Chapter 42


"Alessandro!" An older, slender woman, who I could only presume to be the infamous Vittoria, was the first to reach him. Dressed immaculately in a white silk pantsuit, she tugged him into a hug, her wrist bangles and bracelets clinking with her movements. She reached up and kissed his cheeks, then pulling back, gave him a once over and spoke in a spill of Italian that I could only presume related to how well he looked.

"Zia -Aunty, allow me to introduce you to my wife." He switched the conversation to English for my benefit. "This is Lisabetta. Lisabetta, this is Zia Vittoria."

"Hello." I gave her my best, sweetest smile, but even then as I watched her glance work its way up and down my body, before her lip gave the slightest curl, I knew that this woman very much disapproved of me.

"Lisabetta." There was a prickle in her voice. "I have heard much about you from my brother-in-law." And by other, less than savoury sources, she implied.

Then turning, she left it at that and allowed for the remainder of the family to greet us. There were cousins, their spouses, their little children, Alessandro's Uncle Francesco was thrown in somewhere in the mix, Luca and Olivia with their new baby, and then finally Giuseppe, who had apparently not long ago arrived Italy to attend. I gave him a smile of relief as he pulled me into a gentle embrace and whispered in my ear; 'good luck'.

Then greetings out of the way, dinner was announced and we filed out onto an adjoining terrace where a table big enough to seat a small village had been prepared for us. With Alessandro being pushed toward Giuseppe and his Uncle Francesco near the head of the table, I soon found myself slotted between an older woman who made herself known as Vittoria's mother, Ginevra, and Alessandro's eldest second-cousin Annabella. Prozia Ginevra (who everyone just referred to as Nonna) promptly dozed off between courses and Annabella spent more time picking at her food than actually eating it. Sometime during the secondo course, when I noted the family seemed more intent on pretending that I didn't exist, I offered Annabella a friendly smile. She was so slim and tiny with big, chocolate brown eyes that made her look like she was barely out of her teens.

"You don't like the fish?" I asked. Naturally, I had opted for just the vegetable dish.

Her head snapped upright and she dropped her fork like I'd just aimed a gun at her. Her face went pale and then flushed red. "No, no, the fish is fine... really."

"Really?" I said, noting that her English was remarkably good. It had a slight British flair to it, similar to Alessandro's accent, and I briefly wondered if Angelina - Alessandro's mother - had had much of an influence on it. "Because it looks more like it's being spread across the plate."

The girl refused to make eye contact with me. Her head dropped. "I don't like fish. But my cat does."

As if on cue, I felt the pressure of a tiny paw tapping at my leg and I shot a covert glance under the table, only to meet the fat tabby who watched his master with hungry, green eyes.

"Oh my god, your cat is adorable," I said but with a finger to her lips Annabella hushed me.

"Mamma does not like him. So we must keep him our little secret."

I gave Vittoria a covert glance but she was in the process of laughing politely with one of her daughters-in-law.

"You are very beautiful." Annabella was watching me from the corner of her eye.

"Thank you," I said.

She slipped another morsel of fish to the cat under the table. From the way she continually glanced at her pretty watch and fidgeted about in her seat, I could tell she felt there was somewhere else she needed to be. Unfortunately for Annabella, the freedom she craved wouldn't be granted her for at least another hour as the courses continued.

Eventually, the courses passed and the family retired back into the sitting room for coffee and grappa. Annabella feigned exhaustion and made her escape and I felt a twinge of envy. It wasn't that the family was necessarily horrible or awful, it was simply that, almost everyone here spoke Italian, including Olivia which had almost instantly endeared her to the family but tended to exclude me from the conversation. When Alessandro finally came to sit down next to me on the couch, after an extended private conversation with his dad, Vittoria gave me a look.

"Alessandro, caro," she said sharply, ignoring the covert kiss he pecked on my head as I snuggled up next to him. She watched me over the tip of her nose like a queen overseeing her domain and finding something offensive. "Show your lady to her room. She looks tired."

