Page 77 of My Fake Italian Marriage

A true partnership. Cleo blinked to clear the sudden mistiness in her vision.

Stefania tested the pasta. “Gio doesn’t talk about it, but he misses his family and his home. It’s not good the way things are.”

Cleo pressed her lips together, lost again in thought, as Stefania carried the steaming pot to the sink to drain the water. “Giovanni is stubborn, but together, I’m sure we can find a way to reunite them.” After all, she and Luca had persuaded Giovanni to step down from the business and to accept new management, so there had to be a way to convince him to welcome his older son home too. Anything was possible, right?

Stefania grinned. “If you and I can both survive cooking lessons with Pierina, we can do anything.”

ChapterThirty-One

Non c'è delusione dove non c'è amore.

(There is no disappointment where there is no love.)

Rome wasn’t built in a day. Luca had to remind himself of the old saying at least three times throughout the evening, as everyone else scrupulously avoided mentioning the vineyard or Gio taking over from their father. He usually considered himself a patient man, able to curb his impulses until the time was right, but tonight he wanted to explode with impatience. They should discuss what needed to happen next, not sit making friendly small talk.

At last, Gio stretched and yawned. “I must be up early. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Luca followed him inside. “We need to talk.”

Gio shook his head. “First, I must talk to my wife. And you” – he nodded towards the kitchen where the women were packing the dishwasher – “should talk to yours.”

Luca opened his mouth to protest, but Gio laughed and laid a hand on his shoulder. “I’m not the expert in wooing women that you are, but having been married to one for nearly twenty years I guarantee that, if you don’t want to sleep alone from now until Cleo leaves, you need to apologise. And I’m not just talking about springing all of us on her. Talk to her.”

Luca frowned as Gio disappeared up the darkened stairs, then slowly he returned to the terrace, where a lone candle in a Moroccan lantern provided the only light. He sank into one of the armchairs that looked out over the pool and garden. Fireflies danced like weak green flames against the darkness, and the steady night song of crickets filled the silence.

He’d seen his surprise as a gift, had been so sure Cleo would be delighted to be handed the solution to their problem, but from the way she’d studiously avoided meeting his gaze all evening, clearly he’d got it wrong. Hopelessly wrong. So much for his gift of reading women. This one woman had him beat.

If she wasn’t happy with the way he’d tied up the problem of the vineyard with a neat bow, what was it she wanted?

He knew the moment Cleo stepped onto the terrace, as if his body was a radar tuned to watch out for her. She didn’t sit. Instead she paced the patio. The night air had turned cool and she hugged her arms around herself, so he shrugged out of his windbreaker and handed it to her. “Are you mad at me?”

“Yes. No.” She wrapped the jacket around her. “I’m disappointed more than angry.”

Her words hit him like a body blow but he didn’t flinch or react. He’d have preferred outright anger, so they could fight it out and get it over with. Instead, he’d once again disappointed someone he cared about, though he’d only been trying to do the right thing. And disappointment, he’d learned long ago, could not be argued or reasoned with.

“I am sorry I didn’t tell you about my brother, and that I didn’t discuss offering him the job with you first. It was unprofessional. But you must agree that Gio is the obvious choice to replace my father. Better than any vintner from Calabria or Croatia.”

She looked out into the dark, shadowy garden, her back to him, and it was like the first day they met, an impenetrable wall between them that he couldn’t breach, as if she’d pulled all her emotions deep inside herself. He missed her usually vibrant, open expression.

It was a long time before she spoke. “The other night, when you suggested I stay to work as the vineyard’s manager, you were thinking that I would work with Gio?”

“Of course. He has a talent for making wine, but he will need someone to handle the business side of running the vineyard.”

Though he couldn’t see her face, another wave of disappointment rolled off her, and it struck him, a moment too late, that it was the wrong answer. That perhaps what she’d wanted from him, more than any resolution for the vineyard, was for him to ask her to stay. With him.

Hope surged in his chest, but he tamped it down. No matter how much he wanted her to stay, that couldn’t happen. When he’d made his suggestion, he hadn’t thought beyond keeping her here a while longer, in his life and in his bed. But Sarah was right; it was selfish to expect Cleo to give up everything she’d worked so hard for, for nothing more than short-term pleasure.

She resumed her pacing. “You think that if I hire Gio, your father will accept his return?”

“My father won’t listen to me, but as long as the bank controls the vineyard, he has no choice but to accept who you hire.” And once Gio was back in their lives, his father would be reminded of how much he loved his son, and he would relent.

Cleo faced him. “I understand that you want your brother to come home, but surely there’s a way for you to reconcile them without sacrificing your own dream?”

“I don’t have to give up my dream—you showed me that. I can buy a piece of land of my own, start small, see how it goes.” He grinned. “Though I’ll have to trade the Ferrari in for a moped to finance it.”

She set her hands on her hips, unsmiling, not sharing his amusement. “So you plan to be a hobbyist winemaker?” She shook her head. “You’re still holding yourself back, making yourself small and standing in your brother’s shadow. Instead of chasing your dreams, you’re handing what you want to him.”

Sure, his childhood dreams had been bigger than three hectares and producing a few hundred bottles a year from his basement, but not all dreams could come true. “You cannot still believe I should step into our father’s shoes, now that you know how much better qualified Gio is to make Fioravanti wine than I am?”

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