I spend the next day in a daze, trying to concentrate on work, but the upsetting scene with Matteo plays in my head on a loop. It won’t stop, no matter what I try to distract myself. Anxiety settles over me like a cloud. By the time I return home at seven-thirty, I’m so wound up I guzzle a glass of wine to settle my nerves. I don’t know whether Matteo will strangle me straight off when he arrives at eight or wait until after he gets his kiss to do me in.
But he’s a no-show.
I can’t decide if I’m relieved or worried. What could his absence mean?
I’m out of the house before the sun’s up the next day and back at work. In addition to the new designs we’re making, there are several unfinished bespoke pieces clients had on order before my father died that need to be completed. The day is a flurry of activity. I’m so busy and distracted I forget to obsess over my test results. When I take a break for a late lunch, I check my email on my phone and find a new message instructing me to login to a secure website with the password included to get the results.
I start to sweat like a farm animal and almost throw up.
After splashing water on my face and giving myself a pep talk in the bathroom, I take a seat at my desk. I log on to the site and try to keep my hands steady as I type in the password.
My heart thumps so hard it’s physically painful.
The page takes a hundred years to load. Then the type is so small I have to zoom in and scroll around, searching in a panic for anything resembling the word positive.
It takes a few terrifying minutes, but finally it’s confirmed: I’m negative for everything.
Instead of giving in to the urge to burst into tears, I treat myself to an entire pint of pistachio gelato from the charming little gelateria down the block, then call Danielle, who’s been leaving me increasingly hysterical phone messages. When she picks up, she bypasses a greeting and goes straight into guilt mode.
“I can’t believe you haven’t called me back in two weeks!”
“I know. I’m a terrible friend. But life has decided I’m great for target practice, and I’ve been busy dodging bullets.”
“Your dad. Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.”
“Jenner told you?”
“He did. Also about your shop, your hot stepbrother, your weird stepmother, and the two dress-wearing dogs who eat at the table. I’ve been pestering him constantly for updates. Your life has more plot twists than the subtitled Korean melodramas I watch.”
“If it makes you feel any better, you’re the first one to hear this: Brad followed me to Italy.”
The shriek on the other end of the line is as pleasant as an ice pick jammed in my ear. “What?”
“And he’s still here.”
“No!”
“What does that rat want?”
“Redemption, I suppose.” I sigh, exhausted by the thought of him. “He begged me to forgive him. He still wants to get married.”
Danielle exhales, and it sounds like she’s breathing fire. “That dick. The nerve! Have you hired the hitman yet?”
“I don’t know any hitmen. Not every Italian is in the mafia.”
“But every Italian probably knows someone in the mafia, right? Or someone who knows someone who knows someone.”
“You’ve been watching too many crime shows.”
“Oh right,” she says after a pause. “You can’t tell me. Plausible deniability. That’s smart.”
“There’s no hitman, Danielle.”
“Sure there isn’t.” She drops her voice to a whisper. “Do you think the line is tapped?”
“No, but I do think you should take up writing mystery novels. That imagination of yours is being wasted. How are Brian and the kids?”
Her voice brightens. “Everyone’s good. The kids are back to school soon, which is lucky because I’m one mood change away from a meltdown. I don’t remember us being so dramatic at that age.”
Danielle has three daughters. She married her high school sweetheart, moved to the Midwest, and started producing babies before she was twenty, beating all the divorce statistics about marrying young.
At least one of us is lucky in love.
“We were too busy being dorky to be dramatic. Remember my hairstyle?”
“Sweet Jesus, the perm. You looked like you styled your hair by sticking your finger into an electrical outlet.”
“Let’s not forget your headgear.”
“Four years of wandering around in public looking like I’d just arrived from outer space. I’m still not over the trauma.”
“At least you got those beautiful straight teeth at the end of it. I’m still stuck with hair that refuses to hold a curl unless it’s chemically forced to.”
“Your hair is gorgeous! Do you know how many girls with frizzy hair would kill for it to be straight?”
Don’t talk to me about being straight. I heave an enormous sigh. “I miss you.”
“I miss you, too. When are you headed back to San Fran? I can probably arrange to come out for Labor Day.”
“I’m not going back to San Francisco. I’ve decided to stay in Italy.”
Danielle’s silence rings with worry. “Does this have anything to do with the hot stepbrother?”
“No.” Maybe. “It’s just time for me to make a clean start.”
“Did you tell Jenner that? I can’t imagine he’d let you move thousands of miles away that easily. You two are attached at the hip.”
