Page 90 of My Fake Italian Marriage

It was that first morning in Tuscany all over again, with her hot and sweaty and pink in the face from her run – and now mud-spattered too – and him cool and immaculate and delectable. The one thing that had changed was that this time her heart didn’t sink at the sight of him. No, it went into overdrive, instead. She drank in his familiar face, the crinkles around his eyes, the thick eyebrows, the rough bristles on his unshaved jaw.

“Can we talk?” he asked. “We have unfinished business we still need to discuss.”

She nodded mutely, backing out of the kitchen and heading into the living room at the front of the house. He followed her, closing the door quietly behind them.

She turned to face him, hands on her hips. “What are you doing here?”

“You left in such a hurry that there were some things I didn’t get a chance to say.”

“You could have called. Or texted. You didn’t have to come all this way.”

He shook his head, his dark, inscrutable gaze holding her captive, and her heart did that flutter thing again that only he seemed capable of triggering. “This isn’t something that could be said over the phone. Please, can we sit?”

She sat on the denim-blue sofa, and Luca sat, too, leaving a healthy space between them. What did that mean? Was he trying to keep a professional distance? Was he still worried that she would want more than he was willing to give? Was he here for business reasons, or personal reasons? She caught her lip between her teeth, impatient for him to say whatever he’d travelled a thousand miles to tell her, to put her out of this sudden state of turmoil.

He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and her eyebrows rose. Was he nervous? Luca was never nervous. Avoidant, maybe, but nothing ever ruffled his composure.

“You told me I needed to decide what I wanted and to go after it,” he began.

She nodded.

“I have decided to take over the vineyard, and my father agrees.”

He’d come all this way to tell her that? She frowned. Or had he come to beg for that bonus five per cent of the shares?

When she still didn’t speak, he reached across the space between them and laid his hand over hers. “But there is something I want more than the vineyard.”

She pulled her hand away. “I know. You want your brother to come home.”

He shook his head. “I want you.”

It was her turn to swallow. Her throat felt choked. Perhaps this was all a dream. Maybe she’d only dreamt that she had woken and gone out for a run, and maybe she was still dreaming. Though, if this was just a dream, she didn’t want to wake.

“Why?” Her voice sounded scratchy. “For your parents’ sake or your own?”

“For mine. For you and me, because I think we are better together.” Luca moved off the sofa to kneel in front of her. “I love you. More than I ever thought I could love someone.” The pulse in his throat was visible and fast. “I am sorry it took me so long to realise this, and even if you don’t feel the same, or if I’m too late, I had to tell you. You were right, I was afraid. But living without you scares me even more. I never want to wake again without knowing I get to see my best friend, the love of my life, there beside me.”

She blinked rapidly against the burn in her eyes. “You’re going to have to say all that again, because I missed everything you said after ‘I love you’.”

He grinned, his eyes lighting up and his dimple flashing. “I love you. I want you in my life, not just as a business partner, but as my best friend, my lover, my wife. Please will you marry me? For real this time?”

He drew a box from his pocket, the worn antique leather box with his great-grandmother’s ring, the ring so perfect it could have been made for her. He opened the box, and she blinked again. This time, a big, fat tear squeezed between her lids. Luca reached up to brush it away, his fingers lingering against her cheek.

She cleared the lump from her throat. “Yes.”

His grin widened. He took her hand and slid the ring onto her ring finger. Not the one on her left hand, which in Italy denoted marriage, but onto her right hand. The hand of promise. The ring fit perfectly; he’d had it resized for her. Then he threaded his fingers through hers. “My dreams mean nothing if you are not there to share them with me. I hope we can run the vineyard together, but if you want to live here in London instead of in Italy, then we will make it work.”

She shook her head. He belonged in Tuscany; the land was part of him. And perhaps part of her, too, because in a very short time it had grown to feel like home. “I will marry you, and I’ll run the vineyard with you … but only on one condition.”

He arched an enquiring eyebrow.

“No more cooking lessons with Pierina. I want to learn to cook, and she may be the best cook I’ve ever met, but…”

Luca laughed. “But she is a tyrant in the kitchen.” He raised her hand to his mouth and kissed her palm. “ThenIwill teach you to cook.”

His lips moved to her wrist, and she shivered. She’d thought that his first proposal, made half-naked in the sunny living room of his apartment, had been the proposal of her dreams, but this one was even better. Because it was real. And he loved her.

Surreptitiously, she pinched herself. Ouch. Definitely not dreaming.

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