie couldn’t shake off Petra’s words no matter how hard she tried.

Isabel and Dolfi had invited their closest friends to the wedding after-party back up at Villa Jovis, where the palace’s ruins had been luxuriously outfitted with velvet ottomans and sofas, fur throws, and painted silk lanterns. This being Italy, everyone lingering about the villa’s grand chamber seemed to be smoking either cigarettes or joints, and Lucie opted to get some fresh air instead. Besides, George hadn’t paid her any attention since dinner, and now he seemed all too happy to be curled up in the corner, deep in conversation with Daniella and Sophie.

Taking the lit pathway around the side of the palace’s outer wall, Lucie walked by Tiberius’s Leap again and spotted a glowing stairway that she hadn’t noticed earlier in the day. Curious, she went down the steps and through a heavy rusted metal door and discovered a narrow candlelit chamber. The chamber was built into the cliffside, its ceiling eroded away by time and open to the stars. A seating area had been carved out of the rocks, and at the far end, a small window faced the sea.

Lucie went up and peered out at the view. The waters looked almost phosphorescent tonight under the gigantic moon, and Lucie wished she could go swimming in the moonlight. She wondered what it must be like inside the fabled Blue Grotto during a full moon, and she decided that no matter what happened, she had to see the grotto tomorrow. It would be their last day on Capri.

She suddenly realized how silly she had been, nursing this strange fascination with George, when after tomorrow she would in all likelihood never see him again. Petra was dead wrong—George had no interest in her; he had made it abundantly clear all week long. She was the one who fainted in the square, she was the one who slobbered like a little girl on his shoulder, she was the one who had thrown herself at him in Positano.

While he had been polite to a fault, he had for all intents and purposes ignored her after that. He had ignored her at the monastery, he had ignored her on the yacht, and he was ignoring her right now. Why did she even entertain the notion that someone like him could possibly be interested in her, when up at the villa there was a bevy of beautiful, sophisticated women clinging to his every word. She must have been swept up in wedding fever, in the waxing moon, in the romance of Capri.

As she was about to leave the chamber, she heard the sound of someone coming down the steps, and a moment later George appeared at the threshold.

For some reason, she knew it was going to be him.

“Are you stalking me?” she joked, trying to sound nonchalant, although she could hear her voice quivering.

“Yes, actually.”

“Really. Why?”

“Because I need to give you this,” George said, as he suddenly leaned forward and kissed her. Taken by surprise, she lurched backward for a moment, before reaching around, grabbing his head, pulling him closer, and kissing him hungrily.

“Isabel told everyone last night that you were her little angel, you were off-limits. That’s why I went home,” George whispered as he kissed the area right below her ear.

“Fuck Isabel. I was off-limits to everyone but you,” Lucie muttered, surprised by her own words as she realized at that moment how much she wanted him, from the first moment she had set eyes on him in the lunchroom of the hotel to the vision of him as a godlike Apollo diving off the rock at Da Luigi, she had wanted him so desperately she could hardly breathe, gasping deeply while he shoved the heavy door closed with his foot, pressed her body against the ancient stone wall, kissing her throat, her neck, letting his mouth linger, as she reached for him urgently. They lay on the bench and he kissed her for what seemed like an eternity, but Lucie didn’t want it to ever stop, and as his fingers and lips found her breasts and tortured her so exquisitely, she found herself pushing his head down, down, down, until her diaphanous skirt pooled around his head and she could feel his stubble graze her inner thigh, his searing tongue on her skin, hearing him murmur, “Are you sure it’s okay?” as she answered with a moan, opening herself to him, closing her eyes as time collapsed and she submitted in a way she never had before, letting herself get lost in a pleasure so intense she thought she was going to pass out, holding her breath, biting her lip trying not to scream as his warm sweat beaded down her legs, her heart pounding in her chest, pounding as if it would explode, pounding louder and louder until a scream filled her ears and she realized it wasn’t coming from her and wasn’t coming from George, but from Charlotte.

Charlotte was pounding on the door, screaming, “Stop it! Stop it, you two! The drone! The drone can see you! The damn drone is filming everything!”

Lucie opened her eyes and saw a drone hovering above them, a tiny point of light flashing, flashing. Flashing red.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Hotel Bertolucci

Capri, Italy