Page 54 of In Italy for Love

‘Jules, hmm? You are friends again I see. It worked out well, didn’t it?’ Berengario asked, his chin in the air. Jules wasn’t sure if she imagined his gaze dipping to their hands – or the emphasis on the word ‘friends’. ‘But you can go and wash.’ She wasn’t imagining the wrinkle of his nose. ‘I’ll see you at Due Pini later.’

She followed Alex to his door, where he fumbled with his keys before heaving it open with a little too much force. When she’d closed it carefully behind her, he leaned on the wall by the stairs, his head falling back.

‘I’m sorry.’ The apology – and the strain in his jaw told her he was as mixed-up as she was – went a long way to settling her resentment. ‘I reacted without thinking, but I still have to live here after you go – live with their concern. I thought I could just go with it, but that’s harder than I thought.’

The tension drained from her, replaced by a bleak kind of acceptance. ‘You still have to hide from your interfering Italian family and your zombie neighbours,’ she said with a nod, her voice trailing off. ‘And I won’t always be here to protect you.’

With a chuckle that was almost a sigh, he snagged the waistband of her jeans and tugged until she bumped up against him again. ‘Just remember,’ he said, giving her a squeeze and a breathy kiss to her cheek before straightening and setting her away from him again, ‘I neverdon’twant to kiss you.’

22

Alex wasn’t sure how much Berengario knew, but whatever he’d seen that morning had been enough for him to step up his interference to excruciating levels. Maddalena was at the mill supervising the pressing, leaving Berengario to throw them together at every chance.

He shooed Davide away whenever he came near Jules – not that it stopped Alex asking her if she’d told his cousin-in-law to call her Jules as well. The twinkle in her eyes when she’d realised he was still jealous had been worth it, especially since it temporarily banished the shadow of caution she’d been wearing in her expression since they were nearly caught holding hands.

Berengario sent them alone to the farthest tree and instructed Alex to hold the ladder for her as she stretched for the high berries. Alex couldn’t quite resist a crooked smile at the view from below.

After pausing at lunchtime for blecs – rustic buckwheat pasta with butter and cheese – they were headed into town to the mill – together, at Berengario’s instruction – with the next load of berries and firm instructions to give Jules a taste of the new oil.Arco was frolicking with Chanel, so Marisa promised to keep an eye on him.

‘I’m not the best tour guide,’ Alex pointed out to Berengario as they closed the tray on the truck in preparation for the drive back to Cividale.

‘That’s certainly true,’ his friend muttered. ‘But for God’s sake you can be a bit more hospitable? She likes you,’ he added out of the side of his mouth.

‘We’re not primary school children,’ Alex responded, annoyed by the complex subtext of truth and obfuscation in the conversation.

‘No?’ Giving Alex another slap on the back of the head, Berengario stomped off.

‘I still like him better than Luca’s mother,’ Jules commented as she fastened her seat belt.

‘Mothers-in-law are always problematic – Italian ones doubly so,’ he said lightly, starting the engine of the old pickup.

‘You know, for all the stupid mistakes I made, there’s one thing I did right: choosing Italian bureaucracy over marriage.’

‘That’s an interesting way to express it.’ Questions flooded his mind, now his self-preservation instincts were in retreat and his curiosity could come to the fore.

‘It seemed the sensible thing at the time – which makes me laugh because moving to another country for a two-month relationship is not sensible, no matter how you look at it. But anyway, I knew I was theoretically eligible for Italian citizenship, so I applied for that instead of getting married like we’d discussed.’

He tried to respond, but choking out ‘You nearly got married after two months?!’ didn’t feel like the right thing to say.

‘Urgh, imagine going through a divorce on top of everything right now – it was definitely a close call. I was way too young to get married anyway, regardless of how long we’d been together.’She glanced at him suddenly. ‘Uh, I don’t mean to imply anything if you got married young.’

He gave an awkward shrug. ‘Wewereyoung. Twenty-four.’

‘Bloody hell!’

He didn’t always notice her accent, but in that expression he picked up on the broader vowels than he’d been used to in British English – and her emphatic tone made him smile.

‘But we met when we were teenagers and got together when we were nineteen.’

‘Wow, really? At nineteen I was still getting drunk on pre-mixed vodka drinks.’

He shuddered involuntarily.

‘Yeah, I know. I was not classy at nineteen. I bet you started drinking wine at the table with your parents in a civilised, Italian manner.’

‘We joke that Furlans are alcoholics who started drinking wine at six years old, but at least as teenagers we mix ourownrum and coke.’ He glanced sideways to find her gawping at him and gave her a wink.

‘How old are you? With the tired eyes, it’s hard to tell.’Tired eyes. Strangely, he didn’t mind the observation, especially not in her matter-of-fact tone.

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