Page 2 of My Big Fat Italian Break-Up

‘Erica, honey, I was thinking… now that things have slowed down a bit, don’t you think it’s time we set the date?’

That was the problem. Business hadn’t slowed down a bit, but definitely ground to a terrifying halt. There was nothing I wanted more than to be Mrs. Foxham. He’d proposed inside a hot-air balloon two years ago and we’d set a date at least three times since. But there had always been something: the mumps (my now ten-year-old daughter Maddy), the measles (my fourteen-year-old son Warren), a sprained ankle (me) or Julian’s busy book tour schedule. Our wedding plans were now beginning to sound like a running joke between us. Only neither of us was laughing anymore.

But first I wanted to make sure I’d be OK before he committed to me. Financially OK. This was the one fly in my Tuscan champagne. Julian had invested a lot of his own money in our new life and business and the first year we’d been beating bookings away with a stick. But now?Onebooking all season. Why? Had my kick-ass manager skills gone downhill since I’d left my Boston job at The Farthington Hotel? If so, it was time to get back on track and pronto.

‘I know we’ve been putting it off for some time now,’ I apologized as Julian’s eyebrow shot up. ‘But can’t we wait just a little longer?’ I tried to negotiate without hurting his feelings. God knew how I’d fought tooth and nail to believe in myself after all that my ex-husband Ira had put me and the kids through. I needed to feel I could still do it on my own and not depend on the ‘rich husband’. Nothing bothered me more than that. ‘I want to sort the business out first…’

He groaned. ‘It’s been two years, Erica. No more waiting. Let’s go away, anywhere you want, and do it.’

‘I—I can’t just take off like that, Julian. What about our guests?’

‘They’ll be OK. Rosina can take care of them. It’s not like we’ve got an army coming in,’ he insisted.

‘Exactly, you see? I need to figure out what’s goingon.’

He shrugged. ‘We can always do that when we get back. One week isn’t going to change anything.’

Now, I know that money gave him the confidence not to worry about much these days, but it was starting to feel like he didn’t understand my worries. Didn’t he care as much as me anymore? Or was I the official family worrywart?

‘What about our responsibilities?’ I insisted. ‘The kids need us.’

But he was shaking his head. ‘Erica, it’s always something with you. I’m getting a little tired.’

‘Tired… of me?’ I asked, instantly meek.

The prospect of losing him hadn’t occurred to me, I’ll be honest. But seeing the look in his eyes, I was beginning to worry.

He’d taken a leap of faith to follow me out here, abandoning his cushy job as a principal, and precisely my children’s principal in Boston. Those who don’t know me yet may think I’m the smooth seductress mom, but they’d be sooo wrong. I’m anything but smooth.

In fact, despite the gazillion diets I’ve tried, I still have my share of lumps and bumps, although some are still in the right places. And over all those skinny-assed women courting him shamelessly, he’d gone and chosen the one frazzled, stressed-out workaholic freak–moi.

At that time, a mother of two and married (albeit in name only), my life had been suffocating me like a size four dress. I had too much stuff to fit into it, trying to juggle all the balls in the air on my own. Because my better half (ha!) had spent all his time and money, most of it mine, on sneaking around with a woman half his age. To do so, he’d dispensed himself from all fatherly duties, leaving me to graduate to the all-in-one position of mommy and daddy.

Truth be told, Ira and I had been slowly and very painfully dying as a couple. Until the day he tried to badger me into a stomach bypass because I was ‘too big for him to handle’. I know, right? In any case, just a few minutes before they were to take me into the operating theatre, I found out that he was cheating on me. Which had given me the push I needed to face him. And believe that even if he and I were done, my life was far from over. I still deserved to be loved.

And then one fine day, Julian had come along and torn my pants off. Literally speaking. And, between a parents’ night and a school sports event, it had soon become apparent that Principal Foxham had wanted to spend more and more time with yours truly. And when Ira finally did the unmentionable and went baseball batshit crazy on us, who was there to protect us? You got it – Principal Julian Foxham, former baseball star (it turned out) and lover extraordinaire.

And when he’d agreed to move to Tuscany with us, the rest was history. I ran the B & B and he continued his writing career, globetrotting from one book tour to another. And dealing with my lingering insecurities.

I repeated my question. ‘Are you growing tired of me?’

He exhaled, but it wasn’t quite a sigh, bless his soul.

‘No, honey, not tired of you, but tired of waiting. When are you finally going to let go and give up to the good life?’

The good life. He was right. With this need to stay financially independent through my business, I’d carved myself something that was more a trench than a happy routine. Then again, if I didn’t succeed, everything the kids and I had been through before Julian would have been for nothing.

And yet, deep in my heart I knew he was right. What the hellwasI waiting for? We loved each other. Maddy and Warren adored him – the one loving father they’d ever had. Even now that he dashed around the world, he still found time for them, when Ira couldn’t even be bothered to praise them for anything, be it their artwork or their marks. Here in Italy, Julian had even learned Italian so he could speak to their teachers and get to grips with their curriculum. Need I say more as to why I adore this handsome, sexy, caring man who believed in me enough to follow me halfway across the world?

So why couldn’t I let go and try to relax? If things went belly-up, we’d face it as a family. It wouldn’t be my fault, right? Plus, wasn’t I in my dreamland now, where only good things could happen to us? So what if this season was a disaster? I’d make it up the next. Julian was right. We had a safety net. It wasn’t like we were poor.

‘Well?’ he prompted softly.

I looked up, conscious I was being ridiculously recalcitrant. Julian was everything I’d ever wanted. I took his hand. ‘Uhm…’

He studied me through eyes that were knowing but never sure.

‘I’m kidding!’ I cried. ‘Let’s do it! Let’s set the date once and for all!’

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