Page 5 of Italian Weddings

Out of nowhere, time seemed to have developed an amorphous quality and Willow was back in his old apartment, on that rainy night when he’d pulled her against his body and kissed her as though his life depended on it, and she’d been oh so dreadfully tempted to succumb.

To help him strip her out of her clothes, to kiss him all over, to kiss away his grief and sadness, to kiss him until they were making love.

Because she’d wanted that.

She’d wanted him.

Deep down, beneath their friendship, was that same little school girl crush she’d felt all those years ago, when she’d first met Francesco and thought him to be the most beautiful man that had ever walked this earth. Not his brothers. Not his cousins.

Just Francesco.

It was a crush she’d conquered through sheer grit.

But at his father’s funeral, she’d seen something in him that was so familiar to her it had been like an instant bond was formed.

Francesco Santoro, so strong and hard-headed, was, in fact, lost. Lost like Willow had been lost, so many times in her life. Lost, as if there was no place on this earth that perfectly suited. Lost, like you had no idea where you should be, and who might want you.

She’d only intended to help him through the difficult patch, but somehow, with each text and call and visit to his apartment, she’d felt that stitch of attraction re-forming, deep down inside of her.

Except, Francesco was a date-o-matic, forever hooking up with a different new woman, and Willow knew that if they gave into the surface level attraction, it would spell the end of their friendship. She hadn’t been willing to let that happen.

That was all ancient history, anyway. She had Tom—at least, she would have him again, at some point. When they could work through their issues, and she could screw up the courage to tell her father and stepmother about him.

“Francesco,” Baxter’s voice was just as polished as his custom-made shoes, from the tip of which to the very last hair on his head were all perfectly groomed and arranged to remind everyone that he was a charming, diffident aristocrat.

Meredith was at his side, wearing a navy blue skirt suit with a large diamond necklace at her slender throat.

Her hair, a lustrous brown, was cut into a neat bob, and her nails were painted a pearlescent white.

“Darling, we were so thrilled when Willow told us your news.”

Following behind them were Willow’s younger half-sisters, Kathryn and Aria.

“Delighted, delighted,” Baxter added, shaking Francesco’s hand with enough enthusiasm to create the cover for Willow to be able to slip a few steps away from Francesco and regain her breath—and sanity.

“Well, there’s no need to stand here in this cold,” Meredith said, then threw a perplexed glance at Willow. “Really, Willow, why haven’t you brought Francesco inside already?”

“They looked perfectly happy out here alone,” Aria said with a wink at her half-sister, earning a slight flutter of impatience from Meredith.

“Yes, well, the hors’ doeuvre will be entirely spoilt if we don’t hurry,” Meredith replied, one last little look of displeasure for Willow before she offered a broad smile in Francesco’s direction. “Come, darling, come along inside.”

But he waited back with Willow, and when the group was far enough away to be out of earshot, he leaned down and whispered against Willow’s ear, so she felt his warm breath flush her skin, “Yes, we can’t have the hors’ doeuvre getting ruined.”

She glanced up at him and laughed, beginning to relax. Because this was Francesco, one of her oldest friends. Everything was going to be completely fine.

Francesco was used to big family events. When you were a Santoro, participation in the regular pizza dinners that his uncle Gianni hosted was not optional. It was more than a birthright; it was a dyed in the wool expectation. But Santoro dinners were very different to this.

Chalk and cheese.

Or Pizza and Pate.

Santoro occasions were full of food, wine, lively music and conversation, relaxed by the pool unless the weather absolutely drove them indoors, as it tended to around Christmas and New Years.

They chatted about their lives, their work, their concerns; they shared their worries, their triumphs.

They were a family. But Francesco was starting to realise that not all families operated in the same way.

If he had to choose a single word to describe the Von Bates gathering, it would be…frigid.

Even the chairs were cold and awkward, he thought, as he rearranged himself on the seat that was too small for a man his size, and too upright for anyone.

It was also very, very old, so with each movement Francesco made to try to find a more comfortable position, the chair gave a little creak of complaint, a taunt, a threat that if he didn’t stay still, the chair was going to give out on him altogether.

Willow sat to his left, looking as though the chair was, in fact, the most comfortable chair that had ever chaired. Her shoulders were a perfect level, her head held high, and when she wasn’t eating, her hands were clasped neatly in her lap.

She was like a statue.

Her stepmother was exactly the same.

The twins showed a little more animation, though whenever it burst through—like sunshine from behind the clouds—Meredith was there with a quick reprimand. Never mind that they were nineteen years old and of an age when they should have been messing around and playing the clown.

He compressed his lips and tried to conceal any hint of disapproval from his features, as Baxter continued to talk about global shipping trends, and an investment he’d recently made that was turning out to be far more profitable than he’d anticipated.

Usually, it was just the kind of topic Francesco would have found himself enjoying, even contributing to, but the suffocating atmosphere of the formal dining room was almost too much to bear.

He also, as a rule, had no issue with hunting, when done humanely and quickly. But the sheer number of mounted buck heads that were staring down on them with those long, profoundly awe inspiring antlers and glassy eyes, was unnerving, to say the least.

“You know, they all have names,” Willow whispered, as she gently dabbed imaginary soup from the sides of her pastel pink mouth, and glanced up at him quickly. Conversation had moved from shipping to the party guests, and Meredith was now actively involved and no longer paying attention to Willow.

He looked down at his fake girlfriend, not understanding.

“That’s Garth,” she nodded towards the buck above the fireplace. “He’s very old. My grandfather got him, on the edge of the property.”

He followed her gaze, frowning a little.

