Without a word, Sandro follows, his heavy gait almost a prowl as he walks beside me like an enemy might leap out of the hedges at any moment. His gaze shifts in the same poised, watchful way as he carries his body, taking in every detail of the garden all the way out to our property line but only sparing me a glance.
The garden smells like roses and freshly turned earth, and I inhale deeply, soaking up the familiar nature and drawing strength from it.
Sunlight glints off the fountain at the center of the walkway, casting shards of light across our path despite the sun’s slow descent.
It could almost be peaceful—if the man walking beside me didn’t feel as tight as a piano wire.
And the longer the silence stretches between us, the less I think he likes me.
But now that we’re alone, I suddenly feel shy. Sandro seems to have zero inclination to carry the conversation, so if I want this night to end in anything but utter failure, I need to pull myself together.
Steeling my nerves, I stop and turn purposefully to face my betrothed.
He mirrors my body language, and the movement is so natural, it reminds me of a fighter squaring off with his opponent.
My breath catches as I take in the way his shirt fabric strains to contain the muscles beneath it, and I just glimpse the chapped skin of his split knuckles before I drag my eyes back to his.
“So. My parents tell me you’re the man I’m supposed to marry.” I sound way too breathy, and I pray that he doesn’t see me blushing beneath my thin layer of makeup.
But I can’t help noticing that, even in his dirty, disheveled state, Sandro is…gorgeous. And he’s suddenly standing close enough to me that I can smell the faint scents of salt, leather, and natural musk that cling to him, making my stomach quiver.
His mercurial hazel eyes transform into polished hematite as he studies my face in the soft light of sunset, and it makes my mouth go dry.
“So I’ve heard,” he says dryly.
I’ve never met anyone so challenging to read, and I feel the sweat gathering along the nape of my neck as I scramble for another topic of conversation.
Sandro, it would seem, does not intend to make this easy for me.
My eyes drop instinctively back to his hands—his raw knuckles that, upon closer inspection, look bloody, probably from the fight. “You’ve been boxing?”
It must be a naive question—or maybe just so obvious, I’m clearly grasping for something to talk about—because I see the first hint of amusement tugging at his lips. But he doesn’t laugh at me, and his tone warms as he says, “Something like that.”
That’s all it takes to melt my insides—the suddenly soft edge to his deeply masculine voice.
I hadn’t noticed the curling edge of an Italian accent in his curt responses before, but now that he’s strung more than two words together, it’s unmistakable, and it rolls off his tongue like golden honey.
The familiarity of it immediately makes me feel more at home.
Warmth sparks inside my chest, and I cling to the topic like the olive branch I pray that it is. “I like it,” I say, perking up—perhaps a little too enthusiastically, since his dark, powerful brows lift in a skeptical expression.
“You like… what?” he asks slowly, doubt and confusion tinging his tone. He gives me the distinct impression that he finds me vexing. At least he hasn’t told me to stop talking yet.
“That you came as you are,” I say, hoping he might let down his guard if I tell him something honest. “No pretending. No hiding the fact that you were somewhere else, doing something you actually care about.”
“I didn’t exactly have time to change,” he says, as if taking my comment as some kind of demand for an explanation.
But that’s not how I mean it at all. In truth, meeting Sandro when he’snotall put-together relieved a massive amount of tension I hadn’t realized I’d been carrying.
And it leaves me more curious about the man I likely would have found terrifying otherwise. “Would you have?” I ask. “If you had the time?”
He pauses, his brows buckling into a frown that somehow looks more natural on his bold Roman features. “Probably not.”
I suspected as much, and the reward from guessing right about my soon-to-be husband brings a smile to my face. “Good,” I murmur, daring to reveal a bit more about myself in return for his candor. Just because I can’t tell himeverythingabout myself doesn’t mean we can’t get to know each other.
And I would like that very much—to understand the man I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life with. Sandro’s bold choice to come today in the state he’s in tells me more about him than any brief walk in a garden ever could. It leaves me with a sense of optimism about the future that I hadn’t dared hope for until now.
I don’t care if my husband is refined or even charming, really. I want someone I can trust, and I find Sandro’s blunt transparency far more appealing than any display he could have put on for me.