“Yes, I told him. He doesn’t approve. He’ll be here in a few weeks for the Milan fashion shows. He’ll browbeat me then.”
“Good luck. I wouldn’t want to be on the end of a browbeating from Jenner.”
“He’s more bark than bite.”
“Are you kidding? I’ve seen him reduce people to tears with one look. He’s terrifying.”
“He’s British. They’re skilled at frightening the peasants.” I hear the bell over the front door chime, and know someone’s come into the shop. “Honey, I have to go, but I promise I’ll call you soon, okay?”
“You better, or I’ll send my girls to Italy for their next school break and let you deal with the little monsters.”
“Speaking of terrifying.”
“Love you, kiddo.”
“Love you, too. Bye.”
After we hang up, I head out to the front of the shop but stop dead in my tracks when I see who’s there.
Matteo stands near the counter. He’s wearing a gorgeous navy suit, and looking all kinds of sophisticated, angry, and hot.
He’s got my sketch pad in his hand.
“Oh. Hi.”
He lifts the pad. “This is yours.” Onto the counter he tosses it, with a dismissive flick of his wrist like he couldn’t wait to get it out of his hand.
I can tell by looking at the pad that the rest of the sketches he hasn’t torn out are there. My nerves begin firing on all cylinders. “Okay. I’ll bite. Why are you giving it back?”
“I don’t want it anymore,” he says, staring at me in a weirdly challenging way. “It’s not worth the headache.”
I do my absolute best to conceal the punch to the gut that was, but I must flinch a little because Matteo’s eyes sharpen.
“I see.” I don’t know what else to say. I flatten a hand over my stomach, though it does nothing to settle the churning inside. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
The weird challenging stare is starting to freak me out. It’s like he’s waiting for me to do something or say something, but I don’t know what it is.
“So our deal is off?”
“I’m not going to use your designs and claim they’re mine,” he says with an edge to his voice.
I was talking about the kissing part, but I suppose it’s obvious enough. If he doesn’t have the sketches to withhold, he’s got no bargaining chips. And the sketches are the important part, not the kissing.
I think.
“What brought about this sudden change of heart?”
“As if you don’t know. It doesn’t matter anyway.” His eyes burn. “Right?”
I hurt him the other night. The thought stuns me. I accused him of manipulating me, and it hurt his feelings.
The little red devil taps me on the shoulder and reminds me that Matteo decided not to answer my questions, to turn them back on me, so he’s not the only one with hurt feelings.
I moisten my lips, caught between anger and an apology. “It might matter.”
“Might doesn’t cut it,” he says. When I bite my lip, his jaw hardens. “Don’t do that.”
He’s got the hungry look in his eyes. Combined with the angry look, it’s incredibly sexy.
I decide to venture into uncharted waters. “It does matter,” I admit. “I’m just not sure what that means.”
We stare at each other. Finally he says, “I understand. You have a lot to deal with right now. I’m making your life more complicated. The last thing I want is to be a problem for you.”
Why does this feel like a breakup? And why do I care if it is?
“I don’t want to be a problem for you, either.”
He says, “You’re not a problem. You’re the best thing that’s happened to me since I was ten years old.”
The breath leaves my lungs in a whoosh that feels like two giant invisible hands clasped me front and back and squeezed. “Oh,” I say, trying not to fall over. “Um. What happened when you were ten years old?”
“My mother finally bought me the puppy I’d been begging for. A Great Dane, like Cornelia. I named her Maria, after my favorite opera singer. I loved her with all my heart. She slept in my bed every night, even when she grew too big for it. I’d scoot all the way to the edge so she’d have room.”
His voice is raw and his eyes are shining, and my heart is bursting at the seams. I think of how Cornelia spooned me, and imagine Matteo as a little boy cuddling with his dog in his bed in that soulless drafty castle he grew up in.
I’m in so much danger of falling in love with him right now that I bite the inside of my cheek in fear.
“You had a favorite opera singer when you were little?”
“Opera was all I was allowed to listen to. My parents wanted me to be cultured.”
At ten. Dear God. Between that and the Wall of Death, he should’ve been taken away by social services.
“Maria got cancer and died, though,” says Matteo forlornly, looking lost, and I have to bite my cheek harder.
“That’s awful.”
“Yes. She was my best friend. I was outside playing with her when my father died. My mother sent the nanny to get me, but I wouldn’t come in. I didn’t want to be inside his room, where it smelled like sickness and was dark all the time. So I refused to come in, and my father died, and my mother never forgave me. She sent me away to boarding school after that, but from then on she always had a Great Dane in the house.”
