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She glanced up at him, her cheeks flushed. She was hating this, and for some reason, that really bothered Dante. It wasn’t until he followed that thought through that he realized he’d been holding out hope that she’d like his family. Why? Why did it matter? Because he wanted her to come to Italy with him?
That made sense. They were going to have a child together. Of course he wanted her to be a part of his family. Everything would be easier if that were the case.
He guided her away from the crowd, towards a seat at the table, but the crowd followed after her, as a swarm of bees might their Queen.
“How have you been feeling?” Maria asked, pouring Georgia a glass of lemon water.
She sipped it gratefully. “Other than constantly hungry, I’ve been fine.”
“Hungry is good. We like hungry,” Marco’s father Gianni responded. “We have all the food.”
“Not pizza,” Sofia, their parents’ goddaughter, more like a sister than anything else, groaned, pressing her hands together in a gesture of silent prayer.
Gianni stared at her with mock offence. “Are you telling me you don’t like my pizza?” He demanded, eyeing Sofia first then looking across the table.
“No,” everyone cried in unison, which made Gianni laugh until his eyes were crinkled at the corners and his voice was hoarse.
“It’s not pizza,” he said, when he could speak again. “Not for today. Today is special.” His eyes returned to Georgia. “Today we are welcoming someone to the family.” He braced his hands on the back of the chair. “I know it is not about the two of you,” Gianni said, looking from Dante to Georgia. “I understand, these things happen. But you are both nice and reasonable, and you are having a baby together. This makes us family, and we couldn’t be happier. Georgia, you will always be welcome here. Please come often.”
Dante turned to look at Georgia, surprised to see tears sparkling on her lashes. She nodded, not speaking. To her right, Portia put a hand on Georgia’s and squeezed it, and he felt a rush of gratitude and affection for his assistant and sister in law.
The ‘special’ meal Gianni had organized was a whole suckling pig cooked for hours on a on a spit, with all of the sides—roasted vegetables, bread, salads and wine for all but Georgia, and Dante, who didn’t feel like dulling his senses, even a little.
He’d wanted Georgia to like his family. He’d wanted her to feel settled and accepted. But the longer lunch went on and the more his family seemed to lovingly throw open their arms to her, the more profoundly he missed Bianca. Once upon a time, she’d sat beside him at these lunches, a hand casually on his knee, or pressing her body to his when she grew tired. She’d been the one to make his mother laugh, to offer to carry plates inside, to sit cross-legged and chat to Gianni for hours about the restaurants they wanted to try, because they both loved food.
Everyone was acting now as though Bianca had never existed. It was like she’d been a phantom, a construct of Dante’s imagination. No one seemed to remember that he’d been married, had loved and lost, that he’d had a child before. It was all about Georgia, and the son they were expecting. And on one level, he was relieved that things were going so well, on another, he felt a rush of despair so profound it almost felled him.
Gianni had taken up his place at the piano and was beginning to sing his favourite war time tunes when Dante started to feel it was beyond him.
He wanted to leave.
To be away from everyone—even Georgia. Especially Georgia?
Georgia was complicated.
Georgia made things difficult.
One minute he thought they could make this work, the next he wanted to contact his lawyer and have a straightforward custody agreement drawn up, freeing him of the need to have her in his life at all.
He knew it was akin to running away, but he didn’t care.
In that moment, he wanted Bianca with a yearning that he almost couldn’t live with.
He scraped back his chair abruptly, barely glancing at Georgia. “I’ll be back in a moment. Excuse me.” He strode from his family without a backwards glance.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
GEORGIA STIFLED A YAWN as Gianni began to play his fifth song. It wasn’t late, but she found she tired easily at the moment. Growing a person was, it turned out, exhausting.
“Are you okay, cara?” Marcia, Raf’s girlfriend, asked, reached for her glass of wine and then lighting a cigarette.
Georgia subtly moved her seat backwards a little. “Fine. Just tired,” she said, glancing around with the hint of a frown, wondering—not for the first time—where Dante was.
“How are you coping with Dante?” Marcia asked.
Georgia shrugged. “Coping?”
“He’s not easy to be around.”
