“Tell you what?”
“Whatever’s on your mind. I don’t break easily. My feelings are made of iron. And I can’t fix the fucking problem if you’re not honest with me.”
I wasn’t sure why I decided to become defensive in that moment, but I did. “Can we just keep walking? I’m tired and my feet are hurting.”
He took both of my wrists and held them in a strong hold. “Tell me.”
“You could have told me you were in love with Evelina.”
“Rosaria had a chat with you.”
“Yes, she did. She might be a cold bitch, but she cared enough to tell me the truth.”
He laughed, but it was bitter sounding. “Did my dear old aunt, who cares so much, also tell you she tried to seduce me?”
“No,” I gasped out. “Why would she do that?”
“To cause a war between my uncle and me. And, yeah, I thought about marrying Evelina before I met you. I needed a wife, and an arrangement suited me. But everyone was interested in her, and it wasn’t worth a war with my family. You. I’d go to war with my brother over you. A man who I share blood with and love. Understand?”
I studied his eyes. He was staring at me with that same intensity that made my veins feel like they were made of lava and my heart was turning to mush. “I understand,” I whispered.
“Not fully,” he said, releasing one of my wrists and running a tender finger down my face. “You will. Someday. Maybe.”
I couldn’t even imagine what that would feel like. If things between us were this intense, and we hadn’t even known each other long, how could it get any stronger than this, as he believed it would? Or would it fizzle out over time? The thought depressed me. But, like his eyes, whatever existed between us felt supernatural. Not of this world. No explanation or rhyme or reason for it.
Maybe that was why the Nemours had believed that of me. Because a love like this existed in my depths, and I just couldn’t see it until Matteo came along. I held tighter to his hand as he led me deeper into the trees and deeper into darkness.
Chapter 20
Matteo
Stella couldn’t stop staring at the sky while I fanned the blanket out underneath an ancient olive tree. Its roots boxed us in on both sides, but the area I’d set the blanket down was clear of them. Only grass grew wild. A soft bed underneath our blanket underneath the stars.
Her back was turned to me as she gazed up. “I can’t believe this,” she whispered. She reached up a hand and waved it against the sky. “It’s like I can touch them.”
“Mamma always says it looks like someone spilled a jar of olive oil in the sky, and what’s floating around is specks of glitter. Papà says it’s a 3D light show.”
“They just seem so low. So real. Like I’m touching them when I raise my hands like this.” She added both hands and moved them like windshield wipers. “I’m expecting them to swoosh or something.”
I laughed, but it was one that stayed in my chest, the sound a bit gravelly in the night. I stepped up behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist. I stuck my nose in her neck and breathed her in. She smelled like magnolia, gardenia, a bit of rose, and musky woods—sandalwood, maybe. It wasn’t strong,but just enough to linger on the clothes and in the air around her.
The perfume was as romantic and feminine as she was. It clung, but in the safest fucking way possible. Even when she wasn’t in the room, I could smell it. The scent of a woman.
My woman.
I’d always been raised to be a man of honor. But I couldn’t claim those shoes fit as well as they were supposed to until Stella appeared in my life. Just standing next to her, I’d never felt like such a man before. I knew the longer we were together, the more comfortable those shoes would be on my feet.
She entangled her arms with mine and somehow got our fingers the same way. “I had no idea stars like this existed. A clump of them.”
“They brighten the night sky, ah?”
“Ah,” she said with a smile. “They do.”
“That’s who you are to me, Stella. You brightened my life the first time I saw you.”
She turned her head and looked into my eyes. And there she was. A bright speck in the night. Her pale skin and silver dress reflecting light in the dark pools of my eyes.
“My life won’t always be light,” I whispered.
