Page 82 of Slow Burn
I laughed softly, melting into his embrace. ‘Even better now you’re here.’
‘Mama is flying about all over the place,’ said Gabriele, spinning me around to face him. ‘She wants everything to be perfect tomorrow.’
‘And it will be,’ I said. ‘It’s lovely to see her so engaged and positive.’
Gabriele took me in his arms.
‘I never could have imagined being this happy,’ he said. ‘Living with my two favourite women on earth. Making the farm business work for us all.’
He’d found a way to scale back the business while keeping Enzo’s vision ticking over by hiring Gio to take over the management of the wine-making and distribution side of things. And with the studio fully booked for weddings and parties throughout the summer, supplying the guests with delicious bottles of local red and white was a lucrative side hustle.
Gabriele brushed his lips lightly across mine. ‘Only you can manage to make an apron look sexy,’ he said, untying the strings and hooking it over my head, casting it to one side.
‘And you must be far too hot in that,’ I said, slowly and tantalizingly unbuttoning his shirt.
I pushed it off his shoulders, revealing tanned skin underneath, his muscles even more defined after months of lifting and moving furniture around and digging in the fields. When he wasn’t busy performing, he was really throwing himself into farm life.
‘I love you, Lira James, in case I have not yet convinced you,’ he said, lifting me onto a table.
‘Donotsmash any glasses, we’re running short as it is,’ I scolded him.
‘I will be careful, I promise,’ he said, sliding his hands under the hem of my skirt.
As I lay down on the table, looking up at the veranda, the sun filtering through the bougainvillea in misty strips of golden light, my beautiful husband-to-be looking into my eyes, I felt a rush of appreciation for how much my life had changed in just over a year.
How some things – Gabriele especially – had been worth waiting for.
