Page 39 of Friends Who Fake It

“I was with him last week,” he said, lifting a hand and hooking her hair behind her ear, then dropping it to the small of her back, guiding her to a wrought iron bench that overlooked the pool. “When I called you, that night.”

Willow remembered the way he’d sounded. Like something was weighing on his mind. And like he’d been drinking a bar dry.

“I didn’t know.”

“It was spur of the moment. Gianni and Maria had mentioned he wasn’t doing too well. I thought I’d go check in.”

She sat down on one side of the bench and tried to control her fluttering nerves when he took the seat beside her, a little too big for the chair, but so pleasingly close to her. Warmth flooded her entire body.

“Is that what you called to talk about?”

“Yes,” he said, but in a way that almost sounded uncertain. To underscore that, he frowned. “Honestly? I just wanted to?—,”

“To what?”

He looked as though he was fighting an inner battle. Pulling himself back from a ledge. “I wanted to hear your voice.”

Her insides seemed to drop all the way out of her body.

“Everything with Raf and Marcia, it’s so messed up. And all I could think was that you’d know what to say. You’d know how to fix it.”

“Oh, Francesco.” She wished his words hadn’t done this. That she wasn’t feeling as though she was flying way above cloud nine. It was way too much trust to put in someone who minutes earlier had vowed that this was short term and temporary.

“But you were with Tom.”

Ice flooded her veins. “Yes.” It was barely a whisper. She felt Francesco’s eyes on her and knew something important was happening. Something that would require her to bring her A game, because if she wasn’t very careful, they’d step right through those carefully erected boundaries, and everything would get all messed up between them.

When she didn’t elaborate, though, he spoke instead. “The thing is, I was worried about Raf, and furious with Marcia, and I wanted to talk to you, because you’re my friend. I don’t want to do anything that will mess that up.”

She felt as though her whole body was being put through the ringer. “You won’t.” She made herself smile. “Neither of us will.”

“I’ve never been in your room before,” Willow said, ignoring the butterflies in her stomach as she stepped over the threshold into Francesco’s bedroom and glanced around, taking in the large, spacious room with a set of French doors opening out onto a small terrace.

“And what do you think?”

“It’s different to what I expected,” she admitted.

“What did you expect?” he asked, lifting his polo shirt over his head, exposing a rippling abdomen and deep, caramel tan. Willow’s mouth went dry, and she jerked her gaze towards the bed, simply to distract herself. Which didn’t workat all, because bed was suddenly all she could think about.

It had been a matter of hours since they’d slept together, in her London home, yet her libido seemed to think it had been weeks. Desire flared in the pit of her stomach, sending her pulse haywire.

“I guess I didn’t give it too much thought,” she tried to backpedal, only realizing as she said it that it wasn’t completely true. She’d thought about Francesco. She’d thought about his room, his life, his string of high-profile romances.

“We only spent holidays here, at first,” he said, looking around. “This started off as a guest room. But as dad became less and less able to take care of us, holidays became weekends, then some weeks, as well. Before I knew it, we were spending most of our time at the Villa, with Gianni and Maria.”

“It explains why you’re all so close.”

He nodded. “Perhaps we always would have been. I know that’s what Gianni and Maria wanted. But yes—being raised virtually as siblings…”

“I can’t imagine what that would have been like,” she said, lifting one shoulder.

“You don’t seem close to the twins.”

“They’re younger than I am.”

“Only by six years, right?”

“Yes, but it’s a vital six years.” She frowned. “Though, even at nineteen, I was…different.”

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