Page 82 of 4 Weddings and a Feud

Mrs. Campo growled, “Not about work. About the Forza girl.”

His shoulders slumped. Did everyone know about what he’d done to Mary? “We broke up. It’s over.”

“Is it?”

“I’ve humiliated her twice now. I don’t think I can come back from that.”

“Pride is your sin,” she said, “not Mary’s.”

“You think she’d take me back?”

“Isn’t that what you want?”

He remembered how Mary had squealed in the surf in San Diego. How they’d made love in all five bedrooms of the beach house. How the firelight flickered across her thighs spread for him. How her warm hand had gripped his as the sea breeze tossed her curls and kissed her skin.

“It doesn’t matter what I want. I’ll never be worthy of her,” he said.

Her brown eyes pinned him. “Don’t you think that’s something she should decide?”

Let someone else make a decision that affected him?No, thank you.

When he was silent, Mrs. Campo tutted. “I think you’ve been hiding behind that curse. And now it’s gone, you don’t know what to do.”

Alex took a few steps toward the door and was relieved when Mrs. Campo went with him. At the door, he paused. “You know I don’t believe in that stuff.”

“Don’t you?” She narrowed her eyes. “Then why are you so afraid to seize your own happiness?” Turning on her heel, she marched away toward the elevators.

* * *

Alex almost spat out his sip of the bitter brown liquid. It burned down his throat and into his stomach. Mrs. Campo’s nocino might not be poison, but it was the most disgusting stuff he’d ever tasted.

He plugged up the bottle and stashed it in his freezer. Bad luck to throw away a gift from a wise woman.

Shuffling into his bedroom, Alex switched on the lamp next to his lonely bed, then the gas fireplace. His penthouse seemed so much colder without Mary. Even though everything about her seemed out of place in his ordered world, from her chaotic curls to the smear of her red lipstick on his pillowcase.

That was the thing he couldn’t wrap his mind around. He didn’t want to change anything about her. Not her scrappy little business, not her cozy house stuffed full of tacky mementos of three generations of Italian Americans, not even her knuckle-dragging brothers.

Mrs. Campo’s words swirled in his brain. Was he worthy of Mary’s love? And did he have the courage to ask her for it?

To be loved—to let Mary love him—he knew, had always known, he had to change himself. To open a window and let Mary peek in. To open a door and let her poke around and rearrange things.

And that scared the shit out of him.

But now, all alone in his penthouse, he realized that was what he had to do. Let her bring the plastic La Pieta and her pothos with the tiny Italian flag jammed into the soil. Let her invite her surly brothers to track grease onto his rug and threaten him with a thrashing on the regular. All he wanted was to nestle into a pile of flowery cushions, drink a glass of too-cold Chianti, and soak up Mary’s love.

She’d lit up the gloom within him just like she’d lit up that blacked-out ballroom. Now he couldn’t face returning to the darkness. Even if it meant he had to compromise. If he had to trust. If he had to jump, not knowing what lay below.

If there was the slightest chance Mary might catch him, he had to leap.

ChapterThirty-Two

Forza Elite Motors didn’t open until noon on Saturdays unless you had an appointment, which Alex definitely did not. He’d already tried Mary’s house, but her car wasn’t in the driveway, and she didn’t answer her doorbell. So, he waited outside the Forzas’ business until he saw Evie—of course, it had to be Evie—drive up in her little gray compact and put her key in the lock.

“Hi, Evie,” he said, emerging from his Ferrari.

She jumped. “You scared the shit out of me. What are you doing here?”

“I’m looking for Mary. Is she here?”

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