Page 3 of Italian Weddings

“I’ve done something kind of stupid,” she said, not able to meet his gaze now.

“That doesn’t sound like you.”

She glanced up at his face, but wished she hadn’t, because he was standing so close and looking at her with such kindness in his features, that it was impossible not to feel like she’d thrown a spear into both of their lives—rather than just hers.

“My stepmother made it very clear that she expects me to have a date for the weekend.”

He nodded, his expression thoughtful. “Why?”

“Well, I guess me being unmarried, and still working, at my age, is not at all what they had in mind for me.”

Francesco’s eyebrows shot towards his hairline. “I’m sorry, what?”

She took a sip of her drink then placed the glass on the nearby tabletop, walking on bare feet towards the windows that framed an exquisite view of the expansive Hyde Park.

“That’s always been their plan for me,” she said and then, because this was Francesco, and she trusted him, she heard herself opening up properly, regardless of her stepmother’s preference that their private life remain completely unspoken of.

“Meredith made it very clear to me that my continued failure to marry someone suitable is a source of great pain to my father. And for his sixtieth, she wants him to be able to enjoy himself—which apparently can’t happen if I come and commit the awful sin of not bringing some Earl or Duke or whatever. ”

Francesco made a gruff laughing sound, but she whirled around.

“It’s not funny.”

He lifted his hands in silent apology.

“The thing is, I have been seeing someone,” she admitted, her heart twisting a little as she thought of Tom.

Francesco’s eyes scanned her face. “Great. So, then you don’t have a problem; you have a date.”

“No, no, you don’t understand. We—aren’t technically together right now, anyway. But even if we were, he’s not…what they would consider suitable. I think Meredith would have kittens if I brought Tom home.”

Francesco closed the distance between them, studying Willow with obvious confusion. “You do realise you’re a twenty five year old woman?”

She tilted her chin defiantly. “Come on, Francesco. You of all people know what overbearing families are like,” she pointed out. While the Santoros might not have been cut from the same cloth as her parents, they still had high expectations for their children and nephews.

“You do not have to fall in with their expectations each and every time, Willow. Sometimes, you can say ‘no’.”

She made a sound of impatience. “No, I can’t.

And the thing is, my stepmother bloody lined up a date for me, for the weekend, and I really, really don’t want to spend the whole time being thrown together with whichever guy she thinks is an advantageous match for me.

” Willow pulled a face. “Seriously, Francesco, this isn’t funny. ”

“Well, what if you start to like whichever guy she’s got in mind for you?”

“I like Tom,” she said.

“But you’re not with Tom.”

“That’s a whole other story,” she said, closing her eyes on a wave of frustration. “I hope that…I hope we’re going to work things out. And in the meantime, I have this problem.”

“Because you don’t want to be set up with a stranger.”

“Or anyone,” she agreed. “So…I might have told a tiny white lie. About you and me. To my stepmother.”

Francesco kept his eyes on her as he sipped his drink. “You might have, or you did?”

She bit into her lip. “I did, if you want to be all technical about it.”

He made a gruff, half-laughing sound.

“Okay. What’s the lie?”

“I told her that we’re dating.”

Francesco’s laugh morphed into something else. “Are you kidding me?”

She felt the blood drain from her face.

“I know,” she said, shaking her head.

“Willow, tell me you’re kidding?”

“I know, I know. I just…it slipped out. I mean, she was badgering me, and making me feel like there must be something fundamentally wrong with me, that I’m still ‘sitting on the shelf’ at the grand old age of twenty five, and I happened to look out of the window and see this building, and think of you…

and how you once said that if I ever needed anything, I should ask… ”

“That was years ago,” he said, shaking his head.

“But you said it. You promised.”

His eyes narrow. “That, Willow, is a low blow.”

“Doesn’t that show you how desperate I am?”

He made a grunting noise.

“It’s just one weekend,” she said. “After that, I’ll tell them we broke up. No one who knows you, and your dating record, will be remotely surprised that we don’t make it as a couple.”

“I think there’s an insult to me in there somewhere.”

“It’s not meant to be an insult,” she promised. “It’s just a statement of fact. You’ve had a lot of girlfriends, and that’s totally fine, obviously.”

“Thank you very much for your approval,” he said, the words a little taut.

“I’m not doing this right,” she groaned.

“I’m asking you for a favour, I shouldn’t be insulting you.

It’s just…I’m desperate. When I told Meredith we were involved, she looked so glad, so proud, as if I’d just cured cancer or something,” she said with a disparaging shake of her head.

“Nothing I ever do—have ever done—has ever made her look at me like that before.”

Francesco’s face was impossible to read, and she was glad. She didn’t want to see sympathy or judgement there. She just had to get this out.

“So…I need you to come with me, this weekend.” She relented quickly, at the tightening of his lips, the fear that he would just dismiss her request outright.

“Even just for one of the dinners. It doesn’t have to be the whole time.

Just something , to get them off my back about dating someone else.

I need space and time to sort things out with Tom, and that I can’t do with them breathing down my neck about getting married to Lord Dumpety Doo or whoever. ”

“I hear Lord Dumpety Doo is actually taken,” Francesco drawled.

“I’m serious,” Willow said, though she laughed a little, even as tears sprung to her eyes. “I need your help, Francesco…”