Page 61 of My Fake Italian Marriage

Cleo glanced back, her smile an invitation, and he slipped out of the bed, pulling on his jeans and buttoning them up as he joined her on the loggia. He stopped behind her, sliding his hands under the shirt to rest lightly on her hips.

“You have your own football pitch?” She nodded towards the pitch visible between the trees.

He brushed her hair aside to kiss her neck, and she shivered. He loved that he could make her shiver. “We used to play there in the afternoons after school.”

“You and your cousins?”

This was the perfect moment to tell her about Gio, the brother he’d worshipped, who’d been his closest friend, his companion, his mentor. The golden boy of the family.

But, from long habit, the words stuck in his throat. Maybe, instead of telling her, he could show her… “I have tickets for the Treno Natura next week. It is a steam train that runs on special occasions and Emanuela organised tickets as a fundraiser for the football club. The team will take the train from Siena to Chiusi for lunch, then return in the afternoon, but perhaps you and I can stay there and spend the night? I have family there I would like you to meet.”

She turned in his arms, looking at him with those bright, smiling eyes. “Even more family?”

He laughed. “Yes, even more family. Years ago, Sunday lunch was a big event. Thirty people, at least, with all the grandparents and cousins.”

“What happened?”

The family rift had happened. First Gio had left, then his Nonno and Nonna had died, and slowly the extended family had stopped coming. He glanced away, shrugging. “Everyone is busy now with their own lives.”

But maybe there was a chance to heal the rift, a chance to make every Sunday like the night he and Cleo had returned from Como, filled with laughter and familiarity.

He lowered his head, pressed his lips to hers, and lost himself in her kiss, feeling again that sense of being anchored.

Safe. That was what he felt with her. Safe enough to admit to things he hadn’t admitted in a very long time, even to himself. He pulled slowly away, and leaned on the balustrade to look out over the treetops to the winery. Cleo leaned beside him, her arm gently nudging his.

“Do you remember that night we were in Como, when we walked by the lake, and you asked me what I wanted for my life that I didn’t get?”

She nodded.

“Well, I wasn’t honest with you that night.” He blew out a long breath, staring at the football pitch, but looking back in time. “I remember when I was about seven or eight, telling my father I wanted to be a professional footballer. He laughed and told me I would never be good enough.”

Cleo didn’t say anything, but she laid her head against his shoulder, offering sympathy.

“He probably wouldn’t even remember saying it, but for years, every time I played, I heard his voice in my head.” He cleared his throat. “Later, when I told him I wanted to make wine, like he did, as his father had, he laughed that same way.”

“How old were you?”

“Fourteen. I’d just experimented with making my first wine, from a few small rows of vines that Silvio helped me plant behind the winery.” From here, he could just make out that small, sunny patch of ground where Silvio had staked out the rows for them when he was eleven and Gio thirteen. They’d planted shoots that first year, and nurtured them until they were able to harvest their first grapes and make their first wine.

“You were only a kid! You yourself told me no one can expect to be good at something the first time you try it.”

With his rational mind, he knew that, but there were some hurts that were buried too deep to be overcome with rational thought. Besides, his father had been right about football; Luca hadn’t had the discipline to become a professional athlete, and, even if he had, that level of competition would have killed his enjoyment of the sport.

He looked away, not meeting her gaze. “My father told me then that I should find something else to do with my life, something I was better at.” Maybe he’d been right about that too; law school had come easy to him.

When he turned to look at Cleo, her eyes were shiny-bright behind her glasses. “You wanted to be just like him,” she said softly.

He shrugged carelessly. “What boy doesn’t want to be like his father? What about your brothers? Did they not want to grow up to be like your father?”

Amusement replaced the sympathy. “Did, and are. Brandon works with my father on the farm, and though the others followed different careers, they’re also Dad’s little ‘mini-me’s’.” She narrowed her eyes, a thoughtful look in them. “So that thing you wanted and didn’t get was to be a winemaker like your father?”

He nodded, and a weight lifted off his shoulders at the admission.

She frowned, hooking her hair behind her ear to stop it from blowing across her face. “What I don’t understand is why your father discouraged you from following in his footsteps when he’s so hung up on keeping the vineyard in the family. Surely he would want his son to take over from him one day?”

He had, only that son hadn’t been Luca. He looked away, his expression carefully neutral. “We are a big family, and there are others who could be persuaded to step up. And some of them cast very long shadows.”

“But none of them have stepped up, have they?” she persisted. “You’re the one who has given up everything—even pretended to be married—for the sake of this vineyard. Youshouldbe the one to take over. It’s not too late for you to pursue what you want.”

---