Page 47 of Italian Weddings

T HE SECOND SHE SAID it, he felt the danger wrapping around him, like a boa constrictor, making it hard to breathe. Because she was wrong about him, and in realising that, he realised the very real danger of what they were doing here.

He’d been so confident, even an hour earlier, that their agreed upon rules made this easy to contain.

That they could sleep together for four weeks and then walk away, no harm, no foul.

But the problem was, what Emilia had just described was exactly how Salvatore felt.

And despite what she might think, that wasn’t normal for him.

He couldn’t remember ever having craved a woman to the point of desperation.

He couldn’t remember ever having been with a woman in the staircase of a six star hotel simply because he couldn’t bear the thought of letting her go without knowing her again.

But he just sat there, silent, because in admitting how she felt to him, how different this was to what she’d expected, she’d already pushed them out onto a ledge.

If he admitted the same thing to her, it would be like dragging them over, into free- fall, with no parachute and no promise.

Their rules would only protect them so far.

And so he took the coward’s way out, and half-way hated himself for it when he saw the self-conscious expression that crossed her face.

“Why is it that you have been with so few men?”

She glanced down at the bubbles, shielding her eyes from him, in an attempt to hide how she felt. But he saw it anyway, and he hated having been the cause.

“I guess I’ve been holding out for something special.”

He felt as though a hole had just formed in his chest, expansive and dark, protective and jealous, because that could never be him.

“What does that look like?” He reached for the champagne bottle and topped up their glasses, simply because he felt like he needed to act as if everything was normal and fine, even when it wasn’t.

“Like my parents’ marriage,” she said, and the hole seemed to twist. His own parents’ marriage was pretty special, too.

He knew what it looked like to have met your perfect other half, even though he’d never sought that for himself.

“Even as a little girl, I just always knew I wanted that for myself.” She sighed softly.

“And then, when I was eighteen, I met Jesse, and I thought I loved him. I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with him.

” As if to forestall whatever comment he might be going to make, she added, “I was eighteen, remember, and allowed to be unrealistic.”

He ignored the temptation to reassure her that it wasn’t necessarily unrealistic to meet the love of your life at eighteen. It just wasn’t for him.

“What happened?”

He generally loved the way she blushed. It was so sweet and innocent.

But seeing her blush now, knowing it was a sense of shame because of something that happened in her relationship with this guy she’d thought she loved had the opposite effect.

His gut seemed to be tightening and something fired inside his chest.

“He was just using me.”

“Using you?”

“For money. Connections. Exposure. At first I thought it was that he was ambitious and wanted us to open doors for him, but now I think he was kind of lazy and just saw my trust fund as an easy way to have a good life. It wasn’t ever about me, though.”

“How do you know?”

Her blush darkened.

“Emilia?” He hadn’t meant for his voice to come out so sharp, to hold such a warning, but she flinched a little, so he cursed softly and reached for her foot, squeezing it in lieu of an apology.

“I heard him talking to his best friend about me.” Her voice was almost unrecognisable, it was so bitter.

“About how boring I was, and how even given the amount of money I had access to, it was hard work spending time with me, let alone making love to me.” Her voice wobbled a little, as though she were about to cry.

“You must have been devastated.”

“Furious,” she corrected. “And then, once I’d had time to process it all, yes, devastated.

I’d grown up with money all my life. I know it sounds stupid but I never really thought about how appealing that would be to someone who didn’t have any.

But to hear your boyfriend—the first guy I ever slept with—talk like that…

it broke something inside me. Not my heart…

but my confidence, I guess. Or maybe it was that he broke everything I’d ever believed in.

Love, marriage, happily ever after. Suddenly it all seemed so stupid to put your hopes of happiness, and all your trust, in someone else.

How can you ever really know a person, anyway?

I mean, I thought I knew Jesse. We were going out for months before we had sex.

And not once did I ever think he was faking it. ”

Salvatore swore. “He sounds like an idiot.”

