Page 17 of Innocent's Wedding Day with the Italian

But there had been no denial or plausible explanation. He’d pleaded guilty and she would not gaslight herself into believing anything else.

All her stuff from the hotel had been left by the front door with the rest of her belongings. Silence surrounded her. Wherever Enzo was in the villa, he wasn’t close by.

Her phone was in the handbag she’d left at the hotel and she pulled it out, in two minds over whether to call for a taxi and leave immediately.

No, she decided. She didn’t see how she could return to England and rebuild her life if she still had unanswered questions. There were some things it was impossible to move on from and if she hadn’t lived through the death of both her parents within days of each other, she doubted she’d ever be able to recover from this.

One thing Rebecca had learned in those dark, bottomless days had been that unanswered questions could drive you crazy. Her father’s death had been straightforward in the respect that he’d suffered a massive heart attack. There had been no ambiguity to it. Her mother’s death, though, might have been prevented if their local doctor had taken her symptoms more seriously instead of fobbing her off with things like calcium deficiency and menopause. It was themightin the equation that had turned Rebecca into a red-eyed insomniac, because that was the part no one could definitively answer. If their doctor had arranged a full range of blood tests when she’d first gone to see him two years before her death about being constantly tired, if her mum hadn’t accepted that her symptoms were consistent with the menopause and ignored that she was bruising easily... All theifsthat led to themights, because there was no way of knowing if her mum would still be alive even if she’d been diagnosed sooner. Shemighthave lived another five years. Shemighthave made it to old bones.

It had taken a full year for Rebecca to accept the diagnosis question could never be answered. She wasn’t prepared to tear herself apart with unanswered questions again. Not when her only means of answering them would be through the man she would never set eyes on again after she left this villa.

Rebecca found Enzo in the smaller dining room, the one that only comfortably sat twenty people rather than the one in which he could host a hundred.

He was sat at the far end of the marble table, features set tightly, almost slouched in his chair stabbing a fork into his plate, the light of the chandelier landing like drops of gold on his skin. The scents wafting from his plate sent a hunger pang rippling through her, and a different, stronger pang. It was the scent of his favourite food, a simple layered aubergine, tomato and mozzarella dish, the Enzo Beresi version of comfort food that was the polar opposite of the fancy food he usually ate when dining out.

Of course he was comfort eating. He’d lost; a blow that must be particularly hard to bear for a man who always won at everything.

As soon as he spotted her, his demeanour changed. He straightened. His chest rose, neck extending as he nodded his acknowledgement of her presence.

Leaning into the door’s frame, it took effort for Rebecca to make her mouth and throat move. ‘I’m going to get something to eat. Wait in here for me?’

His lips a thin line, he inclined his head.

It took more effort to control the next pang that ripped through her when she discovered the chef had prepared her own favourite comfort food of macaroni cheese for her. She didn’t need to ask to know he’d made it for her on Enzo’s instructions.

Removing it from under the grill, he served it bubbling and golden into a warmed pasta bowl for her and would no doubt have carried it to the dining room if she’d let him. Thanking him, she carried it on a tray back to the dining room and took a seat halfway down the long table. If she sat facing Enzo at the other end to him then she’d have to shout. This way she was close enough to converse but not close enough she risked having any part of her body make contact—accidental or otherwise—with his. Also, being side-on meant she didn’t have to look at him unless she wanted to.

It hurt immeasurably that she did want to look. Staring at his gorgeous face was something she’d thought she would never tire of doing.

‘Thank you for getting Sal to make this for me,’ she said quietly.

‘You’re welcome.’

She hated the softness in his tone. Hated it and loved it in equal measure, and as she dug her spoon into the gooey mixture, it came to her that she hated and lovedhimin equal measure too.

CHAPTER SIX

REBECCA’SMUMHADalways described love and hate as being two sides of the same coin. She’d known her mum was referring to Rebecca’s grandfather when she said this, but having never hated anyone herself, it was a concept Rebecca had never fully understood.

She understood it now, sitting in this suddenly claustrophobic dining room. Such were the emotions crashing through her that if she’d been standing, the dizziness from it would have caused her to stumble. Her heart throbbed painfully, the beats sending needles of pain through her veins, infecting every cell in her body.

‘Would you like a glass of wine?’ he asked after she’d been sat there for a good minute without uttering a word.

She nodded without looking at him.

He rose from his seat. ‘White?’

She gave another nod. If her grip on the spoon got any tighter the metal would bend.

A few moments later, he placed her glass on the table beside her.

She tensed and held her breath. She’d become conditioned to Enzo never being within a foot of her without touching her in some way, whether a brush of his hand against her back or the drop of a kiss into her hair, and she didn’t know if her body was giving signs of relief or distress when he retook his seat without a whisper of physical contact.

When she dared reopen her airways, she breathed in the remnants of his woody cologne, and took a large gulp of her wine in an attempt to drown it. The attempt was a dismal failure. All the questions consuming her were drowned in the sharp but sweet crisp liquid too, her mind a blank and it took more co-ordination than she’d needed since she was a toddler to spoon a mouthful of the meal that usually brought her the greatest comfort between her lips. Whatever Enzo’s chef did to make the simple infusion of pasta, milk and cheese into a culinary masterpiece was something she’d been happy to never understand; delirious devotion of its comforting amazingness had been enough. This time, there was no comfort to be had. She couldn’t even taste it.

It didn’t help that Enzo’s gaze was locked on her. Its burn seeped deep inside her.

‘You didn’t finish telling me why your mother basically ratted you out to me,’ she said when she feared spontaneous combustion from the heat his stare was inducing had become more than a distinct possibility.

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