“That there is Nixon. My dad’s first kill. That’s Regis. And Remi. That’s Fawcett. And that poor unfortunate chap is Nevil.”

“Nevil?”

“Mmm.”

“You sound as though you don’t like Nevil.”

“I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“He has the misfortune of sharing a name with a boy who made me cry once.”

Francesco leaned closer. “What did he do?”

“Pulled my hair,” she said. His eyes widened, and she laughed.

“It was the first day of nursery school; I never forgave him.”

Francesco relaxed. He hadn’t liked the protective instincts her comment had raised in him, the way the image of anyone hurting her had made him tense up.

“So, you named a deer after him.”

“Oh, yes. Very happily.”

He laughed again. Which was a mistake, because it drew the attention of Meredith, her eyes, a stony grey, fixing on him with unashamed curiosity.

“You know, I’m surprised Willow failed to mention your relationship,” Meredith said, as she reached for her champagne glass and took a generous sip.

“We agreed we’d keep it quiet, to start with,” Francesco heard himself say, surprised at the ease with which the lie emerged. “We’re old family friends, after all.”

Beneath the table, Willow’s hand reached out and squeezed his thigh. In gratitude, or a plea for him to stop? She withdrew it again, just as quickly, but that did nothing to dispel the arrows of warmth that were darting through his body.

“All the more reason to tell us,” Baxter said. “It’s wonderful news. Willsy isn’t really one for dating, you know. We were starting to wonder if she might not be interested in it at all,” he shrugged, and the same protective instincts were flaring to life inside Francesco once more.

“Willow,” Meredith chided with irritation unmistakable in her polished tones, her disdain for the diminutive version of that name clear. “Just hadn’t met the right man.”

Something slicked inside of Francesco. A tension, which overtook protective instincts for Willow.

She’d made this sound so easy, but suddenly, he was looking down the barrel of how this faux-relationship would end, and he didn’t particularly like to contemplate that.

For one thing, he suspected Willow’s family wouldn’t accept that he’d somehow done the breaking up, no matter how blithely she’d suggested his dating history would come to their rescue.

For another, he had a feeling they’d see it as further evidence of her failure in this department.

But worse was the unmistakable realization that they were starting to think of him as ‘the right man’, when he most definitely wasn’t.

He wasn’t what Willow needed.

Beyond his certainty that they’d be great in bed together, there was no way he was a good fit for Willow.

Or anyone. It had been almost two decades since Francesco came to understand that he wasn’t willing to risk getting into a real relationship.

Not having seen the way it turned out, if something went wrong.

“Well, she’d met him,” Baxter pointed out, thumbing in Francesco’s direction. “How old were you, Willsy, that year we went to Italy and stayed with the Santoros?”

He glanced across at Willow. Apart from a hint of pink in her cheeks, she looked completely unbothered by the memory. “Around ten, I think.”

Yes, she’d been ten, and him fifteen. He’d thought she was a sweet kid, if totally different to any girl he’d ever met, with her pale English skin and very posh attitudes, even then.

She hadn’t wanted to do any of the things he and his brothers had always loved as kids, from climbing trees to rolling down the hills, to swimming in the lake on the southern edge of the estate.

Instead, she’d sat under a tree, with her legs curled elegantly to the side, and read her way through a whole series of fantasy novels.

“And you couldn’t get your head out of your books,” he murmured, and hey, what the hell? They were playing the part of a couple, so it didn’t hurt to reach over and flick her arm teasingly. As if it were the most natural thing in the world.

She glanced up at him sharply. Too sharply. As though she was surprised by the gentle contact.

His eyes held a warning— remember our roles —and she softened her features into a smile. “I’d just discovered Harry Potter,” she said, eyes nostalgic. “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but they’re quite unputdownable.”

“So you said, at the time.”

It was just about the only time she’d shown animation, her features moving from glacial—like Meredith’s, he realized now—to alight with excitement and enthusiasm, as though she were glowing from the inside out.

Another memory came to him, and his smile widened. “I seem to remember you spending a fair amount of time waving a stick in the air, too.”

Her cheeks progressed to dark red. “Maybe.”

“Casting a spell?” he couldn’t resist teasing.

“If you must know, yes.”

He laughed, and across the table, the twins did, too.

“I can’t imagine you playing magic games,” Aria said with a shake of her head. “Or any games, for that matter.”

“I—,” she glanced across the table at Meredith, then mutinously at Francesco. “I didn’t know anyone was watching.”

He reached down, unable to resist, tilting her chin towards him. “I wasn’t watching; I happened to walk past and saw you. You really were waving it around enthusiastically, though. Clearly you thought you were on the brink of a magic spell breakthrough.”

“Yes, well,” she muttered, before apparently remembering their supposed relationship and once again smiling. “You had better behave yourself, or I shall turn you into a frog. I still have my wand, you know.”

“But then I would just have to ask my princess for a kiss,” he pointed out, and Kathryn made a swooning noise.

“You guys are ridiculously cute.”

“Kathryn,” Meredith intoned sharply. “They are not children or puppies; they are not cute.”

“Fine. Sweet.” She turned to Meredith. “Or would you prefer sexy?”

Meredith’s jaw dropped, but to their surprise, Baxter laughed. “Alright, alright, that’s enough. Francesco, come and have a whisky with me. I can’t tell you how nice it is to finally have another man in the house.”

Before Francesco stood, he leaned forward to whisper in Willow’s cheek, “Your sister thinks we’re sexy.”

Willow turned a little, to whisper back, “Then we’re doing an excellent job of fooling them all. Good night, Francesco.”