Page 7 of Italian Weddings

“Briefly, yes. This is the most time I’ve ever spent in her company, though.”

“Ah. And you’re surprised by her?”

“Frankly, yes.”

“In what way?”

“Honestly?”

“Of course.”

“She doesn’t seem to like you very much.”

At that, Willow burst out laughing.

“You find that funny?” he asked, obviously surprised.

“No, I really don’t. I just…the way you said that. I don’t know. It’s…hard to explain.”

“Try.”

Her smile slipped, and she sighed. “It’s not that she doesn’t like me; it’s just a little complicated.”

“You are her stepdaughter. The daughter of her husband. The sister of her daughters. You’re family. What is complex about that?”

“I wouldn’t expect you to be able to understand.”

“Why not?”

“Because you have this amazing, big family. Look at the way you all rally around each other, all the time. Even Marcia,” she tacked on, because she knew enough to know that none of the brothers or cousins liked Raf’s new wife, but that they still kept that disapproval to themselves, in the aim of supporting Raf.

Yes, the Santoros were nothing if not wonderful, and loving.

The kind of family, if she were honest, that she’d always dreamed of belonging to.

She couldn’t think of Gianni and Maria and their warm, affectionate home without experiencing a sensation akin to stepping from the shadows into the morning sun.

“That is what family is supposed to be.”

She laughed then, a short sound of retort.

“You disagree?”

“Oh, I absolutely agree. It would be a wonderful thing—a much better world, to be honest—if all families were like yours. I can’t even imagine what that must have been like, to grow up just knowing that you’re loved and accepted as you are.”

“To be fair, my family was not exactly like that.”

She winced. She knew that. “I meant your broader family.”

“I know,” his voice, though, was the same as always. No hurt. No annoyance.

Of course. Because this was Francesco Santoro, level-headed, confident, in command.

“But your father wasn’t great,” she said, softly now, because she’d seen the wound left by his father’s death, up close and personal. It was something he’d struggled, for at least six months, to recover from.

“No.” Francesco shifted on the floor, and one of the boards creaked. She grimaced a little.

“Did I tell you it’s a very old house?”

He laughed softly.

“Not missing your immaculate, art-gallery-come-penthouse, just a little?”

“Believe it or not, no.”

She glanced down at him. “Your father has an exceptional collection of whisky. If nothing else, I’ll enjoy sampling my way through it this weekend.”

She made a mock wounded noise then reached for a pillow, aiming it at him before dropping it back to the bed.

“Go to sleep, Willow. I understand there are activities planned for tomorrow.”

“Ugh,” she said, rolling onto her side. “Don’t remind me.”

A deep, gruff laugh. “Not your thing?”

“Oh, I love games, as much as the next person. But this is…next level. To say my stepmother is competitive is putting it lightly.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Francesco had never been so glad to see the drizzly English rain in his life as he was around lunchtime the next day, when the bad turn of the weather meant the ‘game’ of croquet was to be suspended.

Competitive was one thing.

A bully totally another, and he was beginning to think that Meredith Von Bates was very squarely in the latter category.

Whilst Kathryn and Aria, he surmised were busy making each other giggle, and Baxter seemed utterly ignorant to the way Meredith constantly picked and critiqued every single decision Willow made in a day.

Starting from the minute they appeared, side by side, in the breakfast room, and Meredith regarded Willow over the rims of her glasses with a severe frown and a little, “I never thought green was your colour, dear.” Never mind the fact Willow made an excellent living as a stylist to other wealthy socialites and had a pretty good handle on what suited her.

So, Francesco had disagreed, pointing out that Willow looked great in every colour. He did it partly to peeve Meredith off, partly because it was what a doting lover might say, but mostly, because it was true. Willow’s dress sense was flawless.

After that, Willow received a metaphorical slap on the wrist for taking too much food from the buffet—Francesco had leaned into his role at that point, and suggested she must have been a little worn out.

Crass, but his fuse had been lit and he’d started to enjoy shocking Willow’s stepmother.

Once they’d gone outside, Baxter had bailed him up for more business talk, but by then, Francesco had had an ear trained permanently on Meredith and Willow.

She was scolded for the way her hair fell out of its bun a little, the way she struck a ball, the way she slouched her shoulders, the fact she checked her phone—once—during the game.

By the end of it, Francesco’s mood was as dark as the storm clouds gathering over the grand old country estate. The clouds had beaten him to bursting point by minutes, at best.

“For God’s sake , Willow,” he muttered under his breath, finally managing to free himself from Baxter and drag Willow away from her so-called family. “She is truly awful.”

Willow, though, was smiling serenely. “Didn’t I mention that?”

“You said she was competitive…”

“Yes, and she knows I can beat her in croquet. It’s a mental game, Francesco. I like to get in her head from the morning.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I know she hates it when I wear green,” Willow said, with a shrug.

Francesco stared at her. “ Cristo,” he spat. “You are a grown woman. What business does she have hating, or having an opinion on, for that matter, anything that you choose to wear?”

Willow blinked up at him and shrugged. “Who knows? But every time she tells me something like that, it gives me the power to use it against her.”

“She’s awful,” he repeated.

“She’s nuanced,” Willow diffused, in a way that bordered on defensive of her stepmother. Like some kind of Stockholm syndrome, he figured, shaking his head, because he wasn’t following Willow’s line of defense.

“Didn’t you see me hook my hair out of my bun?”

He shook his head, dropping his gaze to her still loose hair, then wishing he hadn’t, because it was so soft and silky, shimmering like black silk in the light cast by the hallway lamps.

And from the ends of her hair, it was a very short trek inland, to the swell of her neat breasts, visible through the tightness of her green sweater.

His hand formed a fist at his side.

“It’s juvenile of me,” she said, oblivious to the inner battle being raged between his head and his cock. “But she’s so easy to annoy.”

He stared at her.

“I know how it must seem,” she admitted after a beat, mistaking his silence, perhaps, for skepticism.

“But if I hadn’t developed this…coping mechanism…

as a teenager, she would have destroyed me.

I didn’t know how to handle her, so I took back the power in the only way I had available to me.

I leaned into her irritation. I sought it out, so that whenever she criticized me, I’d feel like I had scored a victory, not the other way around. ”

“I hate that you have had to live like this,” he said, shocked by how profoundly and deeply he did hate that.

“It’s fine,” she said, shaking her head, smiling, but in a way that he hated even more, because it didn’t come close to reaching her eyes. He had the feeling he was being managed, in fact, just as she managed her stepmother.

It was the last thing he wanted.

“Willow—,”

But what could he say? What could he offer her, beyond the support he’d already promised.

He reached down and grabbed her hand, holding it in his, appreciating, for the first time, how fine and delicate it was, and yet, how perfectly it fit in his clasp.

“What are you doing?”

“Being your boyfriend,” he reminded her, wondering at the darkness in his tone. “For another forty-eight hours, anyway.”