“But now we’ve slept together. What if...,” I trail off.
Leo nods. “People do it all the time. Fall in love and work with their partners.”
Fall in love?
I swallow. “What if it turns sour?”
“Can you try to imagine a reality where it only gets better?”
“It’s a fantasy.”
“It’s not,” he says, his brows descending as he places his hand gently on my belly. “Look at Rocco and Isabella, for one. Small family businesses have kept the world turning since forever.”
I need to speak to Kate, I think.
“I don’t do well in relationships, Leo. I am a faultfinder. I get the ick easily.”
“Well now, that’s a challenge,” he says, grinning. And then he puts his hand on my face and turns me toward him. “Olive. Tell me this isn’t special. Tell me you haven’t been wanting to do this since the first night in Catania.”
“Definitely not on the first night,” I say, laughing. “Or the second. Perhaps things started to change when you bought me a macchiato. You know the way to a girl’s heart.”
Leo puts his hands under the blanket and turns my whole body toward him so we are lying face-to-face, inches apart. He kisses my nose. My cheek. My chin.
“It took you a while too, right?” I say.
Leo laughs, pulling back to look at me.
“The first thing I thought when I saw you was that you were hot and, thankfully, you looked nothing like your dad. The second thing I thought was, truthfully, that you were vacuum sealed.”
“Vacuum sealed?”
“Yes, that you were holding everything so tightly inside, you might burst. You wouldn’t accept my help. So fucking stubborn.”
I laugh, blushing at the memory. “I was so nervous.”
“I get that now,” he says.
I smile at him and kiss him on the mouth.
“I should have reached out more. You think your parents are going to live forever,” I say.
“He didn’t fight hard enough for you,” he says more firmly. “I wish I understood why.”
He reaches around me and pulls me closer, our naked bodies flush against each other.
“Leo, do you really think we could do it?” I ask again. “Explore rebuilding Nicky’s? Would you be able to take it if I said it was too hard? Too expensive? If I pulled out at the eleventh hour?”
“Yes,” he says, nodding decisively. “Will you tell me when I’m getting carried away? Because I’ve never run my own kitchen.” He grimaces. “But I’m ready. I’m so ready.”
“If I knew you’d listen,” I say.
“I promise,” he says. “Come on. Let’s enjoy our time together here. London is so far away. Nicky’s is so far away. I want to enjoy you, in Italy, without any distractions.”
“Erm... you know we have a book to finish,” I say, grumbling at him.
But Leo disappears under the bedsheets and kisses his way gently down my body. “I can’t hear you,” he says as he pulls my thigh around his head and buries his face into me.
Later, utterly spent, my body like jelly, I do manage to sneak out of bed and head downstairs for an outside shower. I want to speak to Kate.
