Page 22 of My Fake Italian Marriage

“Luca—” she said warningly.

He sighed. “The hotel was full, so I couldn’t change the booking to two separate rooms. But my father always books a suite, and it has a separate bedroom and a sleeper couch in the living room.”

“You are so getting the sleeper couch.”

Now they’d be in close proximity for all three days of their trip. And before they arrived at the wine show, they’d be in even closer proximity, as they’d be trapped together in his tiny car for the six-hour drive from Montalcino to Lake Como.

Kevin owed her big. When she returned to London, she didn’t only want Fern’s job title and corner office. She wanted Fern’s basement parking bay too. And Cleo didn’t even own a car.

ChapterNine

Pietra che rotola non fa muschio.

(A rolling stone gathers no moss.)

The next week flew by. By day, Cleo worked alongside Luca, receiving a crash course in the wine business, and finalising the arrangements for the Lario show, and by night, she replied to the queries piling up from her colleagues and clients. So much for a holiday.

The following Sunday, they departed soon after breakfast, heading north along the winding Via Cassia between the undulating, cypress-crowned hills of the Val d’Orcia. Today, Luca wore beige chinos and a close-fitting navy golf shirt that was clearly designed to showcase his fine pecs. Even at his most casual, he managed to look immaculate.

With the windows open, a light, spring breeze flowed around them. The sky was blue and cloudless, the air scented with the now-familiar sweetness of growing things. The road wound between cultivated fields, patches of silvery-green olive groves, and woodlands of stunted pines and oaks. A road trip called for music so, while Luca drove, Cleo linked her phone to the car’s Bluetooth and replaced his talk show radio station with lively pop music. He cast her a quick sidelong glance, but said nothing, and she cranked up the volume on BTS, daring him to object. Evan would have objected both to the “girlie” music and to her messing with his sound system, but Luca didn’t. Maybe there was hope for him, after all.

At Siena, they joined the autostrada, Luca sliding through the Telepass lane with practised ease. On the motorway he let the Ferrari fly, picking up speed as road signs, trees, and other cars streaked by. Cleo glanced at the speedometer and did a double take. “You’re way over the speed limit!” Though the ride was so smooth it didn’t feel like it.

“That’s theminimumlimit, not the maximum.” He grinned. “And I like to drive fast.”

That much she’d already discovered. Luca always looked easy-going and relaxed, but driving flat-out like this, his dark eyes burned and there was an edge of excitement to him, as if she was glimpsing a piece of him he usually hid behind the carefully curated façade.

As the car ate up the miles, they chatted and listened to music, and she had to admit Luca was surprisingly easy to talk to, able to keep the conversation flowing, light and a little flirtatious. The silences were equally easy, none of that awkward grasping for something to fill the pause that too often happened in conversations between people who barely knew each other.

Now she understood the appeal Luca held for women—otherwomen—and it wasn’t only his pretty face. Unlike many men she’d met, he really listened. He had a way of making a woman feel as if she was valuable and interesting and special. Sure, it was nothing more than a technique to manipulate women, to soften them up for an easy seduction, but still, she couldn’t help enjoying the attention.

Outside of Bologna, half way through their journey, they spotted an Autogrill suspended across the motorway.

“Want to stop for a coffee break?” he asked.

She nodded, relieved at the chance to stretch her legs. The Ferrari might be a smooth, luxurious ride but the one thing it lacked was leg room.

“If you want a break, I can take over the driving for a while,” she offered as she sipped an iced coffee. Her offer stemmed less from the belief that a few hours’ drive had tired him out, and more from a craving to drive a car with such firepower. She’d never asked Evan if she could drive his Lambo. His car was more precious to him than his family name, and that was saying something.

“You know how to drive a stick shift?” Luca asked.

“I don’t have a car in London, since there isn’t any need for one, but I learned to drive in South Africa, where everyone drives a stick shift. And I still sometimes drive my dad’s tractor when I visit the farm. After that, everything else is easy.”

Evan would have retorted that “his car was nothing like a tractor.” Geez, why did she keep thinking about him? She really should be over him by now… But Luca merely cast her another of his amused glances. “That’s how I learned to drive too. Silvio taught me on the farm tractor.”

“Why did you become a lawyer, instead of going into the family business? You clearly loved growing up on the farm.”

“You said it yourself; farming is hard work. And you may have noticed that I don’t like to work too hard.”

She eyed him sceptically. There was something in the way he spoke, too quickly, too rehearsed, that made her suspect it was a lie. “What’s the real reason you became a lawyer?”

He stirred his coffee, his gaze glued to the eddies in the dark liquid. “Exactly because lawisn’tthe family business. There are no other lawyers in the family, so no one can tell me what to do or how to do it.” His dark eyes were opaque, yet she sensed deep emotion behind the indifferent expression. “And no one I can be compared to and found wanting.”

“I’m sure your parents are proud of you.” In her experience, it didn’t take much to make parents proud. Her own still kept every certificate she and her brothers had received in school, despite emigrating to another country.

Luca lifted his gaze. “I am a perpetual disappointment to my parents. To my father, I am not ambitious enough, and I will never measure up … and since I won’t marry and give my mother grandchildren, I’m a disappointment to her too.”

Cleo couldn’t imagine the regal Signora Fioravanti as a grandmother, cuddling a toddler in her lap. The housekeeper Pierina seemed cuddlier and more maternal.

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