Page 83 of My Fake Italian Marriage

“Ma che bella!” Mamma clasped her hands to her breast.

Pulling himself together, Luca slipped into his usual persona, and flashed Sarah a quick, impish grin. “You’ve outdone yourself, but I hope you realise my parents will now expect you to go even bigger and better for their fiftieth anniversary?”

As expected, Sarah laughed and the crowd tittered. Cleo smiled too, and his chest tightened. She looked bright-eyed, cheerful and unconcerned, as if their conversation in the rose garden hadn’t happened; as if they hadn’t just ended everything between them. Either she was becoming as good an actor as he was, or their conversation hadn’t cut her in the same way it had cut him. His chest ached, like a fist tightening its grip, squeezing the air out of him.

“It looks too beautiful to eat,” Stefania chimed in.

“Almosttoo beautiful to eat,” Cleo replied. “Anything Sarah bakes tastes so good you’ll think you’ve died and gone to heaven.”

“Does that mean you’ll break your ‘no carbs’ rule for a piece?” Sarah teased.

Cleo laughed. “You know that when it comes to mascarpone and strawberries, rules don’t apply. Nothing takes precedence over that combination.”

“Discorso! Discorso!” a voice called from the crowd, followed by a chorus of encouraging cheers.

Babbo raised his hands to still the audience for a speech. “Thank you for joining us on this special occasion.” His warm gaze flitted briefly over Gio, surrounded by his wife and children. “My greatest appreciation, though, is for the woman who changed my life the moment she entered it. My best friend, my lover, my partner.” He took his wife’s hand. “Tesoro, if anyone had told me forty years ago that I would love you even more now than I did then, I wouldn’t have believed them, but I do.” He kissed her palm, the guests whooped and clapped, and a camera flash blazed.

Sarah offered the large silver cake knife to Letizia for the ceremonial cutting of the cake, but Babbo laid a hand over hers to take the knife instead.

“In Roman times, a barley cake was broken over the bride’s head to bring fertility and good fortune to the marriage. That symbolism continues today in the tradition of the bride and groom cutting the cake and feeding each other the first pieces.” His gaze shifted to Luca. “You and Cleo did not have a wedding cake, so you should cut this one, to bring good luck and fertility to your marriage.”

“No, no,” Luca protested, taking a step back. “Tonight isyournight.”

But his father was never one to back down, and he held the knife out, handle first, to Luca. And Luca was too used to doing what his father wanted. He took the knife.

“It’s just a cake,” he muttered as he pulled Cleo against him and wrapped his hands over hers on the knife’s hilt. He wasn’t sure which of them he was trying to reassure. Yes, it was just a cake, but with his arms around her, his hands over hers, the static alive between them, it felt like so much more. It felt like desire, longing and regret, all rolled into one.

Together, they sliced through the top tier of the cake, posed for the photographer, then cut another slice to create a wedge. Using a cake fork from the trolley, Luca scooped out a mouthful of cake and faced Cleo. His gaze locked onto hers as she took a bite and swallowed. In her eyes, he saw every moment of the past few weeks, the laughter, the intimacy, the myriad ways she challenged him to be a better person.

He loved her. The knowledge slammed into him like a wrecking ball. He loved her as he’d never loved anyone else, and his life would never be the same again.

When he didn’t move, Cleo took the fork from his frozen fingers to scoop up another mouthful of cake, which she offered to him. Dutifully, he swallowed, but his emotions churned so high he barely tasted the cake.

I have absolutely no desire to stay here with you, she’d said in the rose garden.

Another burst of light flashed from the photographer’s camera, and Cleo blinked, breaking eye contact. She turned her back on him to help Sarah cut the cake for the guests, and a piece of his heart ripped out, as if she’d left already, and already he missed her.

But in that moment of connection, he’d glimpsed his own longing mirrored.

A low chuckle brought him crashing back to the ballroom. “So it finally happened, did it?” His brother gave him a friendly slap on the back. “Though, sadly, you’ve cost me fifty euros.”

Luca arched an eyebrow at his brother.

“Stefania was convinced you’d finally fallen in love, that Cleo was the one you’d been waiting for, but I didn’t believe it. We took a bet.” He sighed. “As usual, my wife is right. So, when will we hear wedding bells for real?”

“Will you please keep your voice down?” Luca hissed back. “Cleo’s flight is booked for two days from now. Then this will all be over.” The thought made him ill, like he was both hot and cold at the same time.

Gio looked confused. “But if you love her, why don’t you ask her to stay? What are you waiting for? At the very least, you can’t let her go without telling her how you feel.”

“She doesn’t want to stay.” The words were hard to say, even harder to hear. God must be having a really good laugh right now, because Luca Fioravanti had finally fallen in love and it was with a woman who didn’t want him back, a woman who was getting on a plane to London the first chance she could.

“Then you haven’t tried hard enough to persuade her. This is your happiness on the line.”

Luca shook his head. “It’sherhappiness on the line, too. If she stays, I will inevitably hurt her.”

“You don’t know that. No one can know what the future holds. Did I know, when I met Stefania, that we’d still be happy together now?” Gio shrugged. “I hoped, as every newlywed hopes, but we’ve had our ups and downs. There’ve been moments when we hurt each other; it is unavoidable in any relationship. But we kept working on it together. You and Cleo cannot give up at the first hurdle.”

When Luca said nothing, Gio’s eyes narrowed. “What is it that scares you so much you won’t even take the chance to ask her to stay?”

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