Page 47 of Ciao, Amore

Hope that he would finally have everything he truly wanted, that he could have the kind of happiness he’d dreamed of.

But then, with a sad smile, she looked from him to Steffi and turned back to the inscriptions and the artwork. Nico’s newly awakened heart tumbled and raged against its cage of bone. He was the only one who knew something fundamental and important had happened to him in that cathedral. For Dani, maybe nothing had changed. This was all still a scripted reality dating show, and someone else would get the rose at the end.

“I’m tired,” Nonno announced once they were back outside, still in a huge crowd. “I want to go have some lunch at Giuseppe’s before we go back to the villa. Rosi, are you ready to leave?” he asked Nonni.

“Si,andiamo,” she replied, glancing at Steffi with a reassuring smile.

Lina was holding Nonni’s arm and looking between him, Dani, and Steffi with narrowed eyes. She hadn’t had much to say to either woman that morning. Steffi saw her irritated glances and smirked, throwing an arm around him and Dani both.

“I don’t want to sit around eating. Boring,” Steffi announced. “The boys are still hungover, and they want to go sleep under a cabana for the rest of the day. Boring. The girls are going to Capri to go shopping.Veryboring. We can show Dani around Napoli and then get ready for the club tonight. Sound like a plan?” She looked between them hopefully. Her ponytail bobbed high on her head and hit him in the face.

With annoyance, he pushed her hair out of his eye. He wanted to get Dani alone, to have a real talk with her about what the future was going to entail and see if they could figure out the logistics together. “I don’t know, Steff. Maybe me and Dani should—”

“No, that does sound good,” Dani interjected. “It’ll be fun.”

Dubious, Nico searched her face, but she was grinning. She and Steffi seemed to be determined to hang out, whether he liked it or not. So be it. They could talk later.

After a day of partaking in the festivities around the city, including snacking at several vendor stalls and getting salt thrown on them after Steffi bought an amulet, they went back to the villa for dinner with the family. The meal was followed by a round of bocce outside with the kids, followed by more playtime with the babies before their bedtime. By then, all Nico wanted was an adults-only night with Dani, alone. They still hadn’t had a chance to talk.

“Are you sure you’re not too tired to go out? We can hang here, watch a movie. Just me and you,” Nico offered while she stood at the armoire getting her accessories and shoes lined up under the coordinating outfit. It looked like a basic white top and a black miniskirt, not all that exciting on a hanger.

“Me, you, them kids,” Dani said, then scoffed a short laugh. “They’re super cute, and I seriously am going to kidnap them all, but there aren’t a whole lot of appropriate shows to watch with them crawling on you, Uncle Nico.”

“Yeah, Uncle Nico lets them control the remote a little too much.” He paused, sliding her a glance. “Angelo says he has to split watching one movie over two nights. They give up a lot of things, but he loves being a dad.”

Dani was absorbed in transferring the contents of one purse to another. Something in there must have been really fascinating because she still wouldn’t look at him.

“Dani…earlier today, when Nonno asked you to promise you’d bring our kids to the festival every year, why did you say, ‘Nico will do it’? Like it didn’t include you.”

A nearly imperceptible tremor ran through her at the question. He’d have missed it if he wasn’t hyper-focused on her every movement. She was still turned the other way. “What was I supposed to say? I’m not here to break his heart and tell him his grandson has sworn off marriage and a family. That’s a conversation you should be having with him. I feel bad enough as it is lying about everything else when it comes to me and you.”

“But…what if it wasn’t all a lie? I wanted kids. You wanted kids. That’s what your whole Year Zero plan was about, wasn’t it? Having a family? Maybe it wouldn’t be impossible—if you still wanted it. You could stop taking those pills. We could make it happen. You could do worse than me as your baby daddy.”

Dammit. He still couldn’t help but make everything sound like a goddamned joke.

Her head swiveled like an owl, with eyes just as wide. “Are you for real? You want me to be your fake baby mama on top of your fake girlfriend? Yo. Where are we going next, all expenses paid to Dubai?” She spluttered laughter.

“Well, the baby would be real, not made of plastic,” he said, his hands deep in his pockets so she wouldn’t see them shaking.

Great, another joke.

“Okay, stop. That’s not funny, Nico.”

“And maybe I’m not joking. Maybe this is the way for us both to get what we’ve always wanted.”

“I never wanted to be a single mom. Now I’m supposed to sign up for that job so you can pass on the D’Alessio lineage like Nonno doesn’t already have fifty great grandbabies running around this house?” Her laugh was sharp, her movements now agitated, and he frowned.

“That’s not what I meant. You wouldn’t be a single mother. I’d take care of you both. We’d be a couple.”

“A couple of what?” she asked with a curled lip, and his frown deepened.

“Who’s got jokes now, Daniela?”

Bang. Bang.Tommy flung open the door without asking for permission and waltzed in, obviously tipsy and unsteady on his feet, oblivious to the tension in the atmosphere.

“We’re leaving in ten minutes. They sent me to come get ya.” He cocked gun fingers at them.

“Are you fucking kidding?” Nico turned on him, a great target for venting his mounting frustration at the way the conversation with Dani was going on. “Knocking on a closed door and not getting a response meansdon’tcome in. What’s the matter with you?”

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