"Oh, no I'm okay," I said, feeling the red flaring in my cheeks even as Alessandro gave me a head-to-toe glance. "I promise. I don't want to be rude."

His lip twitched. "Come Lizzie, it's been a long trip." Then turning to the rest of the room who had since stopped in their chatter to focus on us. "If it's alright Zia, Zio, Papà, I think we will bid you goodnight and both retire to our respective rooms."

Rising back to his feet, he took my hand and I allowed him to direct me from the family room without protest.

"I'm sorry about the way they're treating you, Lizzie," said Alessandro as we ascended the stairs and wandered the cool, stone Masseria to our allocated suite. "They're not the warm and friendly Italian family you think of when you imagine Italians."

I chuckled at this, more so in attempt to alleviate the pit of nerves that still insisted on fluttering around my insides. "I think I would be accepted if I knew more Italian. I guess they would find it frustrating that my knowledge of it is so limited even after having grown up in an Italian immigrant town."

"That is no excuse for them to cut you out of conversation. I saw the way Vittoria and my cousins ignored you during dinner."

He held a door open for me and I stepped into a room that had been especially made up for me. It had an old feel about it, even down to the wooden furniture which was high quality and looked to have been hand crafted. A huge four poster bed had been prepared, its floral bedding pulled back and pillows fluffed, and my luggage had been packed away into a wide wardrobe. But there was no sign of Alessandro's stuff. I felt the sudden wave of sadness. He wouldn't be staying with me tonight. Noting my slumping shoulders but mistaking it for how I felt about his family, he came up from behind and wrapped an arm around my shoulders, tugging me back into him.

"They will come to love you, Lizzie. I promise."

I gave him a nod and pressed myself up against his solid chest, committing the feel of him to memory before I had to say goodbye for the night.

"Where will you be sleeping?" I asked.

"Not far." Letting me go, he strode across to the en suite bathroom and indicated to a second bedroom attached to it on the opposite end. "I will just be in here."

"I'm going to miss you," I pouted.

And he smiled, visibly warmed by my sulkiness. "I'll miss you too, cara. But that doesn't mean we can't visit each other when the house is quiet," he implied with a boyish grin and I burst into a giggle.

"Alessandro," I said. "I want to try and be good. I don't want to give Vittoria reason to dislike me. After hearing how strict she can be, I'm terrified of what she would think if she found out we were-" I made talking marks with my fingers to quote Vittoria, "letting our passions for each other run free in this house."

Alessandro burst into his bark of a laugh. "You imitate my aunt quite well." That couldn't have been a compliment. "Lizzie, Vittoria sees herself as the matron of the family. She sets her standards and expects everyone to fall in line with them. She had in her mind the sort of person I ought to marry but, like my father, I don't share in her enthusiasm in the idea of marrying a fellow socialite just to improve the Zingaro dynasty. She is not the boss of us. Or our relationship."

"Even still," I said. "I don't want to make matters worse for either of us either." My eyes fell across the bathroom and the huge, sunken bathtub and I stifled a yawn. "It's been a long day. If it's ok, I think I'm going to bid you goodnight and then wash up and head to bed. The sooner I can get this night over with, the sooner I can see you in the morning." I stood on my toes and placed a kiss on his lips. "Good night, caro."


I woke up early the next morning. My hand swept the empty space beside me and I found myself shooting upright before realising where I was. My heart sank. For a moment it was like there was a piece missing and without it, I wouldn't work properly. I had only been without him for one night and I already missed waking up next to my husband. How in the world was I going to survive a whole week without him? My phone pinged on the bedside table and I reached for it with a lazy hand. It was a message from Alessandro.

I HOPE YOUR NIGHT WAS AS LONELY AS MINE, BELLA. –A.

The smile tugged at my lips, my heart doing a little leap in my chest. He was thinking of me. I thought of Alessandro alone in his room with only a bathroom separating us. I knew he would be lying naked in his bed as he hated sleeping with clothes on, and the thought made me instantly wet. The amount of times we had woken only to throw ourselves into morning lovemaking were too many to count and now it was like my body had come to expect it. I felt bereft without it. Without Alessandro's kisses and croaky words of endearments as he thrust into me. Even the smell and taste of his skin and his crazy bed hair.

