Page 6 of Italian Weddings

T HE MINUTE SHE WALKED into her room and saw Francesco’s bags there, she realized her oversight.

Naturally, the housekeeper had assumed Francesco would share Willow’s room.

Or perhaps her stepmother had given the instructions.

She was clearly very pleased with Willow’s apparent choice of boyfriend, and would want to show how supportive she was of the union.

But this?

Sharing a room with Francesco?

Willow looked around despairingly, large, pale blue eyes taking in the double bed, small settee, dressing table and desk.

It was not a small room, by any stretch, but the proportions of everything were in accordance with the teenager she’d been when she left home for good.

It was almost laughable to imagine Francesco in this space.

But Willow didn’t laugh. She kept looking from the bed to the floor, the wheels of her mind churning furiously as she tried to come up with a solution.

Like…she had some kind of rash and needed her space. Or they were being old fashioned and waiting till marriage. As if anyone would believe that. Perhaps she could say that Francesco had nightmares and his screaming would wake Willow? Or that…

No.

It was no good.

There was no excuse she could give that wouldn’t sound strange, and potentially raise alarm bells with her parents. And the last thing she wanted was for her stepmother to think Willow had found the perfect boyfriend, only to lose him straight away.

She sighed heavily, carefully skirting around Francesco’s bags. Gawd, even his tote was unswervingly masculine, with its black leather and brown details. She showered quickly and kept an eye on the door as she dressed, heart racing at the mere thought of Francesco arriving when she was near naked.

He didn’t interrupt though. In fact, Willow had time to climb into bed, read a chapter of her book (one eye still trained on the door), turn out the light and fret for fifteen minutes or so, before—when she was just finally in the early stages of sleep—the door opened and the light flickered on.

“ Cristo!” Came Francesco’s loud explanation. “Willow?” he looked as surprised as she’d been. “This is your room?”

She sat up in bed, keeping the sheet tucked under her arms, and nodded. She was wearing a cotton nightie, hardly the last word in seduction, yet she felt incredibly exposed and vulnerable, having him in her childhood bedroom.

“Your father just pointed to this door, and told me it was my room. I didn’t realise?—,”

“No, I didn’t either. That is to say, I didn’t think about it, and I should have, because if I’d known in advance that this was going to be the sleeping arrangement, naturally I should have come up with an excuse to get us both out of…

” she gestured helplessly towards the other side of the bed. “I didn’t think,” she repeated.

But Francesco was moving deeper into the room, lifting up his bag and placing it on Willow’s very feminine and delicate antique dressing table. The bag looked as out of place in here, amongst the pink and white floral wallpaper, as Francesco himself did.

“It’s okay,” he was saying. “This is not the end of the world.”

Speak for yourself, Willow thought with a grimace.

“We can sleep in the same room, can’t we?” he prompted, a teasing note in his voice that irked her.

“Of course we can. I don’t take up much room,” she added, though her eyes dropped suspiciously to the other half of the bed—which was no match for Francesco’s size.

He laughed. “But I do. It’s fine, cara. I’ll sleep on the floor.”

She was momentarily blindsided by his use of the word ‘cara’, a term of endearment he’d never used with her.

In fact, he’d never called her anything other than Willow.

So, it took her brain a moment to catch up with the fact he was suggested sleeping not on the bed but rather on the ancient timber floor.

“Don’t be absurd,” she said. “The floor is as cold as ice and harder than granite.”

“I did not have you pegged for an abuser of superlatives,” he said. “Besides, you have a fire. It won’t take me long to light it.”

“The fire?” Her heart began to race. Fires in bedrooms were one of Willow’s favourite things, and she often lit hers, though she’d been too distracted and tired tonight. But the thought of crackling heat and the romantic flickering of flames whilst Francesco was here with her seemed a little much.

Except, he was right. She was being absurd.

They were friends. Friends who’d spent a lot of time together and never crossed that line.

With the exception of that one night, when he’d been drunk and grieving, and she’d been tempted in a way that had caught her completely unawares.

If anything, that experience should act as insurance against the possibility of anything unnecessary happening now.

She’d known temptation and walked away from it—and she’d do so again, over and over.

