‘I’m aware—’
She glared at him, ‘I’m not you, Leo. Don’t try to turn me into someone I don’t want to be. We had a deal. But if you’re worried, I’m wearing the teal dress. The one you gave me.’
One he’d sourced with care when their engagement was announced. A dress he’d believed she’d find acceptable and, in her words, sustainable.
‘The dress from our engagement’s a nice touch,’ he said, trying to repair what he’d clearly broken.
Simone crossed her arms, almost a protective move. ‘Iknow.I thought it seemed sentimental. Now, I’m not so sure about anything. How about you stay here and eat so the effort the staff put in for us isn’t wasted? I’m not hungry any more. I’m going to keep walking.’
Simone stalked off, taking a different path, rounding a corner and disappearing into the garden without looking back. Leo took a slow breath, trying to understand how quickly the moment had changed, from something wonderful, to this.
CHAPTER FOUR
Simone checked her phone. She’d finally sent Holly a picture of the villa she and Leo had visited the day before, their selfie, as reassurance that they were having a good time. Her sister’s reply came quickly.
OMG amazing viewfollowed by flame emojis.
She didn’t think those flames were referring to the view in the background, admittedly amazing as it was.
Simone pulled up the photo again. Her, laughing. Leo’s own grin, warm and generous. The corners of his eyes crinkling as if they’d just shared a secret joke. To someone who knew nothing about their relationship it would have told a story of a loving couple on their honeymoon. To her, it was a photo full of lies.
She put down her phone, satisfied that Holly was happy, and walked to the window of her room. Staring out onto the slice of garden lit up as night fell and then out to the city beyond. She mused about how life and moments could change in an instant, with only a word.
The day on Lake Garda and at the private waterfall had been a magical experience. Motoring at speed across the glorious water. The sun warm, the breeze cool. The planning it must have taken for Leo to arrange the day. Not somewhere people could sightsee, but a private residence because he believed she might like it.
It had shown thought and care. Or at least, she’d believed it had. That it was a result of someone considering her desires, what she might actually enjoy, rather than what they wanted with her as a peripheral consideration. It had been wondrous, beautiful. Looking up at that waterfall tumbling over the rocks and rushing away underneath them, gleaming with perfectly positioned lights. Surrounded by the rock walls, covered in mosses and little ferns, it could have been something out of a fairy tale. A portal to another world where she and Leo were different people and a realm of possibility was open to them.
But as she needed to remember, she and Leo weren’t different people. He was Leo Zanetti, wanted all over the world for how he looked. To set trends. She was his reliable EA, Simone Taylor. It was good that he’d reminded her of that. Sure, he probably thought he was being kind when he talked about what she was going to wear tonight. Whilst she tried not to care because it was all so meaningless, Simone didn’t want to be thought of asPlain Janeeither, even though she knew that wasn’t who she was deep down.
People had called her beautiful once, when she was younger, and wore the ‘right’ clothes. The designer ones, with the glam makeup and hair that had been styled for hours by a hairdresser. It’s just that that wasn’t what was important about a person. It was who they were inside that mattered. She’d met some of the most beautiful people on the planet in her time—at college, socialising with her parents, through her role as an EA and especially with Leo. Some naturally endowed, others surgically enhanced. She didn’t judge. What she’d come to know was that beauty was subjective, but it was also a meaningless measure of someone’s worth. Especially when some people were just plain ugly inside.
Well, if her outward appearance was what Leo was worried about, there wasn’t much she could do about it. She’d made promises to herself about setting aside frivolous things like clothes and makeup and she was sticking to them. Simone checked the time. Tonight was their dinner with the Tessitores. What this whole marriage was about. Whilst all she wanted to do was stay in and eat a burger and a bowl of fries, Simone had a job to do. She’d never shirked before and she wouldn’t now. But she wasn’t interested in this game Leo was playing. Her illusions felt a little shattered, the ground beneath her somewhat unsteady. For one fleeting, ridiculous moment she’d believed Leo had been thinking about her when he’d arranged that boat trip, when most likely, all he was doing was buttering her up for the conversation he wanted to have about how she was going to look on his arm tonight.
