Page 19 of Italian Weddings
He leaned over and pressed a finger to her chin, his eyes boring into hers. “Reassurance, hmm?”
She nodded once.
“How’s this?” He put his other hand on her knee, squeezing gently.
“For the next two nights, you and I are going to just relax into this. Talk, laugh, make love. Forget that it’s fake.
Because when we leave here, and get back to London, it’s over, and we’ll have a clean break for a while. For the sake of our friendship.”
She felt like ice had been poured down her spine, but she nodded anyway, because this plan made sense. “Yeah,” she said, clearing her throat and trying again. “That sounds okay.”
“Just okay?” He arched a brow, and she laughed.
“Are you looking for compliments, Francesco?”
“It’s always nice to be wanted.”
She ignored the pang in the centre of her chest, that reminded her of how unwanted she’d always known herself to be. How much she didn’t belong, even in her own family.
The car drew to a stop out the front of the villa and Willow glanced over Francesco’s shoulder, towards the home.
Something shifted inside of her then. That sense of ‘coming back’ returned, but she imagined how it must have been for Francesco.
This was his home. The place he did belong, where he was wanted.
Unlike Willow, he was an important part of a big, interwoven family, bursting at the seams with love and respect. They were all different, yet they worked alongside one another. She’d seen it from the sidelines for years—she’d just never thought she’d be jettisoned to the centre of it.
A pang of guilt clutched her insides, as this harmless plan—developed on the spur of the moment, with the aim of getting her stepmother off her back—suddenly seemed to have taken on a life of its own. And drawn a whole lot more people into the mix.
“I’m sorry about this,” she said, looking back into his eyes and feeling a hard thudding of her heart.
“What are you sorry for, cara?”
“You agreed to help me, and now, I feel like I’m…”
“Willow, listen to me,” he said, moving his hand from her chin to her cheek. “You know me. Do you think I would have brought you here, to carry on this ruse, if on some level I wasn’t having fun?”
Her heart skidded. “Umm…no?”
He nodded slowly. “That’s why this has to be the end of it,” he said, gently. “One last weekend, then it’s over. Neither of us wants this to get out of hand.”
She nodded, in complete agreement, even when a part of her worried that they’d already let it.
From that first kiss, out the front of her parents’ house, something had shifted between them.
She just hoped that through the sheer strength of their combined will, they’d be able to put Pandora back in the box. But, no.
She wouldn’t let it. She’d made her heart a promise, to protect her, and Willow intended to see that through. They were both in agreement, then. One last weekend, then a break, so they could one day resume their friendship without any of this getting in the way.
“Okay,” she kept her voice light. “Let’s do this.”
“The first pizza is usually the safest,” Portia Santoro offered with a grimace, gesturing to the plate that Gianni had just placed on the outdoors table.
Despite it being the depths of winter, the evening was not too cold, and outdoor fires had been lit on the vine covered terrace of the Santoro family villa.
“Oh, God,” Willow grimaced. “I’ve heard about the pizzas. Why did I not think to eat beforehand?”
Portia grinned. “It’s weird, but you kind of get used to it.”
“Wasn’t there a banana pizza one time?” Willow asked Portia—who had worked for Dante Santoro for years before falling in love with his younger brother Marco and getting married to him.
“Oh, it wasn’t just banana. There was also prosciutto and honey on the same pizza.”
Willow felt nausea rising inside of her at the idea alone.
“That wasn’t as bad as the scampi and marmalade scenario,” Maddie approached them, holding a pitcher of mineral water, which she placed on the table.
“How did I forget that one?” Portia said with a laugh.
“Protectively selective memory?”
“Or possible LSD side effects of the ingredients?” Maddie countered with a grin. “Hi, I’m Maddie,” she said. “I think we met briefly, at Raf and Marcia’s wedding?”
“Right,” Willow nodded. “You did those incredible flowers?”
Rocco Santoro beamed with pride as he approached and caught the tail end of the conversation, putting an arm around his wife Maddie’s waist. “They were incredible flowers.”
“Where are Raf and Marcia?” Willow asked, glancing around. She’d always liked Francesco’s younger brother, even when his wife was a bit hard to take.
Maddie and Rocco exchanged a glance. “He’s not coming.”
“I thought everyone had to be here,” Willow said. “I had some very strong arm twisting to come for this weekend.”
“Raf couldn’t make it,” Francesco reappeared at their sides, his eyes meeting Rocco’s, so Willow frowned.
“Is he okay?”
Francesco forced a smile. “Did anyone offer you a drink?”
“What do you take us for?” Portia asked, in mock offence, but in a way that also had Willow wondering: was she covering something? Were they all?
That sense of not being wanted, not being included—of being a perennial outsider—came out of nowhere, wrapping around her so hard and so fast, she almost lost her breath.
“They did,” she murmured, “but I think I might go top up my wine.” She glanced down at her glass, that had a few sips remaining and quickly drained it. “Excuse me.”
And just like that, her eyes stung as though she were going to cry, and she had no idea why.