Because one morning she woke, tangled up in him as she usually was, and realized it was the week of their wedding.
Joy spurred through her. Anticipation and excitement. Not for the event itself, but for the fact they would be husband and wife.
And she finally realized she’d made a serious mistake.
Because she had been humming over the last-minute alterations to her dress the week before. She’d been dreaming of the way he’d look at her when she walked down the aisle of the historic church they’d picked out together. She was thinking about giving him a small say in the naming of her puppy when she was able to bring him home.
She was not daydreaming about mergers or ways she would push him out once she had some sway in Ascione. She was dreaming aboutromanticthings, just as he’d once accused her of.
So it dawned on her, as he slept soundly with his arms wrapped tight around her, that she’d fallen in love with him. His humor. The way he buried all his caretaker tendencies under a sharp edge. Like he was protecting himself from something, and it made her desperate to find out what.
She would need to find out what, she supposed, but for right now she was so startled by how foolish she could be—and how wonderful it felt—that she spent a few days weighing this feeling. She continued watching him and tried to determine if he might feel the same.
They had not discussed anything of weight since their first morning after, but they still spent time together. They still worked on business together. He supported her, in small ways, at work. She tried her hand at homemaking for someone and thought…maybe, just maybe, he enjoyed it.
They all but lived together. In every single way, they behaved as a real couple. In public. In private.
Except one very important thing. They did not discuss what was happening. Where it could lead. They did not acknowledge thetruthof what was happening between them. In some ways, they both pretended like it was still a fiction, even though it was the most real relationship she’d ever had.
Still, it was missing something important. She did not know his feelings on love. Futures. Real futures—the kind with commitment and children. She was not opposed to asking him, but she supposed there was a selfish part of her that wanted to be sure they were married first.
So Valli-Ascione wouldn’t suffer.
So he couldn’t run away that easily.
If she felt any guilt over this, she refused to give it the time of day. A woman had to protect herself and her legacy in whatever ways she could. Loving him did not mean she should put herself at risk.
She had to remind herself of this too often. Their wedding was in three days. She would keep it to herself for three more days.
“What do you suppose I should name the puppy when we get him?” Serena asked one night, curled up on the couch together. She dropped the casualweand wondered if he would stiffen.
He didn’t.
He acted as though the casual intimacy was nothing, but to her it was…everything. Everything she never considered she might have. Her head in his lap, his fingers trailing through her hair as he read e-mails on his phone.
“Perhaps another name from that terrible movie you made me watch,” he said, surprising her with any suggestion at all, let alone one so…perfect. “Keep it all on theme.”
The movie was not terrible. It was her favorite. But he had watched it last night and put together that the cats were named after the main characters. It was the silliest thing to want to cry over him understanding thatthemednames would appeal to her. Tears pricked her eyes anyway.
“I…” The words were ready to erupt, but they stuck there in her throat before she could utter them. She couldn’t say it once his gaze moved from his phone to her.
She saw the wariness creep into his eyes, clear as day, like he could see the love in her eyes clear as day as well. So she didn’t say it. She swallowed the words down. Where they belonged. At least until they were married and the businesses were fully merged.
Once she was protected, maybe…just maybe, she could let it all out. But she couldn’t do it now. Still, it didn’t mean she wanted to shut him out. No, she wanted him any way she could get him, and she didn’t really care if it was pathetic.
“Take me to bed,” she murmured.
And he did. No wariness involved.
* * *
Luciano felt nothing but unsettled the closer it got to their wedding day. Because what had once felt like it could be nothing but a farce now felt…too real. He had been avoiding that reality for days now, but the closer the actual ceremony became, the less he could seem to hold it at bay.
They seemed to spend every second together, and when they weren’t together, he wanted to be with her. He found himselfobsessed, and not just with her body, but also with her mind, with her strange quirks.
The joy she’d exuded the day she’d put money down on that ridiculous dog. How she had almost cried when he’d created a silly little countdown to Stuart the dog’s pickup day. How she teased him for being as excited as she was.
He could not quite understand the appeal ofcatswith their slinky eyes and snooty attitudes, but when he’d told Serena that, she’d said that it was simply because he was too muchlikethem to like them. He’d wanted to be affronted.