Besides, what about Tom, a voice in the back of her head demanded indignantly.

True, they’d broken up, but that hadn’t been Willow’s choice.

She’d been devastated, convinced she could win him back.

So why was she suddenly feeling as though she was a tiny little bug that was stuck in Francesco’s spider web?

Why did she suddenly feel as though she was minutely aware of every single one of his movements?

Like the way his pants strained over his muscular thighs as he bent down to check the fireplace and add some more pinecones.

Or the way his hands moved with such deft, confident motions.

Or the richness of his tan, or the masculine angles of his face and body.

She was not an artist, and yet she felt an urge to draw him on paper.

She could easily imagine the sharp, bold lines she would use to render his frame.

“There,” he stood, rubbing his hands together, as flames began to light in the grate. “That will help.”

“You really don’t have to sleep on the floor.”

He shot her a droll expression. “You know there is only one way we could both sleep in a bed that size, Willow,” he said, slowly though, as if she really didn’t understand.

“Oh?”

“It would involve one of us spooning the other, all night long.”

She was tempted to say, ‘so?’ because they were both adults and could surely control themselves, but something held her back. And she didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to guess what that ‘something’ might be.

It was true that long term she intended to find a way to be with Tom, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t also be tempted by other men.

She forced a smile, though, in response to his description. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t really seem like the spooning type.”

“No?”

“I’m guessing you’re more of a wham, bam, thank you, ma’am kind of lover.” Even referring to him as a ‘lover’ stirred something in her bloodstream. She dug her fingernails into her thighs with the effort it took to maintain a neutral expression.

“You wound me, Willow,” he said, but with a grin that belied his words.

She held up a hand, placatingly. “That definitely wasn’t my intention.”

He went to the settee and removed a throw blanket, placing that down on the ground, before striding to the bed to grab a couple of pillows. Her heart seemed to lurch into the base of her throat.

“I don’t tend to do long term relationships, but I’ve never been accused of kicking a woman out of my bed after sex.”

“Aww, so you do snuggle?” she teased, amazed that her voice didn’t reflect the sudden flash of irritation she got at the careless way he referred to lovers.

Which was ridiculous!

They weren’t actually a couple. This was all for show. Pretend. Him doing her a huge favour by coming to her parents’ home and pretending to be her doting boyfriend for the weekend, to get them off her case.

She had no business actually feeling jealous. Maybe she was a method actor, she considered. Isn’t that what method actors did? Throw themselves so completely into a role, any role, that they became the character? As far as theories went, it seemed pretty plausible to Willow.

“What can I say? I’m a tactile person.”

Yes. Definitely method acting, if the erratic throb of her pulse was anything to go by.

He threw a grin over his shoulder as he flicked off the light switch then strode to his makeshift bed—she used that term very loosely—and lay down.

The flames cast enough light for her to see that his long legs overshot the blanket by a ruler’s length at least. He lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

Still, it was way better to have him on the floor than in her bed, she reminded herself. Easier to keep the lines straight if they weren’t spooning, as he’d put it.

She flopped back onto the pillows, and gave the ceiling the same attention he was, eyes boring into the ancient plaster.

His breathing was soft, and even, so sometime later, she began to resent how easily he’d fallen asleep.

She rolled onto her side and stared at the wall that housed her desk.

Willow had spent term times at boarding school, but when she came home, she’d taken a form of refuge in here, and studied at the desk for hours at a stretch.

When she hadn’t been studying, she’d devoured whatever she could find in her father’s prized library.

There hadn’t been many contemporary titles—he’d inherited the library and knew enough about books to know that it was an impressive collection, but he was no collector.

Nor was he a reader. The lack of modern offerings hadn’t bothered Willow, anyway.

She’d lost herself in Dickens, Austen, Heyer, any of the classics she could lay her hands on.

“What’s the story with her, anyway?”

Willow blinked. “You’re still awake?”

“Evidently,” he drawled.

Her lips tugged to the side. “Who?”

“Your stepmother.”

“Oh.”

“You don’t really talk about her.”

“Don’t I?”

“A comment here and there.”

“You’ve met her before.”