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“I’m not sure if I mentioned it, but that’s how I met Bianca. Her mother worked for his parents. She spent a heap of time with the family, became friends with Rocco, then best friends. They were inseparable. Until I came along, and we were suddenly an item. He was so angry with me, at first.”
“Why?”
“Because he loved her like a sister and he thought I’d broken some kind of code. And because he was worried I’d hurt her. That I’d do the wrong thing by her in some way.”
“But you didn’t,” she said simply.
“Yes, I did.”
Her eyes widened.
“Not while she was alive, but after she died, every day since then, I have chosen to live my life in some kind of stasis out of grief, but you were right. And he was right. That’s not how I honour Bianca, or Livvie. That’s not the kind of tribute she’d want from me. She’d want me to be happy, and she’d want me to be happy with someone like you. God, she’d have loved you, Georgia.”
A tear rolled down Georgia’s cheek. Dante reached across and wiped it away, gently.
“You said you thought fate had brought us together. I think it’s more than fate. I think it’s them.”
“Them?” She whispered, eyes scanning his. “Bianca. Livvie. Your mum and dad.” Georgia sobbed. “I think the people who loved us most are up there, and that they got sick and tired of us being alone. I think they made damned sure a storm rolled over Como, that you lost your scarf high in a tree, that you rolled your ankle, that power lines came down and blocked the road. And yes, that you fell pregnant. It’s more than fate. It’s how it’s meant to happen for us, cara. I get that now.”
She sobbed again, then dropped her face into her hands, unable to stop sobbing.
“I love you. I think I started to love you that night, in Como. I sure as hell knew I was at risk of loving you—I couldn’t get you out of the house fast enough. But I know now that I’d fallen in love with you even when you told me you were pregnant.”
She gasped. “I don’t believe it.”
“Come on, Georgia. I wasn’t taking any risks of letting you go. I needed you with me, in my house, close to me.”
“Physically sure, but you kept me at a distance emotionally.”
“I was so scared of what you might mean to me,” he admitted. “And when you told me you were leaving, I was glad. I felt as though I’d dodged a bullet. You were going, I’d been strong, I’d resisted you. But I hadn’t. I loved you, and I let you go, and I have been in agony ever since. Georgia, my darling, you mean so much more to me than I can ever explain.”
Her chest hurt.
He came around to the side of the table and crouched down, needing to be closer. “Dinner here was a terrible idea,” he muttered, shaking his head, as if just realizing that they were in a crowded trattoria.
“I needed it to be here,” she whispered, through the gaps formed by her fingers. “I needed bright lights and lots of people and noise to help balance out anything you might say. I thought that if the setting was like this, you wouldn’t be able to get under my skin, that I might be able to think.”
“I want you to think,” he said quietly. “I want you to take time, to decide what you want and need, and I will give it to you.”
She nodded slowly, eyes latched to his. She was on the edge of a precipice, the future right there, if she was brave enough to take one more step into the abyss. To risk being hurt again. Except, there was no risk. As she looked at Dante, and really saw him, and understood him, she knew that the torment of his past was exactly that: in his past. He’d accepted the loss and his grief and allowed those parts to fall deeper inside of him, leaving room for the possibility of a happy future, for the possibility of joy.
“I want pasta,” she said, answering the question he’d asked much, much earlier.
He frowned, not understanding, and then his eyes widened a little.
“But tomorrow night, I might try the chicken. We’ll see.”
It was an agreement to date, to have dinner with him, but they both knew it was so, so much more. Dante pushed up onto his knees and uncaring about the restaurant they were in, and the fact they were surrounded by diners, he kissed her with all the love in his heart.
Five nights later, over their fifth shared dinner date, he began to speak to her about them.
Not in a way that made her jealous. How could she be? By then, she was so, so secure in his love, in the blessing that was their happiness, she felt only sympathy for the woman whose life had been extinguished far too soon, and the little girl she just knew she would have loved. In fact, she knew she would have loved both of them.
It was a complicated, strange thing, but from the very beginning, Georgia had understood that the only way to truly love Dante was to open her heart to Bianca and Livvie too. They were such a huge part of him, they were in everything he was, said, did, they were a part of his fears and his hopes, which made them a part of Georgia too, and she loved that. She loved knowing that the little boy growing inside of her had a big sister he would learn all about, and an angel mummy in the sky who would help guide and shape him.
Georgia, forever an optimist, who viewed life through a veil of love and positivity, couldn’t see any alternative but to love Dante’s family—even those who were no longer here—with all her heart.
She particularly loved Portia, and Rocco, for the part they’d played in showing Dante the error of his ways. Rocco spoke to her of Bianca too, and one evening, he confided in Georgia how much Bianca would have liked her. Georgia had felt warm to the tips of her toes. She loved them all, even before she really told Dante that not only did she love him, she was ready to live with him again, this time, secure in his love.
