Landing in 2 hrs. Don’t start the party without me, Moretti.
Nicola:
You’re lucky I’m waiting at all. I look very good this week.
Matteo:
Pics or it didn’t happen.
I smirked, curling my legs beneath me on the plush white duvet, still in my silk robe. I snapped a mirror selfie—robe slightly off the shoulder, makeup half-done, coffee in hand, lips already glossed. Flirty, but with plausible deniability.
Nicola:
You’ll have to wait and see. Delayed gratification builds character.
Matteo:
I have enough character. What I don’t have is you under me. Would love to remedy that issue tonight.
I bit my lip, heat curling low in my belly.
Nicola:
You’re lucky I like you.
Matteo:
You just like me, Moretti?
My mind flashed to a few nights ago—those slow, honey-drenched days we’d spent wrapped up in each other like the world outside had ceased to exist. After the chaos of the final race and the whirlwind of champagne-soaked celebrations, Matteo had whisked me away to a quiet villa tucked in the rolling hills of the Italian countryside. No cameras. No schedules. Just us.
We were supposed to stay a weekend, but we dragged it on as long as we could.
We barely left the bed the first day. Sunlight filtered through gauzy white curtains as we stayed tangled in sheets and laughter and whispered promises. His skin smelled like warm cedar and citrus, and I clung to it like oxygen. Every time he touched me, I felt the walls around my heart crack open a little more.
By the third day, I’d insisted we come up for air. “We’re starting to forget what clothes feel like,” I teased, already pulling a sweater over my messy hair. He groaned in protest from the bed, hand lazily trailing across the sheets where I’d been moments before.
We slipped into town like shadows. Hats pulled low, sunglasses on, fingers brushing secretly under tables and in quiet corners of cobblestone cafes. The village was sleepy and sunlit, nestled between vineyards and olive groves. No one recognized us there. No one cared.
It was bliss.
That night we walked along a quiet dirt path that curved behind the villa, the sky bruised with twilight and the air scented with lavender. He pulled me close under a string of fairy lights draped across the terrace and started to sway, humming a song I didn’t know but never wanted to forget.
“Dance with me,” he’d said, his voice low and a little shy. My thoughts shouted at me:
I love you
I love you
I love you
I wanted to say it. Every second. Every time he looked at me like I was more than the life we’d both carefully planned around. But the wordsI love youburned like stars in my throat—bright, brilliant, and terrifying.
So instead, I said it in all the ways I could. In the way I made him coffee in the mornings before he was even awake. In the way I laughed at all his terrible jokes. In the way I kissed him like I didn’t care that there was a timer on this bubble we’d built.
But still…every time I looked at him—really looked at him—I wanted to scream it.I love you, Matteo DeLuca. You reckless, brilliant, maddening man. I love you so much I don’t know how to be quiet about it anymore.
And yet, I did stay quiet. Afraid that if I said it out loud, it would become too real. Too breakable.