She laughed, but it was a hollow sound, as if this jerk of a guy still had the power to hurt her. Damn it if that didn’t make Salvatore want to find him and teach him a lesson he wouldn’t forget.

“Yes,” she agreed.

“And then after Jesse?”

“I was single for a long time,” she admitted. “I threw myself into my friendships, my family, the charity. I cultivated an image as a carefree socialite, when the truth is, I care a lot. About everything. Especially protecting myself.”

Her vulnerability was so real and raw that he ached to pull her towards him and hold her until she was all fixed up, but he wasn’t the man to do that.

Salvatore was a temporary fixture, not a fixer.

He was the man who seduced and pleased, took pleasure and gave it without hesitation, without reserve, and then walked away.

Nothing mattered to him. At least, not when it came to the women he dated.

So he stayed where he was, allowing the foot rub he was giving her to be the only outward sign of the compassion that was running thick and fast through his veins.

“So what happened in Moricosia?”

Her eyes widened as she looked at him, and that tightness in his gut intensified. “What do you mean?”

“By your own admission, this isn’t something you just do. So why sleep with me?”

She sipped her drink, her throat shifting delicately as she swallowed. “I thought about that, afterwards, and I think there are two reasons I found it easy to sleep with you.”

“Go on.”

“Well, firstly, there’s a spark. Isn’t there?”

That question at the end hurt him almost physically. Her insecurity and uncertainty, the sense that maybe she was wrong about Salvatore, as she’d been about Jesse.

“Yes, there’s a spark,” he agreed, having no issues reassuring her on that score.

Relief was palpable on her features. “But there’s no hope here.”

He waited for her to continue with the appearance of patience.

“I mean, I was never going to have sex with you and decide that maybe you were going to be The One, you know? You could never be The One.”

He nodded slowly.

“Your family, my family, it makes it impossible. So there’s no way I can be hurt by anything that happens between us, because no matter how good things are,” and now it was Emilia who reached for him, lacing their fingers together and squeezing them, to physically underscore her words.

“We both know it can never, ever be more than this.”

Her smile was slow, and somehow kind of sad, even when her expression didn’t mirror that. He resented how well he could interpret her features, how easily he could read her and spot when she was masking the complexity of her feelings.

“Then it’s a good thing ‘this’ is enough.”

“More than enough,” she agreed, and now her smile was more relaxed.

He ignored the gaping hole in his chest, the tightening in his gut, and focused instead on the fact he was spending the afternoon with a woman he couldn’t get enough of.

She was right, anyway. They both knew there was no future for them, but they could make the most of the here and now.

With that very much in the forefront of his mind, Salvatore placed his champagne flute on the trolley first, and then hers, before leaning forward so he could kiss Emilia, his naked body pressed to hers, so the sensations running through him were almost overwhelming.

And utterly, incomprehensibly perfect.

One week later

Global Hunger Eradication Initiative Gala, New York.

Emilia’s eyes scanned the room even before she realised she was doing it.

Despite the fact she and Salvatore had spent the past week making the most of the privacy their suite afforded, and seeing him was no longer a luxury, there was something about seeing him here, in this environment, that made her insides tremble with anticipation.

At least her brothers weren’t here. For this event, Emilia was the sole Valentino in attendance, which took the pressure off her, to some extent.

There was no need to spend the entire time disguising the way she was looking for Salvatore.

Nor to be afraid one of her sisters in law would notice the way she couldn’t stop looking at him.

The event was being hosted in the foyer of what had once been an enormous, private home—long ago converted to a library by the owners, for the benefit of the city.

Emilia had been here before, for a different event, and had been just as awed then by the stunning architecture as she was now.

Enormous marble pillars created a classical effect that was only enhanced by the soft mood lighting and dramatic floral arrangements.

At the top of the central, sweeping staircase, a string quartet had been set up, and the gentle strains of their music added an elegance to the hum of the room.

Finely dressed guests milled—a mix of wealthy philanthropists, politicians and celebrities, talking and laughing.