IF WE HAVE TO SHARE AN EN SUITE, DOES THAT MEAN WE HAVE TO SHARE A SHOWER TOO? ;) I shot off the reply with the cheeky bite of my lip.

His response was instant. MEET ME IN 5 MINUTES. COME NAKED.

By the time we were decent enough to meet the rest of the family, it was already late morning. Alessandro had coffee delivered to his room while I dressed in mine. I dressed in a simple sundress suited for the warm Mediterranean day and made a point of covering my over-kissed, puffy lips and the blush in my cheeks with extra makeup. When Alessandro slinked into my room holding his steaming espresso, I was standing at the open window, admiring the view of the farm and watching workers scurry about their various activities with the sort of dutifulness you only found in a well-run house. I turned to take in the view of my husband, which, in my opinion, was just as nice. He was dressed in jeans and a polo that made no effort in hiding his stunning physique.

"The family will finally be gathering about now," Alessandro said, tugging me into a one-armed hug from behind and resting his chin on my shoulder. He inhaled deeply through his nose and let out a satisfied breath. "When I have children, I would like to bring them here. Perhaps by then Francesco and Vittoria will be tired of living in my father's house and have moved back to Vittoria's family estate near Milan."

"They don't want a house of their own?" I asked.

Alessandro straightened and gulped down the rest of his coffee. "They had a house once. A nice villa connected to a vineyard and a winery. Francesco decided he wanted to try and save the struggling business that he'd bought off a friend but the winery failed and they went bankrupt. Francesco and Vittoria are not good with money, you see. It burns holes in their pockets as you say."

I piqued a curious eyebrow at this. "Did Giuseppe offer to let them live here?"

"," said Alessandro, unable to resist pecking a coffee flavoured kiss on my neck. "Papà bailed them out and I set them up with a decent income via investments in my company. They live a comfortable life now. But unfortunately the trade-off is that they have become lazy."

"And gossipers," I said.

Alessandro smirked. "You noticed already?"

I stifled a chuckle. "I may not be fluent in Italian but it seems other people's business is all they could talk about."

"Mmm. They do love a good scandal. Except when it comes to the family. Even despite the Olivia scandal, Luca can do no wrong in Vittoria's eyes."

Alessandro reached for my hand to take me down to the breakfast table where the family were no doubt already gathering, but then something outside caught his attention and he frowned, blue eyes squinting against the sunlight.

"Is that... Annabella?"

I glanced in the direction of where he was looking and noticed the slender figure wearing tatty jeans and a tank, making her way up the dusty path toward the house. She held her sandals instead of wearing them because, as I noticed, one of the straps had broken.

"Has she been out all night?" I asked. Her hair was pulled back into a dishevelled ponytail and she stifled a continuous yawn with the back of her hand.

Alessandro's frown remained, this time accompanied by the sudden flare of anger rising in his eyes. "If she has been with a boy, there will be hell to pay," he snarled.

"Oh..." I said. Vittoria and Francesco would flip their lids if they found out. Even though Francesco seemed to be quite uninterested in the lives of his kids, I knew for a fact that if any daughter was sneaking around with a boy, it would mean trouble. "What will you do, Alessandro? Surely it wouldn't be wise to jump to conclusions. It could be totally innocent. Maybe she had a bad night's sleep and went for an early walk."

Alessandro didn't seem convinced. "I will have a talk with her in private."

The family were already gathered around the breakfast table when we headed down stairs. They seemed much livelier this morning than yesterday, as indicated by the sound of Francesco's loud bark of a laugh that resembled Alessandro's. When we reached the small courtyard just off the main dining room, I realised why. More visitors had arrived. I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw them and suddenly all thought of Annabella's mysterious overnight excursion escaped my mind. Because right there, laughing alongside Francesco and dining with Alessandro's extended family, was none other than Marco Calvetti, his wife and, of course... Lydia.