Page 25 of Ciao, Amore

“I’ll try to control myself,” he murmured.

When Nico slid his arms around her from behind, she leaned into him, resting against his solid warmth with contentment. For a time, they watched people and cars driving below on the road by the sea, but she was good right where she was, with him.

Nico’s arms tightened around her, his temple pressed against hers. His bristly jaw tickled her cheek, and she grinned, turning to humor, anything to distract from the sudden rush of emotion. It must be the exhaustion of the day’s events finally catching up to her. It couldn’t be because he was holding her like this, because the past two days with him had been a revelation that excitement, and insane lust, and tenderness, and sheer fun could all be wrapped up in the form of this one person she still hardly knew.

“Your face is scratchy,” she said. She hoped like hell Nico couldn’t hear the catch in her voice.

“I’m glad yours isn’t.” Nico’s chuckle vibrated through her back. “So far, so good with the fam. But before I take you to Nonno, I should tell you something. I’ve been waiting for a good time, but there didn’t seem to be one.”

“Tell me what?”

His deep inhale and exhale, his revving heartbeat pounding against her back, all made her own chest flutter. The thudding of her pulse wasn’t so much about tenderness anymore but anxiety as she waited for his next words.

“About my family. What we really do. Why my presence was required this year in particular.”

Fuck. The cameras. The muscled goons in suits. What the hell had she gotten herself into?

“Let me take you inside,” Nico said after another moment of hesitation.

They went back in and went down one of the hallways, passing a series of paintings of ladies and gentlemen from past eras along the way.

“The D’Alessio family, I presume. I freaking love their clothes,” Dani said, admiring them.

She was still waiting for the punchline to Nico’s cryptic statement on the terrace, but she’d let him take his time. The largest painting at the end of the hallway stretched wide and tall in a gilt frame. There was a tufted maroon bench placed in front of the life-sized portrait. Nico stopped at the bench, gazing up at the man and woman immortalized on the canvas.

The couple was dressed in Victorian finery and surrounded by gorgeous flowers with the Bay of Naples behind them. The portrait had been painted on the very terrace where he’d been holding her, a quiet moment she now wished could have lasted an endless number of days.

“Well. That right there are Fernando and Patrizia D’Alessio. My great-great-great-grandparents, the Duke and Duchessa of Parma. And this villa belongs to my grandparents. And, someday, to me.”

BRUCE WAYNE

NICO

“Is this a joke?”

Dani looked from Nico to the portrait, then back again. She looked at Fernando’s blue eyes in his heavy-set face and then she saw the resemblance. It was the image of what Nico might look like when he was older if he grew out his beard.

“Come on. This has to be a joke,” she insisted, nonetheless.

But when he didn’t laugh or tease as he usually would, her smile faded. And of course it would. He’d just admitted he’d been lying to her for over a month. For the entire time they’d known each other. Her face shuttered. He could no longer tell what she was thinking, and that set him on edge.

“Dani,” Nico said, a knot forming right below his ribcage. “Maybe we should go upstairs and talk about this.”

“Your dad said your grandfather wanted to see you. I should probably say hello since I’m a guest in his house.”

He took his time answering, that knot in his body tightening. “Alright. His office is this way.”

They turned to go back down the hall when a voice hailed him.

“Nicodemo.Sei arrivato.”

Together, they turned to face the white-haired man who beamed at them.

“Ciao, Nonno.”

Nonno came forward to gently grasp Dani’s hands and pull her in for a kiss on each cheek. There was genuine happiness to meet her in his grandfather’s clear blue eyes and in the lines and grooves of his tanned face. In it, there was also the kindness Dani had said she’d seen in Nico’s own features. He had to wonder exactly what she thought of him now.

“Welcome to our home,” Nonno said in English.

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