His voice grows faint. “It was her way of making sure I never forgot what I did.”
I’m devastated. He’s struck me with a thunderbolt and burned my soul to a cinder. He’s never been vulnerable like this with me before. It’s always some variation of arrogant or smug, testy or sexy, teasing or bossy as hell. Even when he was tenderly massaging my shoulders when I was hung over, he was still in Big Cheese mode. He still had all his armor on. He was still in complete control.
But this.
This kind of softness and honesty from such a chest-thumping alpha male is absolute crack. My heart pounds so hard I might as well have mainlined cocaine. I’m instantly addicted and desperate for more.
Also, I’m going to strangle his mother.
“I had a hamster,” I blurt. “Named Bugs. After my favorite cartoon character, Bugs Bunny. He lived a really long time, though. Way past the normal life expectancy.”
Matteo slow blinks, as if he’s waking from a dream. His forehead crinkles. He says, “Oh.”
If there were any sharp objects within easy reach, I’d happily stab myself in the eye. The man bares his soul, and I repay him with the fascinating tale of my immortal hamster.
I can do better than that.
“It’s just that I’m terrified you’ll break my heart.”
I say that in my tiny voice, the one I only use when I’m telling secrets about myself. I sound small and scared and I hate it, but tiny voice is the one that tells the biggest truths.
Matteo looks like he’s holding his breath.
“You challenge me. It’s never easy with you. And I like that. I think I need it. I feel more alive when I’m around you, even though mostly I’d like to smack you for being so annoying. I spend most of my time bitching at you when we’re together, and all of my time thinking about you when we’re not. I met you at the absolute worst time of my life, when everything I cared about was suddenly taken from me. And now I’m off balance. I can’t trust my own judgment. I can’t decide if you’re a fantasy or a nightmare. A prince or a villain. The best thing that’s ever happened to me, or the worst. So . . .”
I take a big breath for courage. “I’m scared. I’m scared, but I’ve never wanted anything more than I want you.”
His beautiful blue eyes shining, Matteo says softly, “I’m not a prince, bella. How many times do I have to tell you? I’m a marchese.”
Then he closes the distance between us and kisses me.
It feels as if I’ve jumped off a cliff. My stomach drops. My pulse races in terror. There’s a loud rushing noise in my ears.
Cradling my head in his hands, he peppers kisses all over my face, murmuring everything I want to hear him say. “I adore you,” and “You’re safe with me,” and “That was so brave,” and “How soon can we get you out of this dress?”
“Promise me you’ll never lie to me,” I say, gasping against his mouth as he bites my lip.
“You warned me never to say the P word.”
I shout, “Promise me or lose your testicles!”
His eyes full of emotion, he chuckles. “In that case, I promise.”
The kiss we share is so passionate I’m surprised all the clothing on racks around us doesn’t explode into flames. My heart drums a beat of I want you I want you oh God how I want you, and I cling to him, feeling the last of my resistance slipping away.
The kissing game might be over, but the kissing-naked-in-bed game is about to begin.
Only it’s not, because a loud throat clearing from somewhere behind me slices through my lovely little lust bubble like a knife. I turn, woozy, and find Clara in the doorway to the back of the shop, gazing at me over the rims of her glasses.
“We’ve finished look six,” she says, emanating scorn. If she were one of those scented room sprays, she’d be called Breeze of Utter Disappointment.
“Okay. Be right in.” My voice strangled, I attempt a reassuring smile, but judging by the heavy sigh I get in response, Clara isn’t reassured. She returns to the workroom, shaking her head.
“She doesn’t like me,” says Matteo, sounding unconcerned.
“She doesn’t like people with penises. Kiss me again.”
He obliges, and soon I’m flushed everywhere and having trouble remaining upright. “Holy hell, your mouth is a drug factory. Do you gargle with heroin?”
All throaty and hot, he says, “Wait till you see what I can do with my hands.”
I think I groan a little, dizzy with lust. If his hands and all his other parts are anywhere near as good as his mouth, I’ll overdose instantly. Matteo laces his fingers in my hair and turns my head to the side so I can see the dressing rooms.
Into my ear he whispers, “Should I show you?”
One beat of my heart, then two, then I’m decided. Those test results couldn’t have come at a better time. “You betcha.”
Before my heart beats again, Matteo grabs my hand and pulls me away toward one of the curtained-off rooms.