Page 68 of The Fall Affair

“No problem, bellissima. I’m here as long as you need me.”

***

“I should move here,” Allegra said.

She and I were sitting on the balcony at my cousin’s apartment later that night, watching the sunset. I knew it was the alcohol talking. This was her third glass of wine since we’d gotten home, and she’d had a very stiff martini at the restaurant with lunch. Still, I went along for the ride, feeling like she had more emotions to let out. “You think you’d be happy living in Italy?”

“I didn’t even know,” she said, swirling her wine around and staring at it, “until I got here that I wasn’t happy. I thought my work made me happy, but I think maybe it just kept me occupied so I didn’t have time to realize I was miserable.” She went quiet for a while, staring out at the sea. Eventually she lifted her eyes to me. “Are you happy, Matteo?”

I leaned back in my chair and filled my lungs with fresh air, buying some time. “Most days,” I said. “I have work that I enjoy, people who count on me, friends I should probably make more time for but who I know would be there if I needed them, a family that shows up, and my health.”

“God…” Allegra laughed, but there was no joy in it. “I don’t have any of that except my health—and Cassie. She’s a good friend even if our relationship started with her having to be nice to me because I was her boss.”

“It’s not the quantity of things that makes you happy in life. It’s the quality. And there’s happiness in little things, too—good coffee in da morning, making your grandmother’s ricotta-and-spinach pie, Lupo howling when I get home, having a hundred and six wool caps for when it gets cold out.”

Allegra smiled sadly. “I didn’t have time for the little things back in New York. I was too busy trying to climb to the top because that’s where I thought I was supposed to be.”

“You seem to have found small things here, yes? I’ve seen you sitting on your grandmother’s swing at night. I didn’t break out the binoculars, but you looked pretty happy from a distance.”

She nodded. “I do feel happier here in Italy. At least more than I have been in a long time—minus the surprise sister who’s put a damper on things.”

I winked. “Maybe it has something to do with the company you’ve been keeping.”

She smiled—a real smile, the first I’d seen since before her appointment today, and I liked being the one to put it on her face. “I think it might.”

Allegra finished her wine and asked if there was any more.

“You sure you want another? There’s a fine line between feeling good and your head hanging over the porcelain.”

She gave a soft, tired laugh. “When I mentioned my surprise sister just now, I realized for the first time…I kind of liked her. She’s smart and direct and didn’t sugarcoat things. But she also came and sat next to me, and there was this…warmth about her. Realizing that stirs up a lot inside me. Turmoil, mostly. So for tonight, I don’t want to think about any of it.”

I nodded and took her glass inside for a refill.

Still, I knew drinking had a tipping point, and halfway through the glass I’d poured, Allegra wound up on the drunk side of the seesaw.

“We should go—” She hiccuped. “—skinny dipping.”

While swimming in the ocean naked with her sounded like the best idea I’d heard in a long damn time, I wanted to be the kind of man she could trust. I wasn’t going to let her strip down in her current state. “Maybe another night.”

She pouted, and my eyes betrayed my thoughts, slipping down to study the soft bow of her lips. The urge to close the distance was strong, but not this way. When I kissed her, I wanted her sober and needy. I wanted her to remember every moment so she could yearn for it to happen again.

Allegra slid out of her chair and took the three steps separating us. She looped her arms around my neck and parked her ass on my lap, causing my resistance to wobble.

“This is how we were earlier today, in the car.” She leaned close, her breath hot against my ear. “I liked it.”

I like it, too. Liked it more than I’d let myself admit. But I wanted to be good, and her sitting this close to my dick had me seeing an imaginary devil on my shoulder. I looked to my right, where he was berating me.

“Stop being a hump.” He slammed his pitchfork to the ground. “She wants you.”

I laughed, low and uncomfortable, and shifted so my hands were at her waist and no longer on the curve of her ass. Allegra countered my backstep by scraping her nails along my neck. My eyes closed. It felt so damn good. I wanted her to dig her claws into my back, pierce the skin if the mood struck.

“Kiss me, Matteo.” Allegra’s mouth was so close to mine, I felt the vibration of her words as her lips moved.

“I want to. So fucking badly.” I pulled back and shook my head. “But not tonight. Not like this.”

“Please?”

I hated saying no. And not just because I wanted to kiss her until her mouth was bruised, but because I wanted to give this woman everything and anything she wanted. I never wanted to deny her. But I had to.