Page 26 of Friends Who Fake It

“Yes,” he said, flicking a glance at his aunt and uncle, ignoring the hopeful light that lit their eyes. Like the rest of his family, they’d come to accept that he wasn’t likely to settle down ever. He hated the thought of getting their hopes up now. “But it’s still new, for both of us, and it’s casual.”

“Ah, ah,” Maria nodded, clapping her hands. “Yet, she is so wonderful for you. I always thought her to be a special kind of girl. Despite—,” Maria’s voice trailed off, a false smile plastered to her face. A tension in her features that Francesco immediately understood.

Despite the way her stepmother was with her.

Yes. That was all too true.

“She is special,” Francesco agreed, and he really meant it.

At that moment, Francesco looked once more to Willow, and Willow looked across to Francesco, so their eyes met and something like understanding burned between them. This was fake, but their feelings were real. Feelings of friendship, respect, like, desire. Which meant they weren’t technically lying to anyone.

They were ‘dating’, for now. And soon, they’d ‘break up’, because she was in love with some man called Tom, and he could never be what she wanted. Francesco’s chest shifted a little, as he felt a familiar emptiness inside of him, an awareness that he’d never give into the ‘happily ever after’ delusions that so many other people seemed to want.

But Rocco had, a voice in the back of his mind protested. Rocco, Francesco’s brother, had been able to put aside all the same life lessons their father had bestowed upon them and taught them, to reach out in the hope of living happily ever after with the woman he loved.

That, of course, was the crucial difference. Rocco loved Maddie. It had caught him unawares, totally out of nowhere, but they were madly in love. They had no choice but to be together. For Francesco’s part, he knew that would never happen to him. He refused to allow it.

He had seen what love could do.

Seen the pain his father had felt after their mother died. Had witnessed his father’s demise—from a loving, happy man, to a shell of himself, a relic of what he’d once been. A drunken womanizer, who was equal parts bitter and furious with the world, and the three sons he’d been left to care for. Although there hadn’t been an enormous amount of ‘care’. Were it not for Gianni and Maria, Francesco had no idea what would have become of them.

“Cesco?” Gianni clicked his fingers in Francesco’s face, so he glanced across at his uncle, frowning.

“Sorry, I missed that,” he apologized.

“You were miles away,” Maria winked, glancing at Willow, who was once more in conversation.

“Yes.” Why bother denying it? He had been miles away. Just not pleasurably admiring his fake girlfriend, so much as reliving his haunted past, remembering the pain of his childhood, his adolescence, his father’s mood swings and alcoholism, the darkness that had enveloped all of them after their mother’s death.

“Have you spoken to Raf, lately?”

Francesco frowned, the question catching him off guard. “No.” He’d tried to call his younger brother earlier in the week, but the call had been shunted to voice mail. “Why do you ask?”

Maria and Gianni shared a look of concern. “We’ll see him soon,” Gianni reassured Maria, so Francesco’s concern grew.

“Is there a problem?”

“She lost the baby,” Gianni said, quietly. “That’s all I know.”

“Oh, hell,” he cursed, staring at his aunt and uncle. He knew his brother had married Marcia hastily. The fact she’d been pregnant had come out just before the wedding, and though Raf had stopped short of confirming the pregnancy to be the reason for the wedding, Francesco suspected that to have been the case. Raf was as gun-shy when it came to commitment as Francesco. He’d lived through the same fucked up stuff that Francesco had. Love was a foreign concept to all of them, thanks to their father.

But Marcia and Raf had been together a long time. Despite the fact none of them could really stand her, she was a part of their family.

“A miscarriage?” he asked, looking from one to the other.

Maria’s eyes softened with sympathy. “Apparently. We do not know the details. We had hoped he might have confided in you…”

“No. He hasn’t.”

“We are going to New York tomorrow, to see him,” Gianni said.

“Them,” Maria countered, with a slight grimace. “We will have to check on Marcia, too, of course.”

“Of course.” Francesco drew a hand through his hair. “Do you want me to come with you?”

Maria blinked and then shook her head. “You are needed here,” she said. “But you’ll come home next weekend?”

Home.The villa. The home which Gianni and Maria had so willingly opened up to their nephews, in the wake of their mother’s death.

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