It was like something inside her had been crushed and killed. What did that say about her? That she was so starved for attention she’d deluded herself into trying to find it in a relationship that was completely transactional? She shook her head. It didn’t matter. Right now, her focus had to be on pretending to be an adoring wife. That was her job. What she’d been employed to do.
She walked over to the mirror, peering at her reflection. Her hair was done up but not in her usual, tight, shiny chignon. Instead, she was trialling a claw clip hack video Holly had sent her, which was meant to be quick and easy and without the need for so many hair pins. The problem was that her hair wasn’t quite behaving. Not sleek like she preferred for business occasions as this was. Tonight, little pieces of it were falling about her face making the whole style a bit soft. A lot less like herself.
More like the girl she used to be.
Simone gave her makeup one last check, though why, she wasn’t sure. It was the same as always. Natural, with her lips slicked with a little rosy gloss. She looked ‘put together’, as some people might have called it, though not high glamour, because that had never really been her, no matter the box her parents had tried to squeeze her into. And why she was thinking about them now, she didn’t know. Her whole life seemed completely topsy-turvy. She needed to stop romanticising the trip on the boat, stop thinking about her parents, and remember who she was. Simone Taylor. A hard worker. A trustworthy and trusted employee. A good person who was more interested in internal substance than external appearances. And if people didn’t like it, including Leo, then they could, to put it colloquially, take a hike.
Simone grabbed her clutch and left her room, standing at the top of the stairs leading down to the second level of the home where Leo’s bedroom was. As she did, he walked through his own door, his timing impeccable, as always. Right now his head was down, checking his phone in one hand. In his other, holding something she couldn’t really see. Seeing him, her breath caught. Her heart speeding to a thready rhythm as it fluttered against her ribs as if a kaleidoscope of butterflies had taken up residence there. He was wearing a suit, like so many men she’d worked with over the years, but Leonardo Zanetti wore a suit like nobody else. The way it hugged his broad shoulders, draped and shaped his body. His tie in a gorgeous check of teals and reds, complementing her dress to perfection. She squashed any lingering fantasy that his choice of tie showed he’d thought of her. Being who he was, she shouldn’t have expected anything less.
Then he looked up at her and those piercing blue eyes of his stabbed right through Simone’s chest. What did he see when he did that? It was impossible to tell, though his gaze did give her a kind of appraisal. A subtle up-and-down, with a slight smile teasing his perfect lips. She got the feeling he liked her wearing the things he’d bought for her and that did something weird to her insides. Like they’d taken a trip on a rollercoaster.
‘The dress looks lovely,’ he said as she made her way down to his level.
‘You bought it, so you should know.’
The strange feelings of distance from yesterday still clung to her, even though they’d had a little reset today. A delicious coffee and pastry in a local café. A stroll through the cobbled streets where she’d picked up a few art prints as souvenirs.
‘It’s the wearer, not the clothing, that makes the outfit,cara.’
She tried to ignore the compliment, and the endearment, yet a flush of heat still crept to her cheeks. Leo had told her the dress wasn’t modern couture like he’d tried to offer her before she’d put her foot down, but vintage. She’d wanted it the moment she’d set eyes on it. Glowing teal silk that had so much play of colour under the lights the dress looked alive. It was apparently from the fifties, a ‘wiggle dress’ the handwritten tag attached to it had said. The minute she’d slipped it on she’d fallen in love. The fit made her look like a bit of a fifties bombshell, the way it nipped in at the waist and hugged her hips.
He’d tried to imply in an offhand kind of way that being vintage, it was an economical choice and didn’t offend her desire for more sustainable fashion. As if Leo didn’t think she’d look up the brand on the tag. When she did, she discovered the designer was collectible and that this particular style and colour was rare, highly sought after and absurdly expensive. Yet the moment she’d placed it on her body she hadn’t been able to give it up. It made her feel pretty, like she did tonight.
‘You look good too. The tie’s a nice touch.’
