“He’s got Alessandra’s dress under control, too.” She’d asked Alessandra to be her maid of honor, as they’d gotten close these past few weeks, and somehow it just felt right with Petra gone.
His mouth twisted in a half smile. “Then you’re free and clear. If you can put up with me for an evening.”
Her whole body lit up like a Christmas tree at the thought of spending a real evening with him. Which was insane, really. She’d been latching on to that look she’d seen in his eyes that night in New York, the look she saw every now and again when they were making love. He cared. She wanted to turn it into love. She was a fool.
They ate fresh perch and baby potatoes, accompanied by a light pinot grigio, on the patio overlooking Lake Como. Olivia felt herself falling more in love with her fiancé with every minute that passed. When he was like this, when he was relaxed and not obsessed with business, he was that man she’d met in Navigli. Utterly, overwhelmingly gorgeous and charismatic.
Her stomach in knots, she gave up trying to eat and put her fork down.
“Finished?”
Rocco had pushed his plate away and was looking at her expectantly. She nodded. He stood up and held out his hand. “Bring your wine. I want to show you something.”
They walked down the stone steps that descended from the twelfth-century villa into the waters of Lake Como. Flanked by two exquisite marble statues, they were formal steps, meant for receiving company by boat. Rocco sat down on them with his wine and tugged Olivia down beside him. The view as the sun set on the lake and sheer mountain face on the unseasonably warm evening was so utterly exquisite neither of them spoke for a long while.
“I used to come here at night,” Rocco finally said. “When I couldn’t sleep. We scattered my mother’s ashes in this lake.”
Her heart turned over in her chest.
“Everything seemed so big and vast at seven without two parents. I was trying to make sense of something that didn’t make sense in my father’s defection and my mother’s death. To control the chaos around me. So I made up sea creatures, sea friends, to keep me company. My nanny found me asleep down here one morning. They were all panicked looking for me.”
An ache in her throat joined the one in her chest. “You were doing your best to cope.”
“Sì.”
She swallowed. “I bet they were pretty amazing sea creatures. What did they look like?”
His mouth twisted. “Big, green scary-looking things with scales and long tails. But they had great smiles. That used to make them okay.”
She slid her hand into his free one, feeling its warmth engulf her, soothe her as it always did. “You’re telling me this because you want me to slay my dragons.”
He turned his head, his dark gaze sinking into hers. “You’ve already slayed half of them, Olivia. Now slay the rest.”
She thought about that long and hard, because she was doing her best. She had been for weeks. She wasn’t as strong as him. He was a rock, and she was not.
“I’ll try.”
He stood up and insisted she go to bed.
Standing there, in her mere wisp of a nightie in their bedroom with its magnificent view of the glistening lake, she thought he might leave her then to go to work.
His gaze fused with hers in that electric connection they shared, the one he couldn’t control even though he wanted to. He reached for her, tugging the wisp of silk over her head and bringing the heat of their bodies together.
He desired her, wanted her desperately; she could feel it in the intensity of his lovemaking as he deposited her on the bed and staked claim to every inch of her. But there was more. She saw that naked emotion on his face again now when he took her, their bodies fitting together perfectly.
Her heart stopped in her chest as she waited for him to say it. Willed him to say it. But then he turned his head away from her and buried his lips in her throat. Switched it off like he always did when she got too close.
Her heart stuttered back to life. Went back to where it should have been. If he hadn’t said it now, that he loved her, he never would. It was time for her to start accepting that. Protecting herself against the inevitable. Because it was coming. The day he shut her out completely.
CHAPTER TWELVE
MILAN’S PIAZZA DUOMO, the city’s central square, and home to the massive, silver-spired, Gothic Duomo Di Milano cathedral, was the site of Mondelli’s opening night Fashion Week show. Lit with eclectic green-and-blue lighting that cast an otherworldly glow over the square, the buzz in the crowd was palpable as Rocco negotiated the crowds, heading for the tent that housed the models and his fiancée, who would open the show. The cobblestones reverberated beneath his feet, the air around him sizzling with an electric energy as Italy’s revered fashion brand made its triumphant return to Fashion Week with its fall/winter Vivo collection.