“But more than that, I don’t want to think of him with you,” he muttered, dropping his head then and kissing the flesh in the curve of her neck. “I do not want to think of him looking at you, wanting to touch you, fantasizing about being with you.” His hand pushed at her shirt, separating it from the slip skirt she wore. “We both know this won’t last, but for as long as it does, you are exclusively mine, and I intend to remind you of that every chance I get.Capisci?”
It was at that moment,Francesco stopped lying to himself, pretending that Willow was just another woman, and that this was just sex. The moment she’d opened the door and he’d looked at her, he’d imagined Tom touching her, and he’d wanted to bust something. That was a totally unfamiliar experience for Francesco, who’d generally been governed, in relationships, by the maxim, easy come, easy go.
Sleeping with Willow had literally landed in his lap, but that didn’t mean it was easy, and it was starting to feel like the whole letting her walk away thing was going to be more complicated than he’d anticipated.
Only, Francesco had enough experience to know that when it came to women, only a very limited part of himself was available. No matter what he might want or crave, when the time came to end their fake relationship, he’d end it properly and leave it at that. Their friendship was too important to risk convoluting things for long.
“This weekend has to be the last time,” he said, pushing at her shirt until he could feel the curve of her breasts and groaning against her mouth before he deepened the kiss, his tongue tangling with hers, his lips hard and insistent. “If we draw this out, it has the potential to get messy.”
“Yes,” she agreed, tilting her head back then thrusting her hands in the air, so he could get her clothes completely dislodged from her body. He didn’t need to be asked twice. He stripped her shirt off and let himself revel in her near nudity, dragging his mouth from her shoulder, along her collarbone, flicking the point in the middle there, then moving lower, to her breasts, tasting her, wanting her that, to hell with the car waiting outside, he lifted her and wrapped her legs around his waist, carrying her through to the lounge. He placed Willow on the edge of the sofa, then dropped to his knees, kissing her again, as he pulled her skirt from her body and then unfastened his pants.
“I want you,” he said, unnecessarily, because her hands were reaching for his arousal, wrapping around it, squeezing him.
“Yes,” she panted, her voice high and taut.
But there was something in the back of his mind, something important: a question he needed an answer to. “Did you sleep with him?”
Willow pulled her head back so she could see him clearly, her cheeks all flushed, eyes hooded. She bit into her lower lip and shook her head. He told himself the relief he felt was all down to the way it felt to sink into her again, to know the pleasure of her body, and nothing to do with the fact she hadn’t fallen into bed with some other guy.
Willow glancedout at the dusky skies of Italy, the enormous pencil pines that formed an impressive silhouette against the sky and felt a complicated tangle of emotions. She’d been here before. Often enough to recognize the landmarks of the villa, to experience a sense of coming back, if not exactly coming home.
But, this was different.
This time, she wasn’t with her father, on a family vacation. She wasn’t coming in the capacity of an old family friend, to spend time with the Santorosen masse. She was here with Francesco, pretending to be his girlfriend, and as the car slipped through the wrought iron gates and up the long, gravelled drive, towards the villa, she felt a thud of compunction in her chest.
“Are you sure this isn’t a mistake?”
He turned to face her slowly, and even though he was looking at her with just a hint of amusement, she felt a burst of adrenalin overtake her body. Attraction was a throbbing, twisting ache of need, a yearning that was impossible to ignore. It terrified her.But in the back of her mind, she clung to the fact they’d both agreed this weekend would be their last hurrah. Whether they told everyone about their breakup now, or waited a few weeks, or even months, they wouldn’t—and couldn’t—see each other again, in this capacity.
Francesco had been right: there was too much potential here for things to get complicated.
“No,” he said, lip lifting higher on one side. “I think it’s probably a huge mistake, but it’s too late to back out now. Everyone’s looking forward to seeing you.”
Her eyes flew wide. “That’s not exactly reassuring.”
“I presumed you wanted honesty.”
“Yeah, well, I did,” she said, fidgeting with her fingers. “But I also wanted reassurance.”
He leaned over and pressed a finger to her chin, his eyes boring into hers. “Reassurance, hmm?”
She nodded once.
“How’s this?” He put his other hand on her knee, squeezing gently. “For the next two nights, you and I are going to just relax into this. Talk, laugh, make love. Forget that it’s fake. Because when we leave here, and get back to London, it’s over, and we’ll have a clean break for a while. For the sake of our friendship.”
She felt like ice had been poured down her spine, but she nodded anyway, because this plan made sense. “Yeah,” she said, clearing her throat and trying again. “That sounds okay.”
“Just okay?” He arched a brow, and she laughed.
“Are you looking for compliments, Francesco?”
“It’s always nice to be wanted.”
She ignored the pang in the centre of her chest, that reminded her of how unwanted she’d always known herself to be. How much she didn’t belong, even in her own family.
The car drew to a stop out the front of the villa and Willow glanced over Francesco’s shoulder, towards the home.Something shifted inside of her then. That sense of ‘coming back’ returned, but she imagined how it must have been for Francesco. Thiswashis home. The place hedidbelong, where hewaswanted.
Unlike Willow, he was an important part of a big, interwoven family, bursting at the seams with love and respect. They were all different, yet they worked alongside one another. She’d seen it from the sidelines for years—she’d just never thought she’d be jettisoned to the centre of it.
